Design and build LCD touchscreen (HMI) as a controller and indicator on biological safety cabinet machines to protect workers from virus exposure

The Covid-19 virus that is still attacking the world today is very dangerous. For workers who handle samples of virus test specimens in this laboratory, a safety mechanism is needed so that they are not easily contaminated with the virus. Biological Safety Cabinet (BSC) is a laboratory work area with air ventilation that has been engineered to secure workers from the possible danger of contamination by spreading pathogenic bacteria or viruses when testing specimen samples and other viruses that are very dangerous when testing samples of exposed patients. This research method is carried out by creating a LCD touch screen controller which is applied to the BSC machine. With this control system, it can regulate the intake airflow to protect the operator who handles risky specimens by expelling the air through the High-Efficiency Particular Air (HEPA) filter. The HEPA filter has a certain lifetime so that every BSC machine, that must have the facility to calculate the time the HEPA filter, must be replaced immediately. This research was conducted by adjusting the variation of the upper and lower blowers, lighting lamps, and UV lamps. The result of this research was a program that had codes made between the HMI and the microcontroller. Furthermore, with this coding, there were smooth communication between the HMI and the Microcontroller to control the performance of the BSC machine. The results showed that communication with the HMI can run smoothly with the condition that the header must be coded FFH FFH FFH on the microcontroller for sending and receiving HMI. © 2023 Author(s).