HACK-BOX

Posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2021

Client	Sebastian Hadjiantoniou
Professor(s)	Mauricio Ledon,
Program	Electrical Engineering Technology
Students	Tom Madsen – Team Lead Shamil Deus Derrick Findlay Garrett Thomson Mark Wijesekera

Project Description:

Incuvers is a manufacturer of a smart, biological incubator at the forefront of cellular research. Given the breadth of the field and the many parameters that need to be controlled in this environment, a wide range of peripheral devices are needed to engage in this research.
The Incuvers Hackbox is a device intended to interface with the main product from Incuvers with various end user third party devices. The Hackbox is the end of ad hoc solutions by incorporating the components necessary to operate most, if not all, of the devices typically used in this kind of research. Capable of driving high current loads, the ability to provide variable and constant current to high intensity LEDs, and the ability to power devices up to 24 Volts means that the Hackbox simplifies the work of Incuvers customers. The electronics are arranged on a “shield” that fits over an Arduino UNO. The shield contains all the circuits required to drive LEDs at a constant/variable current, provide voltage regulation up to 24V, power the Arduino, and provide overcurrent protection to the Arduino outputs. They are designed to be run from a single AC-DC wall adapter with a 24VDC output.

Since the Hackbox is built around the premise of user customizability, the software has been kept as simplistic as possible as not to impede on the users capabilities. The python serial communication library “pyserial” is the core of the devices software which allows the Hackbox Arduino to communicate with the Incubators Raspberry Pi. This gives the user a solid starting point to which they can build custom scripts on top of. Some potentially useful use cases are as follows.