Fab Academy 2017 | Soh Hong Guan

Exercise 17 Applications and Implications (Project Planning)

Assignment Requirements

Propose a final project that integrates the range of units covered
Answer the following questions

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?

Final Project Proposal

In my final project conceptualization notes; I briefly mentioned my intention to customize and build a laptop stand which is of the right size for my HP Envy 15 TS laptop. At the same time I was hoping to gain enough knowledges on electronic and electrical to enable me to integrate the laptop stand with remote control to turn on LED lighting.

As the months passed, and we have gone through numerous electronics pcb production and programming; I found that I might be able to embark on the customization of my very own laptop stand. Through further observation and monitoring, I found that my laptop when being placed on my wooden table tends to be rather hot on the underneath that touches the wooden table. From the observation, another idea sparks of which I would like to have some sort of fan system to be integrated into my laptop stand aside to the elevation to promote better airflow for heat dessipation.

The ideas were further break down into subfunctions that I might want my laptop stand to have.

What will it do?

The laptop stand should at the minimum provide some ellevation from the computer working table and with fan ventilation system for cooling down of the laptop as a whole. From this simple concept statement, I further break down to sub function like at what temperature the(thermistor sensing input) automatic circuit should triggered to turn on the output fans to cool down the laptop. Secondarily, I would hope to turn on my LED lighting either automatically/ muanually using either a remote control or user interface on the laptop.

Who has done what beforehand?

There are quite a number of projects on customization of personal laptop stand. I suppose that it was attributed to personal preferences on working space organizarion and different in sizes of laptops/ macbooks/chromebook/ android notebooks that people embark on the making of their own laptop stand. In my conceptualization page of final project proposal, I posted a share youtube video where Winston- the makers who customized his laptop stand for his macbook; to get himself organised with limited working space. After the short youtube video sharig by Winston, there are another ten others laptop stand projects video.

Winston's Laptop Stand Video Sharing

View of other laptop stand video sharing on youtube.

Those inspiring projects sort of give me ideas and concepts to build mine. In particularly, the instructional video sharing by Taylor Stein using Fusion 360 in designing a lasercut laptop stand as follow:

Designing a Lasercut Laptop Stand with Fusion 360

What materials and components will be required? | How much will it cost? | Where will they come from? | What parts and systems will be made? | What processes will be used?

A simple laptop stand project like this would most probably involved mechinal design of the carcas of the laptop stand using Fusion 360. I was thinking of using laser cut to produce the customise laptop stand. The material that I intended to use is non other than salvage/reuse plywood from students discarded project.
Similarly, there would be electronic design of electronic circuit and pcb fabrication. I have planned to use most of my electronic components obtained from the supplies of Fab Inventory. As for and holder of lighting and fan I intended to use laser cut and 3D printing. Possible materials required would be transparent acrylic for light holder and plywood for fan housing.

Unit	Materials/ Components	Supplier	Cost (SGD)	Made/ Purchase/Recycle	Processes
-	Accesories:	-	-	Reuse, Recycle, Reduce	3Rs
1	LED light	Ikano Store	7.50	Reuse	Output
2	SPDT Relay Module	SEA Taobao Store online	2	Purchase	Output
1	AC Fan	DIY Store	20	Salvaged	Output
1	USB to FDTI board	Digi-Key	18	Salvaged	Input, Output, Networking, Interface
-	Laptop Stand:	-	-	Made	3D/2D Design, Laser Cutting, Fixture
1	Plywood (600x450mmx5mm)	Horme Hardware	5.0/pc	Salvaged	Computer controlled machining
-	Microcontroller Board:	-	-	Made	Input, Output, Networking, Interface
1	2x3 pin header for programming	Element 14	0.20	Purchased	-
1	ATtiny85	Element 14	1.50	Purchased	-
1	FTDI Header	Element 14	0.20	Purchased	-
2	2x2 pin header for Relay Module	Element 14	0.40	Purchased	-
2	Resistor (10k)	Element 14	0.40	Purchased	-
1	Capacitor (1uf)	Element 14	0.20	Purchased	-
1	NTC 10K Thermistor	Element 14	0.40	Purchased	-
2	PCB Copper Board	FabLab Inventory	0.36	Purchased	-


		Total	56.16
		Total Spending	5.66

Bill of Materials

What tasks need to be completed?

Mechanical design of physical laptop stand in Fusion 360 and prepare the DXF files for laser cutting.
Designing circuitry schematic and board design on EAGLE.
Designing the circuitry and housing of external bypass/ control switch.
Programming the microcontroller to monitor temperature and triggered automatically a fan for cooling of laptop either in arduino IDE or C progamming.
Designing and fabricating a housing for the PCB circuitry using 3D printing technology?
Designing and faricating of housing to incorporate/ keep the lighting.
The actual assembly of the electronic and mechanical components into a working prototype.

What questions need to be answered?

What is the size of mechanical designed frame that is effective to provide an inclination/ ellevation to the laptop?
How to design circuitry for automatically triggered the on/off of fan and manual on/off of both fan and lighting?
What type of fan/LED lighting should be used? DC external of AC External? 5V or 12V?
What other components/ modules are required to provide enough electrical current to the circuitry intended to design for this project?
How will the type of output devices affect my circuitry design?
How to code the programme to do what I want it to do?

What is the schedule?

Weeks/ Checkpoints	Questions	Tasks	Remarks
01 Electronics 6/6/16	Is the design appropriate? Are the components available? Is the schematic design workable?	Confirm Design Gather components Start electronics design Mill & Assemble microcontroller board Program and test board Program and test interface	Starting from 31st May 2017
02 Model Assemblage 12/6/17	Any further refinments before proceeding? Need to fabricate any prototype? Need to test out the choice of LED lights and Choice of Fan?	Refine design if neccessary Create prototype Test Both LED and Fan selected Determined the housing design and prototype. Complete assemblage	Tasks interchangable with Week 01
03 Final Touchups/ Improvements 16/6/17	Anything else to improve on? Documentation complete? Suggestions for future developments?	Review final product Review Documentation Review future developments. Suggest possiblities.	Presenting on either 14th, 16th, 19th, 21st June 2017

Project Timeline

How will it be evaluated?

Successful design and fabricating of laptop stand of the approriate size and provide an elevation for better airflow.
Circuit designed should be able to automatic turning on/of fan using thermistor sensor feedback.
User interface created (with VB.net)should be able to manually control the ON/OFF fan (Bypass thermistor circuit even below triggering temperature) and ON/OFF of LED lighting.