How to Make Smart Heater

One of the biggest milestones for humanity is the discovery of fire. We engineered our way using the fundamental law of physics engraved in our universe to keep ourselves alive.

Millions of years later, we now have Electronics, WiFi, airplanes and so on. Let's use the knowledge we have acquired from the past 100 years and revisit the problem our ancestors have solved, keeping ourselves warm using doses of Technology from the 21st century!

All 3D Printed and Laser Cut parts are available on my GitHub. Several other components need to be purchased externally.

Components

1. 12V 100W Power Supply
2. C5 C6 Connectors & Cable
3. Arduino
4. L293D Motor Driver
5. Relay
6. 12V 100W PTC Heater
7. Hall Sensor
8. 12V DC Motor
9. RGB LED Strip
10. ESP8266
11. 3x TIP31C
12. 2x Potentiometer
13. 2x Neodymium Magnet 8mm

As stated in the previous step, all CAD files are available on my GitHub. If you don't have a laser cutter, you could instead use wood and jigsaw to create the same model. And if you do not own a 3D Printer, you could always send the STL files over to an online 3D Printing company.

Because we want to make it cool, we will need an actuator. You could purchase a ready-made actuator only but these are generally pretty expensive. It's better to just 3D Print a plastic version as we don't need extreme structural integrity.

You'll need the PTC Heater, DC motor, Neodymium magnet, and the Hall Sensor for this part.

Use the DC Motor to spin the 3D printed bolt to move the actuator up and down. This mechanism allow us to convert rotational motion to linear motion.

I like to have a strip of LED shining through the sides so I'll mask a line of masking tape and apply some black paint to block any light leakage and then apply white paint over it to create a nice minimalistic finish.

Use the 3D Printed corner parts to glue different pieces of acrylics together. The entire structure will consist of 2 parts of 3 acrylics sheet. This way you'll have easy access to the Electronics if something goes wrong.

This is also a good time to glue the RGB Led strip in place.

Once that is done, screw the actuator in place and get ready to create the brain of this project.

You'll need an Arduino, Motor Driver (I use L293D), 12V 100W power supply, ESP8266, and a relay. The schematic has 3 potentiometers but you could ignore the 3rd one. Also, take note the schematic does not contain the hall sensor, you could connect that to any I/O pin.

Adding the ESP8266 will allow us to control this via the internet. Yep, you hear that right, we're making an internet controlled smart heater. Bet our ancestors will be so proud!

The firmware for the Arduino is available on my GitHub. If you're using different pins be sure to change them in the code.

Also, I did not implement the whole Internet Of Things system yet as I want to create a personalized library and standardize it across all of my projects. I recommend using Blynk for the IoT.

Humanity went from creating fire from flint to making Internet-connected Heating device! Isn't that awesome?

Now during cold weather, you don't need to freeze to death anymore, you can enjoy having a cozy environment thanks to your futuristic project.

Hope you guys like this project, I'll see you in the next project!