Low Cost Data Acquisition and Temperature Control using Basic Stamp Micro Processors
At the IMI-NFG we have been developing a series of low budget experiments and home built scientific instruments for students to gain hands on experience with glass and material science. In order to for the student to access some of the interesting features of real science, we believe the student needs some tools for measurement and control that go beyond using a simple DVM. In particular the ability to electronically measure and capture data such as temperature and voltages and in turn to provide feedback and control is enabling. Such skills open the student to many interesting aspects of phenomenology that would otherwise be in accessible to the student with limited resources or without access to a university laboratory. In order to address this usual constraint we have developed a measurement platform for data measurement and collection using a simple, yet powerful microprocessor, the Basic Stamp.
Some of the resources being developed for this purpose are provided below for the student and general science education community. Please pardon the unpolished approach taken here. Our goal is to get the information on the web for sharing as soon as possible and perhaps at the expense of polish.
Presentation on Temperature Logging and Control with the Basic Stamp Microcontroller
Authors: William Heffner and Jordan Davis
Sample Basic Stamp Programs:
Read_TC_Anal_simple.bpe
KTablePos.BPE
the above pair provides a thermocouple based temperature measurement feature using the DS2760 on the MOBO board combined with an analog voltage read from its on board 10 bit AtoD. This is a very flexible resource, easy to modify for your particular data collection application. This is the same program we utilize for our DTA apparatus as well as our conductivity vs temperature measurements.
A document describing how the above program works can be found at the link below:
Understanding the Read_TC_Anal_simple.bpe program.
Temp control programs - both still on stick - need to add here
ON/OFF Control Program: ONOff_Control.bs2
Proportional Control - PropControl.bs2
developed with Jordan Davis (Oakwood University, Alabama) as part of summer 2010 REU program
Parallax Inc. website:
Parallax’s DS2760 Thermocouple module with sample code:
Download their sample code for DS2760 at:
http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/src/prod/DS2760TC_Demo.zip
TempMeasurement.docx