i need a design for a rice planter sensor

[kelseybruton]

Our final project is to build a sensor for a rice planter. It is to set off an alarm when the rice is clogging the planter. I would appreciate any ideas on a scematic diagram anyone might have.

thanks,

kelsey

 

[williB]

What is meant by the rice clogging the planter..?
a picture might help..

 

[Optikon]

Our final project is to build a sensor for a rice planter. It is to set off an alarm when the rice is clogging the planter. I would appreciate any ideas on a scematic diagram anyone might have.

thanks,

kelsey

Lack of information. Please describe how clogging is accomplished.

But consider what is used in industry to detect presence of an object. Photo beam & photo detector. The idea is a beam of light is transmitted across some barrier or channel. This beam is incident to a photodetector which outputs some logic signal when the beam is present. If some obstruction blocks the beam (like a clog of rice lets say) the detector no longer sees the beam and its output logic level is changed. In this way, one can detect an object or lack thereof. If the beam is broken during normal use, it can be handled with a timer function, i.e. if the beam stays blocked for the amount of time X, then it is clogged...

something along these lines might help.

 

[stevez]

The following presumes the rice is in the form of a grain/seed - not a plant.

With a photocell you would expect to see some noise or on/off resulting from the grains passing by. With some experimentation you might actually be able to derive some sense of the rate of flow - along with the indication that there is flow (changing signal) or not flow (no change).

Sound or ultrasound might also work. For the sake of recognition from other noises a transducer could emit a pulse that might be reflected or passed thru a tube, chamber, etc. A receiver (or the transducer in 'listen' mode) would hear the return. One would expect returns to change as material was in the way or not.

I grew up on a small farm. On one planter that I had to observe was such that I could hear the grain passing thru this relatively light weight metal tube. One might characterise similar 'unclogged' sounds and 'clogged' sounds. Those sounds would have to be sorted from the rest of the noise. On farm equipment the sound of it used to tell much of the story of how it was operating, whether it was full or empty, etc.

 

[kelseybruton]

thanks for the comments

what i mean by clogging..... the rice getting stuck in the planter and allowing no rice to flow out onto the ground. i want to thank everyone for their comments but what i was really needing help on was the schematic diagram for the circuit. i am open for any suggestions.

thanks,

kelsey

 

[aibelectronics]

reply

well...i'm not quite sure you'll just see someone post you a RICE-SENSOR schematic, you'll have to look for the schematic from its operational description not by its name

i also concur that a pix wouldn't be amiss, and we'll need more description than rice clogging to the planter. seems you'll need a form of sensor or something...

 

[stevez]

The schematic is quite dependent on how your planter works, how you might sense what you need to sense, etc. It is certainly possible that someone here has already solved that problem on a planter that is like yours but I'd think it unlikely. We offer what we can - if only some ideas or guidance to help you move along.