By Jon Noh
Jon Noh had been working on a wearable device to make work around the farm safer. After hearing about an accident involving a fellow farmer, he sped up development and finished the project. The device is essentially a kill-switch so if a farmer is caught he can immediately turn off the sweep auger and avoid serious injury.
“The sweep auger motor plugs directly into an outlet on the receiving box. This receiving box and transmitter each have an XBee wireless transceiver inside. When the remote control is powered on, the first LED lights up. When the safety cord is connected, the second LED lights up. At this point, the sweep auger is off.
If the start/stop push button is pressed, the XBee radio in the transmitter signals the XBee in the receiving box to turn on the motor starter and power up the sweep auger. If the safety cord is pulled, the sweep auger shuts down. (The start/stop button needs to be pressed again to power it after the safety cord is put back on.) Pressing the start/stop button also stops the auger if it is running.
Read more info on the project here.