WiFi Enabled IOT Relay Board

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It all started when…

My father installed air bags on his truck and wanted a better way to manage the air pressure in them. Having just taken my first electronics class, I set out to build a board that could be mounted in a weatherproof box and control and monitor the air bag system. During the development for that specific application I discovered how universal this board could be.

How does it work?

Using a popular off-the-shelf micro-controller board, the ESP8266, as the heart of the platform, a circuit was designed such that the micro controller could control 4 relays and read 4 analog inputs. This allows the system to not only control things around it, but also gather data about its environment as well. While this micro-controller can be programmed using a suite of software from the manufacturer, it can also be programmed using the Arduino IDE and the convenient board definition that I created. Programming with the IDE is as simple as creating an instance of the board in your program and calling the functions on that instance.

Features:

  • On board buck converter for mobile or automotive applications (7-28V DC Input)

  • 4 channel relay control (up to 10 amps per channel)

  • 4 - 12bit analog inputs (0-3.3v) compatible with sensors (3.3v source generated on board)

  • UART breakout for communication with other peripherals or systems


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Live in action…

While this board never saw duty in its intended design case, its functionality can be applied across many applications.

My dad went with a simpler option to control his air bags, but I quickly found a use for the board in controlling the foundation watering system for my house. In Texas the soil is clay, and the clay expands and contracts with moisture. As you may know Texas weather is such that we may get monsoons one year and droughts the next, so this does not play well with the soil and thus foundations. I repurposed the board to automatically water the foundation and attempt to keep the soil moisture at a more consistent level and thus reduce the strain on the foundation. As an added benefit, I can control the system remotely via my phone by utilizing the Blynk library available for the Arduino IDE.