Updated Electrical and Code Flow Chart, hooray! April 23, 2006
Posted by hackinjat in Design.add a comment
Now that we have both components of the stepper motor driver, I updated the electrical diagram using the spec sheets for the new IC's. Basically, the driver moves the motor one step for each pulse it receives. It can take pulse signals in the kHz range, meaning that the stepper could (theoretically) move at a couple thousand rpms. Should work for what we need it for. We also need a zenner diode, but these are fairly common so I think we can just find one in the shop.
Also uploaded is the program flow chart describing the workings of the code, before any stepper motor nonsense is added.
Website Changes April 19, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Administrative.add a comment
Take a look around, you'll see some additions and changes.
Initial Wiring Diagram April 18, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Concept, Images.add a comment
Here is the wiring diagram for the DSP and ICs needed to power and control the device.
Status Check for the Class and Project (As E-mailed by Evan) April 18, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Course, Fabrication.add a comment
So today [Monday] was a great day and here's a list of our accomplishments so far Things Done:
Our sensors works
The servo motor works and responds to frequency
The flashlight has been cut and modified w/holes for mounting
The stepper motor is mounted
The parts have all been beadblasted and look sexy, can you say Cal?
The axle has been cut and modified
Everything fits so far
The website looks great
and the other 102 groups are jealous and scrambling
however we're still not done.
We still need to:
Finish the code for the stepper motor and be able to run everything simultaneously
Wire in the electronics nicely
Design and fab the mounting for the power and dsp
Choose and obtain our power supply
Prepare slides and practice the oral presentation
Finish technical report (compile cads, bom, specs and calcs, catalogs and appendix)
Prepare the bike (clean it, blue and gold?, Cal somehow in the frame)
Design and make posterboard ( this should look pro and tie into proof of principle concept)
Complete website( WIP)
Turn in receipts
We are about 2/3 done, but fortunately this last 1/3 is mostly the fluff. Friday is a big day to get the project working and during the week would be a good opportunity to jump in on the fluff stuff. Keep working hard guys and i think we can win this thing, if not we can be damn proud of a very complete engineering project.
Mechanical Fabrication Almost Done! April 18, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Fabrication.add a comment
As of yesterday all of the parts to the mechanical design have been fabricated and assembled. All that remains is to lathe out an aluminum sleeve coupler for the stepper motor and gear. As soon as I get the photos from one of the group members, you can see the finished project (minus the wiring and coding of course – that's what we have left to do).
Status Update April 13, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Fabrication.add a comment
Things look to be coming along well. As of Tuesday this week we have almost all of our parts in. We may still be lacking some integrated circuits needed to control and power the stepper motor that came in the mail earlier this week. Jonathan is currently looking into what we may or may not need to control it. Evan and Erik are busily working in the machine shop to fabricate everything that is "finalized" design. Everything that does not anticipate any last minute changes falls into that category. I had the opportunity to see the finished, glass bead blasted support arms (the blue things in the CAD drawings on the right) and they look very well done. If nothing else, this project will look good. Matt has been out sick most of this week, but he will be getting better soon (he has to, his 22nd birthday is this Friday!). That's it for this most recent status update. Stay tuned for the programming (that's almost all that we have left!)
Webiste Updates: CAD April 9, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Uncategorized.add a comment
Over the next few days I will be uploading some photos and CAD drawings that have been produced over the past few weeks. Getting it all to flow nicely is a tedious process with wordpress, so it'll take some time. But for now, you can can see the first revision of the design on the right under "Computer Aided Design."
Website Updates April 4, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Administrative.1 comment so far
So, I've been put in charge of getting this website up to 'snuff. So, I'll be toting my camera around with me in the coming weeks and making more regular updates. Expect to see this thing come alive!
The State of Things April 4, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Design, Fabrication, Meetings.add a comment
As of today, we've managed to collect almost all of our parts. We are still shy on of our motor/servos needed for the focal adjustment, but things are in the works tonight. This particular piece of technology is proving difficult to come up with as nothing seems to meet the specifications and requirements needed. More on that later.
As of Sunday night, we've got a good idea of where this project is heading. Erik and Evan have both spent some time machining parts for the project and come up with some good preliminary results. Unfortunately, because of design modifications and new servo/motor changes, we may need to remachine these parts to get everything to fit. However, this has yet to be finalized. We did some additional machining today while in "lab" down in Etcheverry. John has been diligently working on the coding now that we have an idea of what we were doing with the servos. Several of us (mostly John) spent some time today trying to isolate what signal was needed for proper control. It looks like the DSP board doesn't work the way we need it to (something about the frequency output not being right and a few other problems, but John has some fixes in the works for that). Right now several of us are trying to come up with an alternative step motor to run the focal ring. The winch servos we were tossing around Sunday night just move too slow for what we need, so we're gonna have to go with a step motor to maintain that element of position control already in the servos, but the speed we need from a motor. We managed to bounce some ideas off of the GSIs during our "hardware presentation" during lab. We considered using an optical encoder, an optical interference sensor (something like that), and using one of the slower winch servos but with a bigger gear, all to maintain that speed and position control combination we so desperately need. By tomorrow we need to order what it is we're going to use since our time to put this all together is slowly winding down (we've only got four weeks left!). On top of all that, we still have to write a report and make the website (which is what you're reading – it's a work in progress!). It's gonna get fun with some really long nights!
