Assignement fot this week

Plan and scetch potential final project

Automated shutter blinds

About the project

Automation of shutter blinds are very useful and important for the controlling light penetration into the lab. There are many different solutions of automated shutter blinds. During the day the weather is changing many times and the lighting of the lab is also changing.
My final project will be automation of shutter blinds, which will close and open the blindes depending on the intensity of the sun's rays․ This idea was born after an incident, when the sun rays caused a dangerous situation with a magnifying glass and made the plastic part of one of our devices melt. Development of this project will help us avoid this kind of problems in future. After development of the first prototype I am going to automate all blinds of our lab.

Main activities

• Design gear and control box
• Make a control board with motor driver, light sensor and switches
• Program the board

Materials and machines

• PLA filament and 3D printer (Makerbot replicator 2)
• Laser cutter (Epilog mini 40w) and plexiglas
• Cnc milling machine (Srm-20 and shopbot)
• Avr programmer
• Measurment tools

Software

Fusion 365 and Rhinoceros
Corel Draw and Adobe Illustartor
• Cnc milling machine (Srm-20 and shopbot)

The device

• Electronics board, motor driver, light sensor etc.
• Motor
• Gear
• Switches.
When the intensity of the sun rays increases, the shutter blind goes down and pushes the switch N1, the motor stops working and it means that the shutter blind goto to it's point. If the intensity of the sun rays goes down the blind goes up and stops after reaching the switch N2.


Development process

Step 1

I will make a board which will have pins for the switches, pin for light sensor, motor driver, on and off buttons for manual controlling. Atmega328 microcontroller will be used on the board. I am going to use to switches to mark end point of shutter blind, one more button I am going to use for on /off function. I will use motor driver for motor control. Light sensor will be used for getting signal about the light. For moving the shutter blind I am going to make tests and use type of motors. I will test stepper and DC motors, I also gonna get and test tubular motors.I will choose the best solution. The motor should rotate the gear, which will move the thread up and down.


Step 2

The second step will be design. I am going to draw the board, I have never done that before that's why I should start learning it. I should do measuring of the shutter I have and start designing of the gear.

Step 3

After the design all things I need I am going to
• mill and cut the board
• solder componets
• print the gear
• design the box of the device
• program the board
• test board, gear, motor etc.