rgordon
Hi All,
I have been away from this site for far too long. I am currently catching up on all the great looking projects going on! Sadly, I have not had much of any time to work on robots....but, I do still want to be involved with EZ-Robot in some form even though this is not a robot project. So if any of you are interested in helping out, I would be very grateful.
I work at a power plant in South Boston, Virginia. We have truck tippers that actually tilt the tractor trailers up at a 60 angle so that the wood chips dump out the back. (No, the truck driver doesn't stay in the truck 
).
I have been tasked with building a custom display to indicate the current wind speed on a two digit seven segment display. The catch? The display needs to be (2) feet tall so that the bulldozer operators can read the wind speed from up to 300 feet away in broad daylight! They do not want the truck tippers to be used if the wind speed is greater than 32 MPH. I will custom build the displays using L.E.D. strip from superbrightleds.com
I'm using this LED strip because of its intense brightness.
What I would like to do is utilize an EZ-B v4/2 Wi-Fi Robot Controller to measure the analog voltage from a Anemometer that I purchased from
The output from the anemometer is 0.4V (0 m/s wind) up to 2.0V (for 32.4m/s wind speed). I will need to convert this to MPH and display it on the two digit seven segment display. I will need the EZ-B outputs to turn on transistors that will drive each segment of each display so that they will form the correct digits to indicate wind speed.
So...what do you think? Can we do this? Anyone like to brainstorm on this? 
Rex
Thanks @Herr Ball,
I like it when others help with brainstorming new ideas. Gets the old brain cells moving around....
Thanks for your input. I will consider it.
Hi DJ,
I will take a look at the project you mentioned. Thanks.
Thank you and your team for the work that is put into this company. You have set the course to a future full of amazing possibilities. You are changing lives and bringing out the creative force in us all....
Rex
Rex, its great to see your posts again - sounds like a very neat project!
Tony
Hi Tony !
Yeah....can't find much time for robots but, still trying to find ways to use the EZ-B. Any chance to use this amazing device and software is priceless....This is a big stepping stone for robotics and should not be looked upon as merely a toy. It is a powerful new tool that has endless possibilities to bend technology to our will.
Good to see you are still here. Will email you soon...
Rex
OK...got a sample piece of L.E.D. strip from superbrightleds.com. Then I 3D printed one of the segments of the seven segment display. I decided on using red instead of green.
This was a test to see if it would show up well through the 3D printed diffuser cover. It seems to work great. Also used a piece of transparent #2423 Red Acrylic sheet to help make it "stand out" better and sort of disappear when off.
Discovered a problem though..... after being turned on for about 5 minutes the heat generated by the LED strip got to around 150°F. The diffuser started to melt and sag.
Anyone have any good ideas on how I'm gonna keep these cool? The two seven segment digits will need to be enclosed within a weather resistant box. Each digit will be about 2 feet tall. See the pictures below for reference.
Hi Rex,
Maybe you could cut (or design) some fins cutouts in each side of the segment enclosure. You could also place the LED strip on top of some Copper/Aluminum to disperse the heat and make the LEDs heat up slower as well due to thermal mass. Cut some fins into the Copper/Aluminum would be even better (or just use old computer/Xbox 360 heatsinks).
*Edit: This is what I mean by "fins", I guess they are more like gills