Thursday, January 20, 2011

DAQ Factory

New plan: DAQFactory.  So I decided to ditch LabView for now.  After playing with both programs for a while I decided that DAQFactory might be a better choice to control the brewery.  The interface is very simple to use and all inputs and outputs are assigned to "channels" which are well organized and easy to call in functions. There is a lot more code writing however, but although its been a while since my one computer science class, its coming back to me pretty quickly. Most code is broken down into "sequences" which also helps keep things organized.  The user interface is easy to work with. It is built with simple components that can reference the channels and control sequences. DAQFactory also works great with LabJack which is the data acquisition device that i will be using to connect the computer to the inputs and outputs of the brewery.  I've made a lot of progress with the software in the last couple days and have built a rough draft of the brewing program. Currently all inputs and outputs are simulated signals. The code seems to be working alright and is correctly stepping through the mash process with the simulated inputs. I still have many features to add and bugs to work out and a few changes will need to be made once the actual inputs are ready but i wrote the code in a way that should make the switch pretty simple.  Here's a sneak peak screenshot of the half finished user interface.