Week Seventeen

This weeks assignments

    Final Project

  • what will it do?
  • who's done what beforehand?
  • what materials and components will be required?
  • where will they come from?
  • how much will it cost?
  • what parts and systems will be made?
  • what processes will be used?
  • what tasks need to be completed?
  • what questions need to be answered?
  • what is the schedule?
  • how will it be evaluated?
  • where possible, you should make rather than buy the parts of your project

    What will it do?

    I want to prototype an incubator that can keep my plants alive. Originally I had bonsais that were in need for a controlled environment but I think I want to advance from that and just make a prototype for a smart flowerpot. I'm facinated by the open agriculture movement and want to tinker with something of my own.

    The systems integrated into the incubator are control systems for light and nutrient/water regualtion and temerature and humidity sensing. I also want to be able to see the data online, like if it has been watered today, what is the temperature etc.

    [What] has been done beforehand

  • Frame designed + toolpaths + milled out
  • Temperature/humidity sensor designed + milled out + programmed
  • Ethernet module designed + milled out + programmed
  • Motor controller designed + milled out + programmed
  • The temperature sensor has been made already and the waterprove tub for the soil/clay pebbles. Some work has also been done on the motor shield so that water/nutrients can be added to the cicrulation.

    What materials and components will be required?

    x% of the materials required will be obtained from the fablab:

  • 15mm plywood for the frame - 1,5 sq m
  • PCB material for the control system - 3
  • 2 attinys 44 - 1 for the ethernet module and 1 for the master
  • 1 attiny 45 - for the temperature/humidity
  • Ethernet cable for the web server communication
  • Relays/mosfets for 220V in order to control lighting
  • Lights for fake sunlight

What parts and systems will be made

  • The frame
  • The control system
  • The tub for waterproving
  • The valve for water regulation
  • What processes will be used

  • What tasks need to be completed

  • The frames design needs to be completed
  • The frame needs to be cut out with the big CNC
  • The The frame needs to be assembled
  • The tub for waterproving
  • The valve for water regulation
  • what is the deadline? How much time do I have left?
  • The deadline is june 16th, I don't have alot of time left, couple of weeks or so.

  • what tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?
  • The frame is almost completed, the composite tub is finished, working on the water regulation ideas atm. I need to spend alot of time with the electronics part...

  • how will I complete the remaining tasks in time?
  • By working as much as I can to make them happen. Finish the frame asap, since that is kind of the thing that everything else is stuck on. Going to mill out the frame tomorrow or the next day.

  • what has worked?
  • Nothing has worked really as intended, except maybe for the motorshield and the temperature sensor on their own. I need to figgure out a way to connect them togeather.
  • what hasn't?
  • The ethernet shield is a waste of time right now, too many things have gone wrong and too much time has been spent in vein. I might need to scale down the project a bit...

  • what questions still need to be resolved?
  • Will I be able to produce enough boyancy force with a 3d printed float to hold a plug in place?

  • what have you learned?
  • That list is pretty much endless in terms of the material, but one of the strongest points right now is in terms of documenting as I go and spend more time on logistics and time management/organizing my self...

    3-7 jun update:

    So, I had already designed and thought about the frame for the whole cemester. I had sat down to try and finish the design during the whole course, but never quite managed to focus on just that. So, after a few sessions where I could only focus on the design aspect of the frame it self, I finally have something that I want to keep working on and improving. I didint manage to finish milling the frame, because there was something that went wrong in the process, a few pressfit holes were scewed to a point of there being no sense in finish milling out the piece. Hopefully tomorrow before review I will be able to redo the toolpaths for another milling session.

    To add gray over black fusion is not working for me (silly windows update and error popups, suppose in hindsight I could have used another computer, but that part of the design process wasnt that time consuming.) so I couldnt export any faces from fusion. I thus wanted to get some time with my friend, inkscape.

    I decited also to get some practice with pressfit design in the process, so the whole thing is designed to be sort of pressfitted togeather. Ofcourse I learnt in the process that I should've used fill instead of silly lines since they add to the thickness of the whole design.

    So at this point the model was ready to be scaled down and cut in MDF in the laser cutter. Since the original material thickness depended on 15mm plywood, and I had 4mm MDF the model needed to be scaled down to 26,6667% of the original. Thankfully inkscape supports % scaling.

    After some additional tweeking from problems realized with the minimodel I then went on to make toolpaths for the shopbot. Like stated earlyer the tub made in the composites week was supposed to fit into the bed of the incubator.

    After adding a tool, a bunch of fillets and a 2d profile operation I was ready (or so I thought) to mill.

    8-12 june update:

    I had been thinking for a little time about a mechanism that could keep the water lever steady with a feeder tank. Initially I thought about the principles of syphoning until I realized that that system wouldnt work if I had the feedertank stationed above the plant tub. The principle is used in latrine system, where a float is used to determine when a tank is full or not.

    The first thing to think about is how to make an encased, waterproof system with the mechanism inside, that fits onto my frame. In order to make it seethrough and approaching it the easy way, I thought that using the laser cutter and makercase would suffice.

    I then imported the case into inskcape to modify the walls, fit holes onto them and work on how the float would move within the case. I then made a float in tinkercad and 3d printed it.

    The mechanism taking shape, but needs improvements...

    The control system.

    The basic idea is that the control system input is the heat and humidity, the output is fan and light control and everything sent over ethernet to be monitorable over the internet.

    I had already been working with the wiz 820io in the networking week, but never got it to work properly. I realized today why that is....