Plug and Play Logic Gates

Most amateurs dream of having an intelligent system - one that does different things depending on different inputs, a computer which give the temperature, light, battery levels etc will turn on and off different things. To most people this is way too difficult or way too expensive. These "plug and play" logic gates hope to help to solve this.

Background

All modern computers are built from NAND gates. While this sound like a complex bit of jargon, it is most of the most basic logic principles. Like plus, minus, divide etc for decimal numbers, binary numbers (0 and 1, true and false, on and off) have OR AND and NOT, NAND being NOT AND. Eg 5 + 3 = 8, 1 AND 0 = 0. Believe it or not the processor in your computer (the bit that does the work) is thousands of very tiny NOT AND gates. Google binary logic if you want to understand this in more detail.

How does this help us? We don't need a super computer we just want a basic on and with a few logic gates we can build a basic one. For a basic example, I want my water pump to turn on we the voltage is above 12.4 V and then the float switch in my tank is on. We want two sensors and an AND gate.

It doesn't seem like it but this is the most basic computer, and building these logic gates together can make some complex systems.

Logic Gates

Sensors

Example Applications

• Turn on water pump when the batteries are full.
• Six hour night light
• Water my plants every two days for 10 minutes
• Turn on lights for 5 minutes when movement sensed.