Mr. Baybus 2

After such a good response to Mr. Baybus, I decided to up the ante. I wanted temperature sensing and light control, as well as a more refined interface. I also wanted a chance to write much, much better code as Mr. Baybus was most definitely a kludge. This led to the design of Mr. Baybus 2.

Mr. Baybus had a few problems I wanted to take care of. One being price, it cost way too much compared to its utililty value, which is normal for projects like this, but still…

Mr. Baybus 2 uses a much more sophisticated microcontroller, a PIC 16F870. This is a 28-pin SDIP style chip, lots more I/O pins, an onboard UART, and even an ADC. This little guy also has twice the instruction memory, so I had more freedom to make the interface somewhat more sleek, and add more features. The benefit of more pins is CHEAPER LCD. The previous serial LCD ran about $42 shipped, which is semi-high for a serial LCD in general, but it was a CrystalFontz so at least it was high quality. Anyways, now I can move to a simple HD44780 based parallel LCD (by CrystalFontz, of course). These run around $20 shipped, and even less from other places selling generics.

Features

  • Three On/Off Fan controls
  • One 12V Light control (Neons, etc)
  • Two centrigrade temperature sensors
  • 20×2 screen (any HD44780 compatible will work)
  • Simple, menu-driven style interface
  • Stores fan status in non-volatile memory

Display Images

Splash screen

Fan status

Fan status

Fan status w/selection

Fan status w/selection

Lighting status

Lighting status

Temperatures

Temperatures

Unit Images

High view of the front

High view of the front

High view of the back

High view of the back

Back view

Back view

Underneath

Underneath

Version 2.1

A slight update to the original. I decided I wanted to re-write it in C as an exercise. While I was at it, I figured I’d add a feature or two.

Pretty basic, a complete re-write in C, Hi-Tech PICC to be exact. It’s a great compiler for the PICs and gave me opportunities to re-write the LCD, ADC and DELAY libraries in C.

New Features

  • New program-loop idea, worked well
  • Strobe mode for Light output
  • Temperatures in Celsius or Fahrenheit

Downloads

All files for Mr. Baybus 2 are available at GitHub.