The Hackaday.io electronic pressure regulator was made to control air pressure for a microfluidics control system. The main issue I’m running into is with uploading software to the pressure regulator and microcontroler.
Steps already taken:
Tried to flash the microcontroller, which did not work due to a failure to connect to the ESP32. Troubleshooted for the unresponsive bootloader, and found no success. The device manager does show that the connection is being detected when the device is plugged in.
Tried to assume the ESP32 was already flashed, and moved on to try and upload the pressure regulator software and the ESP32 programming. Both resulted in the same error.
Tried to assume everything had already been uploaded to the microcontroller and attempted to use the PC software directly. The microcontroller is not detected by the software.
Have you come across anything that mentions an I2C connection, separate from the desktop software? This might not matter if the board can’t be contacted at all.
My recommendations (probably best to do all at once):
Contact the creator (check for an email on the manuscript and also post a comment on hackaday). Provide a link to this post.
Contact labmaker, the one selling the device. Provide a link to this post.
Try powering the device with a 12V power supply per instructions in Section 6 from the HardwareX manuscript, and see if a Bluetooth device is available to connect to from your phone
For a bit more context on this project, compact microfluidic systems allow for scientists to work with low-volume fluid systems and execute synthesis/reactions/analysis at a microscale. Large lab routines can be integrated into one device, and can be programmed for biological analysis with very high sensitivity.
As part of my degree, I’ve working on formulation development, and microfluidic systems are an emerging method for researchers to produce nanoparticle formulations with very narrow polydispersity and low reagent consumption. Having this miniaturized microfluidics pressure regulator allows for the development nanoparticles in a highly reproducible manner, and even opens the potential to an automated workflow for trialing new nanoformulations.
Double checking COM5 port connection = connection is detected but the actual device isnt (strange).
This leads to suspected issues with the board itself.
Additionally, I have:
Tried to run the entire process again, with the same troubleshooting steps, on a Mac computer. Results have been unsucessful.
I am unfortunately still waiting for updates on Labmaker, I will re-send an email to try and see any other troubleshooting I can do. As a note, apparently the creator was not aware Labmaker was selling the device, so it is possible that Labmaker did not test the device before shipping it.
