final project -- weekly assignments -- about me -- fab academy

Week 16: Applications And Implications

What will it do?

Display time and look cool doing it. It's an overfancy clock, with intentionally visible tech in it. Not more, not less.

Who has done what beforehand?

I have experimented with building my own servo drives before, and done some techno-art before. There are tons and tons of clock projects on the net, but sadly, given the time frame, I didn't have much of a chance to get inspired by anyone. I would really love to build a fully mechanical clock at some point, like clickspring does.

What materials and components will be required?

Or, the BOM. The clock is made of:

• 4 motorboards
• 2 microswitches
• 4 small gearmotors
• 4 608 ball bearings
• 4 "digit wheels" showing the digits (3D print)
• 4 "wheel frames" (3D print)
• 4 motor mounts (3D print)
• 1 "centre frame" (3D print)
• 1 "end frame" (3D print)
• 3 pieces of M6 threaded rod, ~300mm each
• 3 domed nuts M6
• 16 Screws M2.5x16
• 16 Nuts M2.5
• 2 Screws M8x25
• 2 domed nuts M8
• 4 M5x14 worm screws
• ~1m USB cable
• Some thin wire for the motors and switches, I used 0.28mm^2 from the lab
• 4 rubber feet
• A front plate, cut from 3mm aluminium foil
• Some 9-12V power supply

Where will they come from?

• The Motorboards:
• PCBs are from Seeed Studio
• Components from Mouser
• The Gear Motors are Pololu Micro Metal Gear Motors 1:250 HPCB bought through Exp-Tech.
• Ball bearings and microswitches from Amazon.
• Filament for 3D printed parts is Verbatim PLA sourced through Reichelt.
• Screws and other Metal Parts are from a local shop, SMK Werther.
• The rubber feet are normal industrial dampening parts sourced from Ganter-Griff.
• The USB cable is from a spool I bought from Reichelt

How much will it cost?

• PCBs motorboard: ~40€ (including import tariffs and fees) for 10, so 4x ~4€
• Components motorboard:
• Gear Motors: 4x 19.90€
• Ball Bearings: 8.99€ for 8 (a set for inline skates), so 4x ~1.13€
• Micro Switches: 4.99€ for 10, so 2x ~0.50€
• Filament for printing: ~25€ for the spool
• Screws and Metal Parts: ~8€
• USB cable: ~1€
• Rubber feet: 4x 0.77€
• Aluminium foil: ~15€
• Power Supply: I had one, but they come in at around 10€

Overall cost: Too much...

What processes will be used?

• Electronics Design & Production
• Embedded Programming
• Input and Output Devices
• Networking & Communications
• Computer Aided Design
• 3D Printing
• Plasma Cutting

What tasks need to be completed?

• Printing of the remaining plastic parts
• Programming so it's a clock and not a group of dumb servos
• Assembling it
• Documenting it and taking a nice video

What other questions need to be answered?

When the f*** will I get sleep? How precise will a clock running off a ceramic resonator be? Why can Amazon not have an RTC module here by tomorrow?

What is the schedule?

As I'm writing this, it's the early morning of June 8th. Cutoff for project documentation is June 11th. That doesn't leave much room for planning.

The overall plan is:

• Printing of 3D printed parts: Ongoing, will run as long as it takes
• Front panel: Some time today, when I can get at the plasma cutter
• Software: Still some work left to do here, should mostly happen Friday / Saturday, depending on how long debugging takes
• Putting everything together: Should happen Saturday if print schedule allows it
• Documentation, Video, writing stuff up: Whenever there is time, but mostly Sunday

How will it be evaluated?

I don't have a specific goal with the clock apart from having it display time... And look cool. So, there is not that much to evaluate apart from that.

Week16: Applications and Implications - Original Version

For my final project, I want to build a tool that I need, and that I don't have. Furthermore, it's a tool I couldn't even buy if I were to have a lot of money to spare.

I want to build a placer for stuffing circuit boards. It must be able to lift up components, and put them in the right place, in the right orientation. I want to build a placer that is manually controlled, as I often do single prototypes, often with less than complete data about the boards, so full automation would be a problem. I want a placer that allows me to see what I'm doing - With a camera that has enough resolution and is close enough so I can actually place the parts where they belong, without hurting my back by crouching over it. And I want to build a placer that is electrically driven, so I can build in whatever automation I end up liking.

Extra functions like applying solder paste might follow up in the future, and I want the placer to be a flexible enough design to deal with that.

Scope Of The Project

What is it good for?

Stuffing prototype PCBs. Not much more. An extra function to directly "print" into photosensitive PCBs for etching might be nice, but difficult for safety reasons.

Who came before me?

There are few projects who build placers for doing single boards, without all the setup time of a fully automated system. A notable example from last year is on hackaday and supplied the idea for a small vacuum pump. Sadly, the pump used there is not available here.

There is half a ton of self-built, fully automated placer systems, some of which are at near industrial size and speed. I really liked this project of a feeder, and might leech some ideas from it for getting components out of their tapes.

Materials required

Since the mechanical design is not even done yet, I can't really put much in here yet.

Project Cost

Since the mechanical design is not even done yet, I can't really put much in here yet.

Project Plan

As I'm writing this, it's June 1st. I have a huge project, that I have already invested a lot of time and thinking into, and that I want to see finished. I couldn't work on anything fabacademy related for the last six weeks, due to real life work pushing in. There is a lot, and I mean a lot, left to do. Cutoff date for the documentation is June 11th. I have now taken time off to finish this, but it will be tight, very tight, at best. So, for now, there is no plan.

I do, of course, have an Idea of what I want to do in which order: First, I want to get the electronics of my final project tested far enough that I'm confident everything works. With the motorboards, I am at that stage. The brain boards have not been run yet... They can be replaced, though, if things really go wrong.

Then, I want to build the mechanics. I have an idea and a bunch of sketches of how they should work and look. Those have to be put into CAD, printed / built and tested.

Then, everything can be combined, documented and a video taken of it.

That is, however, very little of a plan. And it's bound to change, as I'm not working in a vacuum. Thing go wrong (like they did today, with my car being stuck in the shop while I would have needed to go pick up raw materials), and I have to work around that. Things will be interesting.

final project -- weekly assignments -- about me -- fab academy