Pressure Sensor Usability

JRCL

Hello all,

I was wondering where I can find more documentation on using pressure sensors with Duet Controllers. Most of what I have found is related to pressure sensors in nozzles for auto bed leveling. However, I plan to put a pressure sensor inside of a pressure vessel and wanted to make some g-code macros using pressure sensor readings, i.e. if pressure is X psi do Y.

Hopefully, this is supported in the first place, if not are there any more involved workarounds like converting the signal into something the board or firmware support?

deckingman

@jrcl Can you be a bit more specific on what it is you want to do and what sort of pressure levels you are looking at. There comes a point where periferal devices and actions become so far divorced from the primary purpose of the printer hardware and firmware, that a separate SBC or other module becomes a more appropriate choice. For example, I'm working on a system to monitor and reduce the humidity inside the "booth" which houses my printer. For that I use a BME280 pressure/temperature/ humidity sensor and a system of fans blowing air over Calcium Chloride. The pressure reading is used to calculate absolute humidity from the "native" relative humidity. The fans run when the absolute humidity is above a predetermined value. There is also a reed switch on the doors which turns the fans off when the doors are open. There is also an LCD display to show the status of the sensors and fans.
It was just a whole lot easier to use an ESP 32 module than to try and do all that using the Duet board. Having made that choice, it soon became obvious that I could easily expand the functionality and calculate the minimum and maximum values as well as plot longer term statistics and produce graphs for 24hrs and 30 days.
It wouldn't be too difficult to couple one or more of the GPIO pins of the ESP to the Duet board and use triggers to run macros

JRCL

@deckingman Thank you! This is the sort of advice I was looking for. Outside of Arduino and Duet I'm not very knowledgeable on different controllers and how to use them together.

To be specific I want to take the pressure reading of a vessel so I can raise, lower, and release said pressure via a controlled valve connected to an airline. The valve is just open and close so easy to use with GPIO pins, but need the reading to drive it of course.