Week 5 (Sept. 26, 2018): Presentation #1 (Goals & Specifications) Reflection & Gimbal Motors

Today, we delivered the first out of three Senior Project Presentations. The objective of our presentation was to discuss our team goals as well as our refined, conclusive design specifications.

Although we stated, in our Presentation #1, that I would oversee the software side of the small-scale model and David would be in charge of the hardware, our duties will more than likely overlap with each other due to the interdependent nature of controls and mechatronics systems. In other words, a circuit and a controller are meaningless without the hardware, and the hardware, such as actuators, cannot be controlled without a programmed controller and driver. And, once again, our duties will also overlap with Small-Scale Bogie and Small-Scale Track, with more interaction with the Bogie team due to the bogie-motor connection.

Having said this, at the conclusion of our presentation, we received some feedback from Dr. Furman. He brought to our attention brushless gimbal motors, as is used for the cameras found on commercial drones, as another consideration for the selection of the motor to be connected to the bogie. I performed some research into these types of motors.

Brushless gimbals are wound for very low speed (i.e. lots of turns of thin wire) and specifically made to be used in fine control applications. They are A good place to purchase them is at iflight-rc.com. The one found on the website, the iPower Motor GBM5208H-200T, can lift 4 kg-cm, which is equivalent to 0.392 N-m. They are 63 mm in diameter and 24.5 mm in height, making them much smaller and However, it does require 11.1 V to operate and is more expensive, compared to the cheaper 5 V servos I have experience with, making our decision between using a gimbal or servo motor undecisive once again. Although this website does discuss the advantages of each, we still have to consider the power requirement of each motor: 11.1 V will require a larger battery pack compared to 5 V. We will have to consult with the Bogie team to determine what kind of motor will be required to motorize the pod car.

Comments

Week 30 (May 8, 2019): Prototype Evaluation Day, Final Circuit, Incorporating 3D printed parts, Final Presentation, Posters, & Maker Faire

Today, we held Prototype Evaluation Day. Like the rest of the senior project classes, the advisor walks around the classroom, evaluating the senior project apparatuses, asking the student teams to demonstrate their devices, and explain their design, though processes, and results. Dr. Furman and Ron examined and inspected the Full-Scale model, then the Half-Scale model, and lastly, us, the Small-Scale Team. We had completed our circuit to power one pod car and one of the two induction charging stations prior to Evaluation Day, so we were able to successfully demonstrate the pod car driving around the track as well as the induction charging. While we were still troubleshooting issues with the tablet’s Raspberry Pi communicating with the Arduino, the Arduino is still capable of operating on its own, so we could at least demonstrate the motor driving the pod car around the track and through the offline stations. Depicted below is our final circuit that powers the pod car: Dep...

Week 28 (Apr. 24, 2019): Final motor selection – Mini-Stepper Motor

Since last week, we have been trying to run the new brushless DC motor; however, it is still difficult to control, let alone its speed. Therefore, we had to pursue our alternative motor, the mini-stepper motor that runs at 5V. Found in Arduino starter kits, this mini-stepper motor is accompanied by its dedicated motor driver board, the ULN2003, which is a chip containing a series of Darlington pair transistors. An image of the stepper motor and the ULN2003 board is shown below: Sources: https://www.adafruit.com/product/858 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CP18J4A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 We were able to successfully run the new mini-stepper motor with the sample code included with the Arduino starter kit. One benefit to using the sample code is that it utilizes the Stepper library’s functions. One use function is the setSpeed( ) function, which allows the user to set the RPM speed of the stepper motor. We found that the ma...

Week 27 (Apr. 17, 2019): ME 195B - Presentation #2 (Prototyping Stage Continuation) Reflection

Today, we completed Presentation 2, which is our 5 th presentation overall, throughout the entire length of senior project, since last semester. Please refer to our Presentation #2 slides, embedded below. Covering the continuation of our prototyping efforts, we discussed progress on hardware acquisition, integration of components into a working circuit, and programming. Regarding programming, we were still working on the communication between the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino. And while the circuit is also coming together, there was one piece that gave us problems yesterday: the gimbal motor broke and so we had to order another motor that is not a gimbal but is still a brushless DC motor. An image of the new motor is found in our presentation slides below. While this was disheartening at first, we found that the gimbal is not intended for continuous rotation, but instead for precise movement, as they are used for cameras on drones. However, this was still a setback...

Patrick Barrera's Progress for Spartan Superway

Search This Blog