This week I did a lot of 3D printing and also a lot of Solidworks drawings. It’s been exciting to see various parts of the project come together, and I’m excited to continue seeing those integrations in the coming week. We tested out the focus mechanism this week with the LED, and it works! This isn’t really a surprise but is a nice milestone. Attached is my (very rough) first draft of the integration packet for the barrel assembly. I am thus far on track for the parts of the project that I am working on I believe, and this upcoming week will be mainly dedicated to the interim demo and making sure that the demo goes smoothly. After that we will just continue fabricating and integrating the different aspects of the project until it’s all put together. Exciting times! BARREL_ASSEMBLY.pdf
Kira’s Status Report for 3/28
This week I made good progress on the DMX system. I got both the transmitter and receiver working and tested them using an oscilloscope to make sure the signal coming out of the receiver matched what was being sent from the transmitter. I haven’t hooked the receiver up to the rest of the fixture yet, but the core communication is working reliably. I also spent time soldering the controller components so that everything is ready for our demo. On the software side, I went through our code files to make sure they’re clean and modular, which should make it much easier to add the motor and other input/output controls later. Overall, the system is coming together and I am excited to demo our project!
Team Status Report for 3/28
The most significant risk that could jeopardize the success of the project would be frying the LED chip or the power supply. Another risk would be not getting the controller to communicate properly with the light. To manage these risks, we have an extra LED chip and have been testing our equipment before we connect it to our power supply. In addition, to prevent the issue of the controller not communicating, we have a backup plan of wiring the controls directly to the light. However, it would cause us to not fulfill the use case requirement of professional compatibility from the DMX side. So far, changes have not been necessary to the design of the system since last week. Our schedule has changed a bit where the integration and fabrication are happening in parallel. This is because we realized that in order to integrate some components, other parts need to be fabricated first.
Chloe’s Status Report for 3/28
This week, I received the connector for our power supply and connected it to the individual components we have. In addition, I was able to adjust the resistances of the circuit to allow control over LED brightness and color with one voltage instead of the different voltages like before. I was able to get the brightness of the different colors to be pretty similar, but since the amount of current drawn is unequal, I found it a bit difficult to get them to change brightness at the same rate. In addition, I ordered some step down converters so we can power the different items off the same power supply. My progress is on schedule, since there isn’t any fabrication needed for the components, and it needs to happen while integration happens. Next week, I hope to connect the step down converters to the light and continue to fine tune the brightness of the different colors. Also, this will have most of the components of our light connected together, and I can help with the controller.
Team Status Report for 3/21
The most significant risk that could jeopardize the success of the project would be if the parts that we ordered don’t come in time. We originally had issues with getting our LED chip, but it has been resolved. The other important piece of hardware we need is the connection to the power supply from the cable. However, if we don’t receive it, we will have to solder straight from the cable to our power supply, as one of the options. One change to the design of the system was the power and brightness of our LED. This change was required because we were not able to get the previous LED chip we wanted to order. It was lost in transit, and would take too long to get another one. This increases our cost of the LED chip from $10.99 to $15.99. This is still within our budget. Our schedule has not changed still, since we would start fabrication next week and then assembly.
Kira’s Status Report for 3/21
This week I made solid progress testing the DMX transmitter and basic controller functionality. I set up the DMX shield in transmit mode with the Arduino and used potentiometers as analog inputs to act as “faders” for our controller. I was able to successfully send signals to a theatrical RGBW light and verify that changing different DMX addresses and parameters worked as expected, specifically testing control over color and intensity. I had also planned to test DMX receiving, but since we only had one shield at the time, I couldn’t complete that portion. Now that we’ve received a second DMX shield, I will move forward with testing the receiver next week.
Chloe’s Status Report for 3/21
This week, I finished the design of our power system for the light and the controller, given the power source we received. In addition, I put in an order for some adapters to our power cable to the light and received the LED chip. I also started laying out the wiring for our light this week. Our progress is currently on schedule, since I was able to finish the design of the power system, and am waiting on parts to arrive to start powering all our items. I was also able to get our LED chip, which was previously missing, but I had to get a different LED chip. The changes in the LED chip shouldn’t affect the design too much, since I had originally planned to get this chip but changed to a lower power one since we didn’t need it to be that bright. However, with the new LED, it will be brighter and draw more power. Next week, I hope to finish the wiring layout of the power system and start wiring the motors and the LED to the power supply. In addition, I hope to get some parts of the controller wired, like the sliders.
Ella’s Status Report for 3/21
This week I got a lot of fabrication and test-fitting done. I got the focus mechanism fully assembled and working and decided to add a microswitch for homing. I am on schedule as of right now and am excited to see things coming together. In the next few days I will hopefully have all the major assemblies put together and then can start doing a full integration. I’m hoping to make nice fabrication drawings from my solidworks models, but we will see if I have time; at the end of the day I know how to fabricate the assemblies and don’t need the drawings, I kind of just want to have them because I think it would be cool and nice. I’m a little worried about the interim demo just because it is a lot of stuff to get done soon, but also we are on schedule and it should all work out. Included are some rough model images from various parts of the project in various stages.
Ella’s Status Report for 3/14
This week I worked a lot more on the CAD and I got the first batch of parts printed, and I also laser cut some other parts. I have the focus mechanism mostly test-fit together which is very exciting, and I have the tilt mechanism done in CAD and I printed some parts for it. The pan mechanism will be a next week issue most likely. Tomorrow I intend to get the motors running again but this time with the mechanism parts attached. We are overall pretty on schedule, but I am feeling slightly nervous about upcoming road blocks that may arise like struggles with getting all the parts to work together as we intended. By the end of this upcoming week I hope to have all the major parts 3D printed / laser cut and the main mechanisms at least dry fit, even if the whole system isn’t all integrated physically together yet.
Kira’s Status Report for 3/14
This week my components arrived, so I spent time getting the hardware and perliminary code set up. I worked on assembling the basic system and confirming that the components power on and can be interfaced with so development can move forward. I am a little behind the original schedule due to waiting on parts and the initial hardware setup. Now that everything has arrived, I expect progress to move faster. I plan to meet with my teammate Ella tomorrow to start working on the DMX communication and motor control so we can begin testing basic functionality.