Aladdin Auto Vent Radiator Valves

Aladdin Auto Vent Radiator Valves

In July this year (2004) we were contacted by John Heffernan, the man who invented the Aladdin auto vent radiator valve. The valve has become a great success for John and he was inquiring about using PIC microcontrollers to automate his production testing. We agreed that he should do all the mechanical design while I would design the electronics and write the software. Software development can become very expensive so I suggested that John should purchase our PIC Training and Development System, so that when the system was operating he would be able to fine tune the system to his exact requirements.

Two months later on 8th September 2004 the following email arrived at Brunning Software.....

Hi Peter,

The rig ran from around 11.30 - 5.30 perfectly well. All in all, a complete success! Several people came around to visit and wonder at the amazing automatic pressure testing rig and were completely mesmerised by it's performance. I'll start charging soon... Thanks again Peter.

Kind regards...John

This picture shows the finished test rig just before it was installed in the test area. It consists of twelve separate pressure testing points each of which is controlled by its own PIC16F870 microcontroller. The control circuits are housed in the back boxes at the top of the rig.

Each valve is tested by pumping in air first at low pressure then at high pressure. A transducer converts the air pressure into a DC voltage which is monitored by the PIC16F870. The current pressure is displayed using 2 by 12 digit alphanumeric liquid crystal displays mounted in each black box. The microcontrollers record the pressure at the start of the low pressure test, the pressure at the start of the high pressure test, and show a failure if either pressure changes.

Six LEDs on each box show the current status of the test. Two orange LEDs show which test is being performed. Two green LEDs show low pressure / high pressure pass. Two red LEDs show low pressure / high pressure failure.

To learn more about these incredibly reliable automatic radiator vents visit John Heffernan's web site.....
www.autovents.com