After a few late nights of circuit assembly this week, Karl and I have completed the circuit assembly. Tonight we connected the relay board and the load circuit and will conduct current and voltage measurements to and from the microcontroller. Updated pictures are located in the documentation photos folder. Coding will take place tomorrow and this weekend to conduct simple controls of powering the relays.
The circuit build began yesterday. Some of the components will be mounted to a blank PCB, such as the automotive relay sockets. Some resistor value calculations will be completed this weekend to limit the current to some of the micro-controller inputs. With that being said, a power budget indicating the current draw to the components will be totaled. This will show how much current we are actually using and provide an idea of allowable number of additional loads can be added in the future. The circuit build is behind schedule as compared to the original timeline and is now the priority. The delays over the past week have been due my misunderstanding of the load circuit design and have been corrected.
So…our parts came in today. I was prepared to start the build for the for the load circuit today but, I have just learned the the design drawings kind of wrong. Actually, it was described during the presentation that “the technical drawings were technically wrong!” (Karl now owns the Trademark to that saying). So, the update to the circuit design is in progress and one “technically correct” drawing (I hope) has been posted. As soon as the other drawings are complete, the build shall begin.
The past week has been slow due to an illness. Karl has began coding for the communication between the CAN Controller. I have procured a proper template for our technical drawings and have started to transfer the drawings as well as continue the design based on our final parts list. The decision to make the change was from a recommendation to make the drawings look more professional. Hopefully the parts will be in on Tuesday so the circuit build can begin. The plan is to simulate the individual load circuit inputs and outputs so, when the coding is complete, we can complete the system and customize the node programming code. Note to self…dont get sick during a 5 week course.
We finally got a page set up for our Project, CiA. No content has been added yet but adding something to it has been considered a priority while waiting for parts to arrive. Wednesday, our “entire team” (Karl and I) had a meeting to complete our project proposal and discuss our system overview. This incorporated the Controller Area Network (CAN) as a whole as well as a sample circuit design for loads that will be controlled and monitored. This assisted in generating our parts list but looks to be close to our maximum allowed budget of $100.00. I intend on testing proposed circuit layouts using some type of simulation software; most likely being Multisim.
