This week I worked on the design review report, as well as prototyping the TP load sensor, and prototyping the initial functions of the reader. The group all worked together on the design review report, which took up a fair amount of time.
Now that the load sensor parts had arrived, I was able to start work on prototyping the TP load sensor. I discovered quickly that the best construction was to cut the design back to using a single load cell, still mounted axially. The rough prototype is pictured here:
I attempted to calibrate it in order to take weight measurements, but unfortunately, I did not have adequate mounting hardware. I will acquire the proper spacers and screws next week in order to determine real-world resolution. Preliminary trials did indicate that when the TP is being pulled off of the roll, significant force can be measured, so, regardless of the resolution, that force measurement can be used to identify TP usage.
Additionally, I assisted James in reading up on the ThingMagic Mercury API documentation, which is the API we will need in order to interface with the reader. After looking through this, we laid out what functionality we need in order to interface with the Farsens tags. We are ordering the reader to be here post-break so we would like to have some of the software roughly complete by the time it is here.
We continue to be on schedule.
Next week I hope to:
- Refine the load sensor after properly mounting it.
- Determine a real-world resolution measurement in # of sheets
- Continue designing the reader software.
- Order the reader and Farsens tags.
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