Arduino Project One: (Not really a ) Progress Report

For a project with no timetable or deadline, this one is progressing nicely.

Hardware

I've collected all of the electronics I will need. Here's a picture of them:

The stack in the center includes: the Arduino (this one's an Elegoo Uno R3) on the bottom; the Sparkfun ESP9266 Wifi shield in the middle; and the Evil Mad Scientist relay shield on top. In front of the stack are two ACS712-based Hall effect sensor boards. The one on the lower left is just the sensor. The one on the lower right includes an amplifier and a couple of adjustment potentiometers.

I will need to enclose the sensor in either a block of potting compound, or a 3D-printed plastic case. It will be in a place rather exposed to the elements, and I don't need it to break down at critical moments.

I'll need to either make a 3D-printed case for the Arduino stack, or find a project box that fits it. Since it will be mounted next to the garage door opener motor, it won't need environmental protection, but it will need to be protected from vibration, and it will have to be able to connect wirelessly to my router.

I'll also need to get a power supply (a wall wart) for the Arduino stack, and about 20 feet of 4-conductor 28AWG or 24AWG wire for the Hall effect sensor.

Finally, I'll need to verify that none of the signals used on the Wifi or Relay shields overlap. I fear I may already have a collision with the software serial interface on the ESP8266 and a relay control pin.

Software

The code for the Hall effect sensor, while not exactly trivial, is stuff I already know how to do. I've been doing this sort of thing for years.

I ran through the ESP8266 tutorial, and I can set up the ESP8266/Arduino combo as a very rudimentary webserver. I've successfully communicated with it via a browser. That's all I need on that end.

I found a webpage that tells how to connect the ESP8266/Arduino combo to the Internet, including the critical step (new knowledge!) of setting up forwarding through my DSL router/Wifi access point.

I found another webpage that expands on that, using JQUERY and HTML to control a servo - or in my case,  a relay.

I've installed Corona on my computer, but I haven't played with it yet. I hope there's a tutorial in there that gives me hints on how to create an app that can communicate with the ESP9266/Arduino's webserver.

I need to find something about installing public/private keys on the Arduino to keep this tiny part of the Internet of Things from getting hacked.

That's it for now

By next time, I should have the web server running on the hardware stack, and I should have some preliminary testing completed on the sensors.

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To read the other postings about this project, click here and scroll to the end.