The Task: Raven Environmental Products, a Missouri family business—experts in the field of environmental sensors—was looking to upgrade an electronic sensor instrument. Its purpose was to measure sediment levels in water treatment tanks. A well proven design required new electronics, battery powered, reprogrammable, easy to operate, and with a digital display.
The Challenge: The client did a superb job setting the stage for the electronic redesign. A PCB had to be designed so it exactly fit the mechanical requirements, and firmware to implement the precisely specified user interaction. Also, an easy way to produce the units was required, which included a way to quickly program the embedded microcontroller.
The Project: Designed for low-power battery operation, a microcontroller was driving an OLED display that provided good daylight readability. A custom optical sensor provided by the client was interfaced through a precision analog interface. Automatic timeout and simple button-operation helped for a long battery life.
Provided with firmware source code, schematics, layouts, detailed documentation, and instructions, the client was able to further refine the product after completion. He received a Standalone AVR Programmer to quickly program microcontrollers, a project provided by EE Proto under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Learn more at the Raven Environmental homepage.