Anyone ever build a microprocessor based thermometer ?

[mikeinmiami]

Has anyone ever built a microprocessor based thermometer ? PIC based? I'm thinking probes imbedded in the CC plates, and at lease three random Hanging and of coarse a few probes for the meats? The Prop from parallex is a very powerful microprocessor and I have used it before? Thoughts????

 

[clearchris]

Yes. Look into the arduinio and the max k thermocouple chips.

If you have that many probes you are also going to want a multiplexer chip.

Id start with one probe, get the hang of it and build up from there.

 

[mikeinmiami]

Thanks clearchris. Have you seen the Prop from parallax?

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• mikeinmiami
• Sep 15, 2013

 

[clearchris]

No, but I just did an ebay search and it came up with <50 items.  A search for arduino came up with 15,000 items.

Arduino looks to be better supported at least on ebay. Propeller may be a superior  product (idk) but it will be easier for you if you use off the shelf shields, etc.

 

[mikeinmiami]

I agree Chris. Arduino with all the shields available would make more of a plug and play with minimal code. Never used one before only because of the investment I made in the Prop boards ect... I need to look at cost.

 

[clearchris]

Well if you have it already, why not use it then. However, keep in mind that you can get a new arduino for around 14$ shipped. I have bought lots of stuff in the past that ended up being really cheap to replace because of falling cost.

Anyway, you are looking at 2-10$ per thermocouple, depending on type, etc, and 3.50 (maybe 7$ i forget) for a max5565 (iirc) chip plus a multiplexer chip and boards, watertight enclosure (10$ at home depot)

That said Im not sure why you would want more than one or two thermocouples (not in meat) in the smoker. Yeah you will have hot spots, etc, but id assume thats constant over time, no need for realtime monitoring, you cant control for it. Once you know where they are, you can account for them.

My 2c.

 

[mikeinmiami]

Yeh Chris... I think this may be one of those cases where a project could run away in complications when tought to be simple. I was thinking so many probes because the Prop Chip has 8- 32 bit processors in one chip. Each Cog can easly access any of the 32 I/O pins.... You know how the mind starts to go..