Nuts and Volts - June 2010

by sticking an RFID tag on the edge of a door frame) or triage of victims within the target building (by placing RFID tags on victims to classify them as minor injury, serious injury, or mortally wounded).

RFID is a mature technology robust enough to be used in the most offensive environments, including high-temperature, smoke-filled rooms. The system works via inductive or capacitive coupling and is impervious to room size, fire, smoke, or other objects that could affect other communication systems such as RF/wireless or optical. If the RFID tags embedded into the firefighter’s clothing get worn out, burned, or damaged in any other way, they can simply be replaced and the Firefighter Identification System look-up tables updated to reflect the change in unique identifier of that particular firefighter.

Solving a Real Need

This build was particularly enjoyable because we designed something that could actually help people and potentially save lives. In the finale of the episode, we gave firefighters from Modesto, CA a demonstration of the technology and let them wear the unit during training scenarios. They were impressed with the functionality and agreed that there is a need for features of our system to be included in real-world firefighter equipment. Hopefully, one day we’ll see that happen! NV

PJ-202A J4

Input (18VDC)

2

P2 HEADER2-HV

1

PYROPACK SCHEMATIC

1

3

2

VIN

0.33uF C7

0.33uF C3

D3 Blue LED EL1 5

1

3 GND IN

2

OUT

2

IN 1 OUT 3

GND U4 LM7812

2.2k R7

TECHLITE T1

1 VCC GND EN

3

2

Resc-Hue Mayday Alarm

VIN

43

VIN

65

10uF C8

5V

10uF C4

12V

Q1 IRF510

G6C-2117P-US

8 1+

VIN K1

P1 RFID Reader (Parallax #28140) 5V Firefighter ID System

1 2

3 4

2MJ-0104A120

Thermal-Eye 3600AS OEM Thermal Imaging Camera

Composite Video Input J3

P4 RCJ-041

1 2 3 4 5 6

10k

R5 220 R4

1N4007

D2

/RFID_En RFID_SOUT

12V

470 R1

Bob_SOUT /TIC_Enable RescHueEnable SysReady

D1 Green LED System Ready

VIDEO_IN

10k R11 3.3V

3.3V 10k R9

SIN 2

ATN 3

VSS 4

P0 5 P1

6

7

P2

8

P3

9

P4

10

P5

11

P6

12

P7

U2 BS2sx SOUT 1

3.3V

C2

0.1uF

0.1uF C1

TXD RXD

BOB-4-H Video On-Screen Display(9600bps, 8N1)

RTS DTR DSR VIN 24

2x20 Male Header

3.3V 5V

12 34 56 78 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 P3

10 J1

6

9 11

2

7

3

8

4

5

D Connector 9F

1

VIDEO_OUT

10k R10

3.3V Bob_SIN Keller_RT Memsic_Xin Memsic_Yin

Keller_TX Keller_RX

5V

220 R3

220 R2

P5 RCJ-041 Composite Video Output MEMSIC2125EB Accelerometer (Parallax #28017)

GND Y_OUT 2

12V

R12

1k D4

Blue LED Power Indicators 5V GND

5V

5

X_OUT

4

GND VCC 6

R13

3.3k

5V D5

Blue LED

0.1uF C5

5V

Joe Grand is an electrical engineer,
hardware hacker, and president of
Grand Idea Studio, Inc.
( www.grandideastudio.com), where
he specializes in the invention,
design, and licensing of consumer
products and modules for electronics
hobbyists. He can be reached at
joe@grandideastudio.com.