18650 Conditioner unit.

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Mike-AU
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:03 am

Wed Mar 13, 2019 2:53 am

Hi guys A quick personal intro and then a intro into my new project.
I am 64 years old, live in Brisbane and am a avid tinkerer for all my life. Master Mechanic by trade and some Engineering background aswell.
I have a limited grasp of C++ I can program in basic and have zero knowledge of Arduino code. Although from what I read a lot is familier with C++.

My Project.
Two months ago I decided I was going to build myself a PowerWall using 18650 cells. There are a lot of people out there who have done or are doing this aswell.
One of the main issues with using recovered 18650 Lithium cells is that your off the shelf chargers are both too small, and very inadequate to work with recovered cells. Therefore it is common and necessary to build your own to suit your needs.

I am planning to build a 26 slot/bay cell conditioning unit. 20 slots are charge /discharge slots with monitoring, and the additional 6 bays are for cells that need extra attention to either be recovered correctly or classed as DOD and disposed of.
The 20 bay section is going to be controlled and monitored by a new Arduino Mega and assorted hardware, and the 6 bay special section will get its own Mega as well.
So far I have run in to very few problems I cannot resolve. Except for one, and it is a project killer.

Arduinos must have the worst serial GUI ever. That brings me to this MegunoLink GUI.

Hopefully with this GUI I can overcome the greatest hurdle of all, displaying and recording data from 26 individual cells that are being processed.
Each bay is set to supply data on the voltage, current, capacity, and finally the power of each cell. So 26 I2C data feeds. Plus PSU monitoring and 6 cell temp sensors.. 26 lines out to control relays aswell.
I think thats about it for this version as it stands.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, have I come to the right place? Have I indeed found the GUI I am looking for?

Cheers for now... Mike
philr
Posts: 446
Joined: Mon May 26, 2014 10:58 am

Wed Mar 13, 2019 5:02 am

Hi Mike, welcome. I might be a bit biased but I do believe MegunoLink should be able to do the job. Do you imagine needing graphs or mostly just a bunch of text boxes which show the vital stats for each position in the conditioner? What would you like to look at first? Maybe I can point you in a useful direction.

Cheers
Phil
Mike-AU
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:03 am

Wed Mar 13, 2019 9:22 pm

Hi Phill,

After fooling with the program into the early hours of this morning I do believe between the two of us we can actually do something amazing together.
I see massive potential for this to work.
I also see the need for a few Visualisations that currently do not exsist, but thats only because I am trying to take MegunoLink into a area it has not been before.
That is one of the ways this program will grow.

So far I have 3 other guys watching for what I come up with and if its going to do what I say and think its going to do, you guys have just got a leg in the door of the many that are doing the same as I do. We both know the Arduino IDE is a massively short of being useful in any real way.

If this is the correct place for it, I will lay out the data and commands that this unit is going to both produce and commands it will need to receive to function correctly .

Cheers for now... Mike.
Mike-AU
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:03 am

Wed Mar 13, 2019 11:20 pm

Is there a way to scroll left & right in designer widow? the tools menus take up screen space that we cant use or see.


Thanks. Mike
philr
Posts: 446
Joined: Mon May 26, 2014 10:58 am

Fri Mar 15, 2019 5:06 am

Hi Mike, you can turn on autoscroll by clicking on the background in the interface panel designer and turning on autoscroll. Then if you move things to the right it will add scroll bars.

Cheers
Phil
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Mike-AU
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:03 am

Fri Mar 15, 2019 12:48 pm

Perfect! The more I study to more I find, and the much more I love this program!!

Great work Phil, absolutely brilliant.

Mike
Mike-AU
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:03 am

Sat Mar 23, 2019 6:39 am

Next question..

Is there a virtual LED in Meguno? Like a placeable dot that I can program red or blank, and have the arduino change its colour based on what is happening while the program is running.

For example, if I trigger a relay, the virtual LED turns red while the arduino pin is pulled low, and the LED returns to green when the data pin is pulled high turning off the relay..

Cheers Mike.
philr
Posts: 446
Joined: Mon May 26, 2014 10:58 am

Tue Mar 26, 2019 6:44 am

Hi Mike, there is no dedicated object but you can achieve the result you want using picture boxes and showing or hiding each one to indicate the states you want.

This example uses this for the pause and play icons
https://www.megunolink.com/articles/ard ... nditioner/

Cheers
Phil
Mike-AU
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:03 am

Wed Apr 03, 2019 6:38 am

Thanks Phill, also paid today aswell.
Mike-AU
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2019 12:03 am

Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:28 am

Hi Philr

I am having a huge issue getting the tables to work as I need them to.

I have inputs from 20 sensors, each sensor is supplying 4 lines of information.

DT1.SendData("Bus Voltage", busvoltage,);
DT1.SendData("Shunt Voltage: ", shuntvoltage);
//DT1.SendData("Load Voltage: ", loadvoltage);
DT1.SendData("Current: ", current_mA);
DT1.SendData("Power: ", power_mW);

This information is collected in a loop , The program reads sensor 1 , outputs the information, then loops to sensor 2 and so on.
problem is , when I try to print to table all it does is over write the 4 lines because they have the same "Name" .
I have tried to add a string as a name to increment the names , but the code will not accept that option.

I really dont want to write 80 "sendata" lines of code to cover the 20x4 lies of info.

Am I missing something here to allow me to print to specific lines in a table? Apart from being locked into a fixed "name"?

Cheers for now... Mike.
Last edited by Mike-AU on Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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