Week Four - Batteries Included...?
29 November 2019
Week four was Thanksgiving break, but we still managed to get quite a bit done! Right before break started, we went through the painstaking effort of soldering two pairs of three neopixels together. This proved to be quite difficult, due to the pads being horizontal to each other. In the end (and after about two and a half hours of working) we had the two sets finished, and in working condition.
Over the break itself we started assembling our cut pieces, and affixing the LEDs to the fan blades. This went smoothly, but when it came to testing, we ran into a couple problems. We struggled with—and are currently still struggling with—maintaining a consistent RPM, due to the Hall Effect Sensor needing a stronger magnet for proper RPM testing. We also need to work on an issue we are having with the transistor, which at the moment, is limiting our ability to create a constant RPM. In order to counteract these issues and begin writing the software required (until we have the proper components to continue fixing the physical model) we have been using various batteries to try to achieve a workable RPM (albeit, not very consistent). This is going well for now, but there is still work to be done!
Stay tuned for next week to see what progress we make then!