• Hardware toolbox 16/08/2024
    At the moment a universal hardware toolbox is developed with all sorts of I/O, based on a MEGA2560 controller. The principles of the toolbox are partial based on industrial standards, like I/O based on 4-20mA for the AI en AO. It has the following connections/options: Powersupply 230Vac, 2P with earth USB female socket for the Arduino IDE/Visual ...
  • Waterchange and AFSM…? 28/07/2024
    AFSM states for the automatic water change.The AFSM standard is very usefull for making this semi automatic water change. The software is available in the download section of the site. There are many discussions about waterchanges for saltwater aquaria. Some people never change water (they only fill up the evaporated water) and some do a (partial) ...
  • SQL server 09/06/2024
    Since the installation of Visual Studio 2019 the interface to msAccess was not working anymore. The Access database drivers are 32Bit and Visual Studio 2019 supports only the 64Bit version. With some little changes in the HMI code, the datalogging is now working with an SQL server database. I had to install SQL server Express ...
  • PUMP Change may 24, 2024 24/05/2024
    In the figure below an example of the standard plotter function in the AFSM. After a certain amount of time the flow of the supply pump of the fishtank is descreasing to a level where it has to be cleaned or exchanged. On the left side of the plotter form (orange pen) the old value ...
  • New AFSM functions 28/04/2024
    Announcement: For prediction of process durations (like filling a tank or heating a tank), there will be 2 new functions available soon in the standard. The new functions are returning the predicted completion time, by giving the start value, end value and current process value. See also TriggerExpectedEndTime and ExpectedEndTime for more information.
  • Conversion complete 06/04/2024
    The conversion of all articles from Joomla to Wordpress is done. That is; it is acceptable for me. Still some articles have to be update with some pictures, but all relevant articles are there. It is possible to download files (you have to register first). To prevent a lot of bot activities, Captcha is active ...
  • WordPress 03/03/2024
    March 2024 the AFSM content is converted to WordPress. The old Joomla site will be deleted when all articles are converted to the new domain.
  • Embedded systems 02/03/2024
    Reading on the internet about embedded systems, the arduino boards are popular because of the easy way of programming. The embedded software engineers are not enthusiastic about the use of Arduino boards, stronger; some of them are just negative about the Arduino boards. Yes, an Arduino board can be programmed without any knowledge of registers, irq’s ...
  • Internet Of Things 02/03/2024
    Internet of Things I found the populair ESP8266/ESP-07 WiFi shield. The WiFi shield is communicating via TX/RX hardware serial with the MEGA board. I programmed the ESP-07 module to read data from the board and send it to the internet by Wifi and vice versa. The software for the IoT communication is all on the ESP-07 board. The Mega ...
  • Millis() roll over 27/02/2024
    From the start to 47,9 days the value of millis() rollover will occur and millis() starts with zero again. Every mS the value of millis() is increased by one. It is an unsigned long (32bits). With the use of timers you have to code in the right way. Initially i have coded it in the ...
  • pH and TDS measurements interference 27/02/2024
    I need to measure both pH and the TDS in just one system for my salt water fish tank. But it is a known problem that the pH interface and the TDS interface interference when they are measuring in the same (water)tank without some extra adjustments in the circuits. The solution is to isolate the interfaces ...
  • News 27/02/2024