Week 12

Breadboard failure discovered after several troubleshooting. It has many intermittance produced within the board.Action taken is buy new breadboard and reconstruct the overall circuit.
By using DipTrace software, the PCB layout can be produced without putting more effort to measure each components dimension to determined its own pin configuration.

Next step involve the cutting and etching of finished PCB which is need to be done carefully. During the inspection of each copper connectivity, a multimeter tool was used. After confirmation all the connection were correct, the drilling process can be done for further components placement and soldering.  

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Week 11

Through out this week, some unexpected error occurs with the LCD component.
It suddenly display some unknown symbol to understand. LED backlight still on and function properly.
Research on the internet and consultation with the supervisor were done, to find the solution for the error.
After 3 days of troubleshooting, the solution was found by consulting and findings during consultation with my friend.
It is because the declaration and connection of LCD pin must be parallel with each other in order to make it fully function.
Other works and development were delayed during this week, and need to re-plan to cover the loss of time.

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Week 10

For mechanical development, sensor holder has arrived from Kota Bharu through courier. Both sensor plate were checked thoroughly to make sure there is no error or wrong position of placement at mechanical plate.

After inspection process, 2 dimension hole were made on he main steel plate. These dimension were measured accordingly on sensor holder. And lastly, the overall circuit was sketched on Proteus software because it is more easy and simpler compared than by doing manually by hand.

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Week 9

For display, several testing were attempt to visualize for each function. There are to possible ways to visualize the the function, by using serial monitor or Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). All connection of each LCD pin were followed based on Arduino tutorial. The LCD function correctly as desired and supposed to be.

After consultation with co-supervisors, sir Zulkifli Mahmoodin and sir Hisham, they recommend me to use proper motor driver for high torque DC motor. So, I switch from L293D into L298N, which has different specification in term of current rating. Below are specification comparison between these 2 motor driver:

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Week 8

To design the sensor/potentiometer holder, I have discuss with my family relative to assist me in designing AutoCAD  2012 for sensor holder. All the dimensions were measured to make sure it is accurately measure the angle of ROM.
Using same material with mechanical, I decided to pick same thickness and material due to it's availability and sturdiness. These are pictures of sensor holder from AutoCAD software, showing the dimension, position and placement.

For motor driver, the L293D IC was tested to check the strength of motor torque to move the mechanical structure. But there are some minor problem, which is the prediction of current allowed in the motor driver when the DC motor on load. This prediction was based on L293D specification

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Week 7

Based on all components that involved in the project, I have listed and bought all the components from cytron company. All the components are used to construct a circuit that look and function alike Arduino kit.
After consultation with supervisor, she recommended different DC geared motor to be used in the project, to   drive the mechanical structure for moving smoothly.
These are technical specification of SPG30-150K and SPG50-100K

For programming section, I have configure the solution for loopback sub-routine.
Each function in the project must stay in loop, until enter button pressed to enter next function or cancel button to return to previous function.
This are sample of programming to loop in function.

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Week 6

Based on the flowchart that I have design during previous semester, I found that it was just a basic overview for the total of this project.
So, I expanded more and focus toward of each function to give a better understanding to write the assembly language for micro-controller.
There are some minor issue to understanding the flow for re-direct into sub-routine of each function.
Several testing were done to overcome the problem but no solution to be found at moment.

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