The stove controller

So, once the idea was set in my mind, I started thinking about how I could make it work in the most convenient way. Definitely, I needed an electronic board and a relay to control the stove. Then, I still wanted to be able to control the stove manually, or change the temperature configuration easily. That meant I needed an interface. Moreover, the temperature sensors needs to be somewhere in the middle of the house, far from the stove itself.

The best thing was to have a small LCD screen with a touch panel. The good point is, I have a corridor which leads to the rooms, and there is some space on the wall :

As you can see on the left image, there is currently a CO sensor on the wall, but I plan to move/remove it. That leaves me a lot of space for the screen. And the very good point is that there is plenty of space behind the wall (right image) : the half-painted wall will be closed one day (to hide the toilets frame), so I can put all the electronics here without having a clean case. Moreover, I can bring the required cables there and hide them easily.

So what I need right now is an electronic board, and LCD touch screen !

For the electronic board, I first thought about an ARMadeus board, because I use them at work so I am very familiar with them. However, the processor board requires a motherboard, so the whole solution is not really cheap. Actually I could afford one, but one challenge of the project is to keep it very cheap. Finally, I decided to use a Raspberry PI. If you are even a half-geek, you probably know about it. It is a mini-PC with all the connections one need. Some months ago, I thought they were useless, but actually, they're perfect for this kind of project : very cheap (around 40€), ready to use, a decent processor and enough RAM, 2 USB ports, an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, everything required to control external electronic devices : I2C, GPIOs, 3.3V and 5V power supplys.

With the Raspberry Pi, I've got everything I need in the first place : an output for my screen, an input for the temperature sensor, an input for the touch panel, and an output to control an external relay.

So next time, I will talk about the other components !