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kbrown

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Everything posted by kbrown

  1. kbrown
    Had to do a couple of mods. Added a bracket to hold screws on top of the sensors. They'll serve two purposes: They'll prevent the sensors from moving and also redirect the magnetic fields toward them. Also added a voltage divider from Vin connected to one of the free analog inputs so it's able to detect when running from USB power or external power which is needed to run the motor. Preliminary firmware is now on board. Just need to get the INDI driver in a better place so I can start doing proper tests
  2. kbrown
    I got it to run to next filter on start up and identify it correctly using the hall effect switches I chose. Thanks to a tip in the Arduino forums I was able to "increase the sensitivity" and accuracy of the switches by placing some ferromagnetic metal behind the sensors (just screws stuck on them with blue tack for now :)). This will redirect the magnetic fields towards them making them respond more reliably. Still a whole lot of logic to be programmed and the INDI driver too which I haven't even started yet.
  3. kbrown
    Just about works. Had to move the hall effect switches (Allegro A3144) right against the housing. 1mm further they didn't register the magnets. Let's see if I have to replace them with more sensitive ones... In this test the red led illuminates when at least one of the sensors is active. Time to start writing the firmware and the INDI driver for this...
  4. kbrown
    Finally got to solder it together. Everything seems to work as expected too. Getting somewhere now
  5. kbrown
    Thanks guys. Tonight I made these super high tech plastic component leg formers to aid getting the hall effect switches in the right place
  6. kbrown
    Thought I'd practise a bit more with this dry film photoresist stuff and do a sort of a silk screen legend on the other side of the board. Seems to be really hard to get a nice and even result. This will do for now. Think I'll try ink next time...
  7. kbrown
    Still don't know what it's the best way to apply this dry film solder mask stuff. Failed several times due to various reasons. This is the best I could do. Not perfect but I'm not wasting any more time on this. It'll work just fine...
  8. kbrown
    Finally after struggling for a couple of nights I managed to etch a PCB I can work with. Certainly not the best I've made but not too bad considering this was the first time I used dry film for developing the board. Seems I got a pretty bad roll of it as half of it is so wrinkly it was unusable. Anyhoo I'm going with this even though there's a few spots I have to fix.
  9. kbrown
    Magnets in place. Had to make some space for them inside the housing. So far so good. Here's a basic test of the motor and the mechanics. Everything seems to be working as expected. Plenty of torque, barely any backlash and power consumption is very low when the motor isn't used. Due to the gearing the motor does not need to be energized to hold the current position.
  10. kbrown
    I bought an Opticstar 2" Manual Filter Wheel and the plan is to stick an arduino controlled stepper motor on the wheel perimeter to turn it. Magnets and hall effect switches will be used to keep track of the position and which filter is active. The mechanical design is done using the open source apps LibreCAD and FreeCAD. G-code for my CNC mill is produced using HeeksCAD and the mill itself is controlled by LinuxCNC. Electronic design is done using the awesome KiCad which recently has had a massive boost by the propeller heads at CERN. The mechanics is almost done. Still need to etch the PCB and put it together before the real fun begins writing the firmware Clear skies, K
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