AZ Game & Fish – Voltage Monitoring Device

Meeting Time

Monday 3:05PM

Project description

Our community partners are Kyle Tulisiak and Trevor Nelson, who both work for the Arizona Game and Fish Department and operate the Canyon Creek Hatchery. Kyle is the Eastern Regional Hatchery Supervisor for AZGFD and Trevor is the manager of the Canyon Creek Hatchery. To avoid future damages to the facility, they need a device that will monitor the voltage and the frequency of the electricity throughout the facility. This device will alert Trevor whenever the frequency or voltage crosses a certain threshold that would cause harm to the electrical components of the hatchery. The alert will allow him to manually switch the power source to the propane generator until the hydroturbine is safe for use again. The thresholds for voltage and frequency should be adjustable and the device should pose no risk of electric shock to the hatchery technicians.

The EPICS Voltage Monitoring team is developing a device that will solve the hatchery’s problem and help them prevent damages due to high voltage or low frequency. Since a single source powers the whole facility, the electrical current can be monitored from a power outlet anywhere in the facility. This adds convenience and flexibility for the hatchery manager, Trevor. The team’s original solution that we were developing in 2021 used a single multimeter plugged into an outlet. The multimeter sends the voltage and frequency data to a Raspberry Pi. The Pi reads this data and sends a text message to Trevor’s phone when the voltage is above 160 V or the frequency is below 59 Hz. These numbers can be changed if Trevor decides on new thresholds. The Pi also uploads the voltage and frequency data to the cloud so that Trevor can access historical records through a Google Sheets spreadsheet. The team had some problems with the digital multimeter, so this semester, they are changing how the device reads the voltage and frequency data. The device will use a transformer to scale down the voltage so that it can be read using the analog pins of an Arduino Uno microcontroller. The Arduino will send the data to the Pi so that alerts can be sent and data can be logged. So far, the EPICS team has started working on a physical prototype that will be able to meet the requirements given by the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Next steps include completing the code for the Arduino to be able to send its data over to the Raspberry Pi and to back that data up to the Cloud on a Google Sheet. The physical prototype also needs additional safety coverings so that no electrical shock is possible. After that, the device can be tested and implemented at the hatchery.