Willie Grant, Rubicel Trejo, Prince Muhumure

Published April 19, 2019

MEGR-3171 Grease Fire Extinguishing Sprinkler System

Forgot the stove on again? Don't worry! This system stops grease fires in their tracks. By: Willie Grant, Rubicel Villeda, Prince Muhumur

IntermediateFull instructions provided3 hours699

MEGR-3171 Grease Fire Extinguishing Sprinkler System

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Particle Photon

DC motor (generic)

Geared DC Motor, 12 V

Darlington High Power Transistor

1N4007 – High Voltage, High Current Rated Diode

LED (generic)

Resistor 47.5k ohm

Resistor 330 ohm

Resistor 2.21k ohm

Jumper wires (generic)

Breadboard (generic)

Software apps and online services

Particle Build Web IDE

IFTTT Maker service

Google Sheets

Story

Story:

Our project was created to put out dangerous Grease fires. Grease fires are the number one cause for house fires and could quickly burn down an entire home if not properly put out immediately. However, grease fires are special! They come when you least expect it and grease fires get much worse if you try to use water to put them out. A solution would be to grab a fire extinguisher, but many people don’t keep one in their homes and it can't extinguish a fire while your away from home. It’s time to make a change and keep your peace of mind.

Setup:

The setup we have includes 3 particle photons. The 1st photon is the manual remote that can turn the system on. The 2nd photon uses a thermistor to act as an automatic electrical switch. If the temperature gets to hot, it will suspect a fire and automatically turn on. The 3rd photon will be used as a notifier that will turn on an LED showing that the sprinkler system has been activated. The code for the 2nd photon referenced a tutorial code on Hackster which we added to and altered variables and functions to make it more suitable for this application.

System Full Operation

Sprinkler System:

The sprinkler is made of multiple parts found at the local home improvement store which includes:

Sprinkler Components

First, fire extinguishing powder will be loaded inside of the loading cap and screwed on tight. The impeller will also be screwed onto the housing and into position. The motor will activate if it is told to by the remote control or the thermistor that a fire is present. The motor will begin to spin off the impeller from the housing and gravity will make the impeller fall along the shaft to the cotter pin. The set screw attached to the impeller will then catch the cotter pin as its rotating allowing for the powder to fall and spread by centrifugal force. A bracket is intended to hold the system in place as it operates.

Applet Used for Data

System Functioning

Code

int led = D0;
int button = D2;
unsigned long interval = 0;
int howlong = 10000;
int temperature_ifttt;
String ledState = "off";

void setup() {
    Serial.begin(9600);
    pinMode(button, INPUT_PULLUP);
    pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
    digitalWrite(led, LOW);
}

void loop() {
    if( (millis() - interval > howlong) or (interval==0) ) {
        interval = millis();
    }
    int buttonState = digitalRead(button);
    if(buttonState == LOW) {
        if(ledState == "off") {
            ledState = "on";
            digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
            Particle.publish("photonchat", "Hey, Hows the photon life");
        }
        else {
            ledState = "off";
            digitalWrite(led, LOW);
        }
    }
    delay(200);
}

// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.
#include <ThingSpeak.h>
#include <math.h>
#include "application.h"

#define THERMISTORNOMINAL 3000
#define TEMPERATURENOMINAL 21.11
#define NUMSAMPLES 5
#define BCOEFFICIENT 3950
#define SERIESRESISTOR 10000
#define READ_INTERVAL 5000 
#define publish_delay 16000
 
bool COLDROOM= false;
bool HOTROOM = false;
bool useFahrenheit = true;

unsigned int lastPublish = 0;
unsigned long interval = 0;
int samples[NUMSAMPLES];
int THERMISTOR = A0;
int motor = D0;
int _version = 1;
char temperature_str[64]; 
char temperature_ifttt[64];

void setup() {
    
    pinMode(motor, OUTPUT);
    digitalWrite(motor, LOW);
    Particle.subscribe("photonchat", anything, "300038000647373034353237");
    
    interval = 0;
    Particle.function("status", status);
    pinMode(THERMISTOR, INPUT);
    
    Particle.variable("tmp", temperature_str, STRING);
}

void anything(const char *event, const char *data){
    digitalWrite(motor, HIGH);

}
void loop(){
    if( (millis() - interval >= READ_INTERVAL) or (interval==0) ) {
        temp();
        interval = millis();
    }
}

int status(String args)
{
 
 Particle.publish("temp", temperature_ifttt, 60, PUBLIC);
 return 0;
}

int temp()
{
    uint8_t i;
    float average;
    for (i=0; i< NUMSAMPLES; i++) {
        samples[i] = analogRead(THERMISTOR);
        delay(10);
    }
    average = 0;
    for (i=0; i< NUMSAMPLES; i++) {
        average += samples[i];
    }
    average /= NUMSAMPLES;
    average = (4095 / average)  - 1;
    average = SERIESRESISTOR / average;


    float steinhart;
    steinhart = average / THERMISTORNOMINAL;     
    steinhart = log(steinhart);                  
    steinhart /= BCOEFFICIENT;                   
    steinhart += 1.0 / (TEMPERATURENOMINAL + 273.15);
    steinhart = 1.0 / steinhart;                 
    steinhart -= 273.15;                         
    
    
 if (useFahrenheit) {
    steinhart = (steinhart * 9.0)/ 5.0 + 32.0;
  }
    char ascii[32];
    int steinhart1 = (steinhart - (int)steinhart) * 100;
    steinhart1 = abs(steinhart1);
    sprintf(ascii,"%0d.%d", (int)steinhart, steinhart1);
    Particle.publish("Room_Temperature", ascii, 60, PRIVATE);
    char tempInChar[32];
    sprintf(tempInChar,"%0d.%d", (int)steinhart, steinhart1);
    sprintf(temperature_str, "{\"t\":%s}", tempInChar);
    sprintf(temperature_ifttt, "%s", tempInChar);
    
    
     if( steinhart > 90){
       Particle.publish("HOTROOM", "True");
       digitalWrite(motor, HIGH);
       Particle.publish("photonlife", "Hey, Hows the photon life");
   } else {
      Particle.publish("COLDROOM", "True");
      digitalWrite(motor,LOW);
      
}
    return 0;
}

MEGR-3171 Grease Fire Extinguishing Sprinkler System