Brave the Storm

[ColinE]

The Volvo stand at the 2014 Festival of Speed.

Simulated storm in a 6 x 6m room with rain, sound and lighting. The rain sequencing and switching it off where people were standing, was controlled by 73 off PIC16F506 running code compiled on Oshonsoft.
All designed, manufactured and coded in three weeks. The code was 100% reliable and the customers delighted.

Just thought I'd say thanks.

 

[ronsimpson]

cool!

Do the PICs talk to each other? There must be a network.

All this time I have been trying to keep the rain out/ not in.

 

[atferrari]

76? That seems a lot of PICs...

Could you disclose a simple block diagram? Curious about the reason for such a big number.

 

[ColinE]

There were 72 boards that individually controlled the water valves. (Two in each of 6x6 panels) Each had a PIR detector and amplifier. They were all identical, but had a bank of switches to adjust their function. Timing, sensitivity, absolute and delta levels.

The 73rd board had four RS422 output channels that were wired to blocks of valve boards and over ride the sensors to shut off the rain.
This provided 100% dry route through for VIPs and did a 'curtain effect' to part the rain in front of the screen.

A comparator input on each board was used to receive a few simple commands.