New HeaterMeter build some issues


 

DamianB

New member
Hi.

I've purchased and put together my heatermeter. i've got the heatermeter started up and can get temperatures from the probe so we're good.

At the moemnt i'm plugging in from the USB port (into the raspberry Pi) to verify it's working and because i'm still waiting on my power adapter to arrive in teh mail. and i've had 3 issues

1. yellow/Orange LED i broke. this isn't a concern to me as long as this won't affect any functionality. i assume it won't cause any issues not having an LED soldered?

2. the LCD has no text on it. it lights up but there's no text. i've tried playing with the potentiometer and no matter what i do there's no display.

3. The fan doesn't work. Fan works with a 9v battery. tried just touching it to the fan and ground pins and it doesn't come on. I've verified in the software that it's meant to be on (it should be at 100% according to the console)

Now i'm not sure if 2 & 3 are because of running power from a USB port from a PC to the raspberry PI or if there's likely an issue with the connections somewhere.

I'm going to borrow a mates multimeter to test but does anyone have some pointers of where i should be looking?
 
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1. Yup, no problem without the LED present. You can probably find any 3mm LED to fill this spot although the current might be a little low to light it fully. The HeaterMeter one is a superbright yellow.

2. Trace the pins from the microcontroller LCK, MO, SCK pins to the riser header LCD1F to make sure they're connected. Then add on the LCD/Button board and make sure they trace through to the top. Follow those to the pins on the shift register. Finally follow the output of the shift register to the LCD pins. Also verify that your shift register is installed correctly (with the notch pointing outward). I've included some diagrams below to assist in this.

3. The fan won't power from 5V, the circuit takes the incoming 12V and steps it down to drive the fan so without 12V coming in, it does nothing.


 
Thanks for the tips. Traced half way and then realised the potentiometer wasn't soldered properly which I've fixed now. but it has another issue



I've got the below AC adapter that looks like it should work. nothing happens when i plug it in though. 9v Battery there for scale.



 
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The blocks on the LCD are normal if the ATmega hasn't gotten to the point it has flashed yet (so nothing is driving the LCD). When powered over USB, does the webui show that a HeaterMeter is connected? If so then you'll just need to trace back the lines from the LCD to the atmega as listed in #2 above. If it still shows as disconnected the problem is likely the power.

For the power, trace the 12V in from the barrel jack to the 5V regulator (the thing with 3 pins 12V, GND, 5V). Make sure you're getting 5V out there. Then from there follow it to where the 5V becomes 3.3V. And finally that you have 3.3V at the VCC and AVC pins of the microcontroller and the GND/AGN pins have continuity to GND at the barrel jack connector.
 
For the power, trace the 12V in from the barrel jack to the 5V regulator (the thing with 3 pins 12V, GND, 5V). Make sure you're getting 5V out there. Then from there follow it to where the 5V becomes 3.3V. And finally that you have 3.3V at the VCC and AVC pins of the microcontroller and the GND/AGN pins have continuity to GND at the barrel jack connector.


Thanks for your help so far. had a bad solder on the diode near the 12v coming in. that's solved the power (and have confirmed blower is working which is good). just need to work out the LCD now. and also the probe 3 is showing temps even with nothing plugged in.
 
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