Android App Demo

Please note that this app is only for Android! Sorry iOS users, an iOS version may be developed later though!

Installing the App

• Perhaps the easiest way to install the app is to email the appropriate app APK file to yourself. The only difference between the Reflowduino and Reflowduino32 apps is that they have different Bluetooth UUID's for the different hardware.
• On the target mobile device, click the file to download it, and Android should automatically prompt you to install it. If not, find it with your mobile device's file explorer. Click "Install" and accept the agreement that the app needs to access files, etc. because it can save data to your phone and connect to Bluetooth.
• After installing, open the app and it will prompt you to turn on Bluetooth if you don't already have it on.

Using the App

• Click the "Connect" button and you should see a list of nearby Bluetooth devices, including the Reflowduino if it was turned on. Select the Reflowduino and you should see the blue connection status LED turn from blinking to solid and the app will say "Connected!"

• You should now see temperature values on the screen. Click the temperature unit (degrees C or F) to convert between them. Please note that you cannot change the temperature unit after starting the reflow process, since this would mess up the graph and data points
• Press the "START" button to start the reflow process. This will also bring up a graph that plots the temperature points vs time on the screen. For now this graph has to refresh for each data point which can be annoying, but maybe you all can help fix that!
• Press "STOP" to abort the process, and the app will automatically save the temperature data to ReflowduinoData.txt in either your phone's internal storage or SD card directory (if internal storage is full). You can find this file with your native file explorer. Use this file to graph the data in Excel (explained in the next section) and have fun with it!
• After aborting the process (or when the Reflowduino tells the app that it's complete) the graph should freeze so you can view the data. Press the "CLEAR" button when you're done with the graph, and it will clear the graph. Here's an example graph from a hot plate reflow test:

• Press "Disconnect" to disconnect from Bluetooth
• Note that the app will still be running and connected to Bluetooth if you turn your phone off (but without closing the app)

Importing Data to Excel

NOTE: This feature is not yet available for the ESP32, although it is possible for it to act as an HID device.

Graphing the data and seeing how the reflow curve looks like is something I'm sure many of you would be curious about! Fortunately it's quite easy to do.

• First of all, locate the file "ReflowduinoData.txt" on your phone. It should be either in internal storage or your SD card

• Once you locate it, click and hold it and press "Share" and choose Gmail or whatever email service you use. This should automatically compose an email; email the file to yourself! An alternative to this would be to tether your phone to a computer and transfer the file that way, or you can open it with Google Docs on your phone and it should save it online so you can view it at https://docs.google.com/

• Now that you have the file on your computer, open ReflowduinoData.txt. You should see rows of data like "0","25.00"

• Open Excel and start a new workbook. Copy all the data from ReflowduinoData.txt and paste it into the first cell in Excel

• With all the data in Excel still selected after pasting, navigate to the "Data" tab and click "Text to Columns"

• Select the default "Delimited" option and click "Next"

• Select "Comma" as a delimiter and click "Next". Check the preview at the bottom to make sure it's what you want

• Click "Finish" and you should see all your data as clean data in separate columns! The first column is time and the second column is temperature in degrees Celsius

• To graph the data, select all the data in Excel and under the "Insert" tab select the graph of your choice. Scatter plots are generally a good choice and you can choose to add connecting lines between points for better visualization!

Modifying the App

The Reflowduino app was created using Thunkable, an excellent, free graphical app-building environment. To modify the app you will need to set up an account with them then follow the instructions below to view or modify the Reflowduino app.

• Once you have logged in to Thunkable you should see your dashboard (empty for now because you have no projects yet).
• Download the app .aia file and in Thunkable go to Apps -> "Upload app project (.aia) from my computer"

• After it's done processing you should be able to view and edit the app!

• If you click on "Blocks" you will see all the code "blocks" that you can modify

• If you want to modify the app, it's highly recommended that you get the Thunkable companion app for real-time testing using Test -> Thunkable Live. It's an amazing feature!