Ted’s Status Report for 03/21/2026

This week, I worked on connecting the VESC motor controller to the BLDC motors and power source. I mainly focused on CADing (is that the right acronym?) the 3d driver pulleys, idler pulleys, motor plates, and other miscellaneous things and printed them before our meeting Saturday. Then, I hooked up the motors to the VESC, power source, and RPi and tested them to see if all the connections had been soldered correctly and were functioning. Bearings have been delivered, but I wasn’t able to pick them up before the ECE office closed. I’m hoping to pick them up and finish constructing the rail monday, and then begin testing with our completed UWB sensor/node system. In terms of schedule, we’re developing most of our subsystems at the same time, and once the rail is finished and all parts are received, we should be at a good pace. I need to reprint some of the pulleys for a better fit on the timing belt, and I hope to get that done by next week as well. I want to reduce wear and tear as much as possible. The open source configuration software for the motor controller is a bit finicky to work with, and I’m trying to get experienced with it as fast as possible.