Project Development
Project Development
Hello! welcome to my last and final blog for this module, Project development
Our chemical device
In this day and age of the growth and development of the world, the construction and fabrication of materials and parts are very common. Many parts in buildings and other projects require welding, soldering, melting, and burning of materials. With burning comes combustion whereby Oxygen, mixed with fuel, will produce carbon dioxide. Carbon Dioxide is relatively harmless but combustion will inherently always produce Carbon Monoxide due to incomplete combustion.
Carbon Monoxide can also be produced during cooking. Common household appliances such as gas boilers and gas cookers or even clay ovens are all susceptible to producing CO if they are not operated correctly. This harmful gas binds to the red blood cells and hinders their oxygen intake which will cause oxygen deprivation. In most cases, CO poisoning will cause nausea, dizziness, and vomiting among other things but in serious cases, it can even cause death.
However, there is one trait that makes this gas so deadly, and it is mainly because it is colourless and odourless, so there is no way for a person to know whether they are breathing in carbon monoxide. Therefore we created a device named Carbon Monoxide (CO) Detection and Removal System(CODRS), this device will be placed above confined work stations where welding or soldering takes place.
How it works
Motor house to hold the fan motor and is connected to wall
How the box looks like from the outside
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Inside view
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In normal operations, the CO gas sensor will be switched on at all times, while the LED lights and fan remains off.
The CO gas sensor at the bottom of the box will detect the concentration of CO in the room, when the level of CO reaches dangerous levels, it will send a signal to the Arduino board and the Arduino will make the LED lights flicker continuously as well as switch on the fan. The fan will then suck air through the vents and blow it out of the room
Team planning, allocation and execution
Team members:
Clive (me) - Chief Safety Officer (CSO)
Joelle - Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Reinard - Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Adyl - Chief Operating officer (COO)
Finalized Bill Of Materials (BOM)
Planned & Final Gantt chart
Task allocation
Design & build process
Part 1: Design & print of Base and Gears + Rods (Done by me)
These designs are based off Reinard's sketches: LINK to Reinard's blog
Design of base:
Step 1: Create a 125mm x 125mm square
Step 2: Split the square equally into 4 parts and draw a 28.75mm construction line from the top
Step 3: Draw a 5mm x 5mm square at the end of the construction line drawn in step 2
Step 4: Repeat step 3 twice for each segment of the initial square
This is what the base should look like after all the small squares have been drawn
Step 5: Press 'E' on the keyboard and select all the small squares and extrude them by 9mm
Step 6: Extrude the rest of the square by 5mm
YAY, we are almost done!
Now we want to add in the holes so that this base can act as a vent
Step 7: Draw a 3mm x 5mm rectangle at one corner of the base
Step 8: Pull down the create option and select 'rectangular pattern'
Step 9: extend the holes in the directions right and down and place 8 holes in each direction. Totaling to 64 holes
Step 10: Select all the holes and extrude them by -5mm, make sure they extrude in such a way that it cuts the base entirely
Final BASE DONE!!!
Design of gears
Step 1: Select utilities and select add-ins
Step 2: Select the second SpurGear option (the most bottom one)
Step 3: Select parameters shown above
Step 4: Create another identical gear using steps 1-3
Step 5: create a 5mm circle on the gear as shown above
Step 6: Extrude the circle by 10mm, this will be the handle to turn the gear
The gears are done!!
Design of rods to hold the gears
Step 1: Draw two circles 1.5mm in diameter each
Step 2: Extrude each circle by 10mm
rods are doooneee ~
3D printing
To prepare the file for 3D printing, We have to first export the file as a .stl file.
Next, open up Ultimaker Cura and adjust to these settings
Plug in a thumb drive and slice the file, save to removable drive afterwards.
(REMEMBER TO SAVE AS A GCODE file!!)
Apply the same settings for the gear and rods file as well
Short video of the base printing
Picture of the Rods printing
Hero shot
Base
Gears
Rods
Part 2: Design & laser cut of walls and print motor house (done by Joelle)
Link to Joelle's blog: https://cp5070-2022-2b03-group1-joelle-choo.blogspot.com/p/project-development.html
Part 3: Coding of Electronics (Done by Adyl)
Link to Adyl's blog: https://adyl20044.wixsite.com/cp5070-2022-2b03-gro/copy-of-new-page
Part 4: Integration of all parts and electronics (Done by everyone)
Now that we have all the parts prepared by everyone, we will now use acrylic glue in W3 to assemble all the pieces into one
The pictures above show how we planned to make the final box look like
This is how the motor is going to fit into the motor house
Video of Adyl using the acrylic glue to stick the motor house clip onto the wall of the box
me trying to sand the holes to make them more even and smooth
This is the final product without the internal parts, we put tape to secure the pieces and prevent them from moving around while the glue is drying
Next we would be doing up refinements of the final product
Adyl and Reinard pasting in the components
I also cut out a 70mm circle to act as a cover for the fan hole but we did not take pictures
Here is a video of our final prototype working
Hero shots:
Final CAD design
Finalized Fusion 360 file
Video of gears moving
Video of 'explosion' of parts
Problems and solutions
Problem #1
The first problem we had was that the printing of the box takes too long because our initial dimensions were 15cm x 15 cm x 15cm. So it was a relatively large box.
Our solution to this problem was to re-size it and make it smaller. We changed the dimensions to 12.5cmx 12.5cm x 12.5cm
Problem #2
Our second problem was that 3D printing the rest of the box (everything but the base) takes too long because we had 4 walls + 1 cover to print and each of them takes about 2 hours to 3D print.
Thus our solution was to laser cut the walls and cover so as to save time. Although there was a downside of our thickness reducing from 5mm to 3mm. However we figured that this would not affect us as the joineries were still able to connect properly.
Problem #3
The problem we had was that we did not have holes at the base to allow for the Arduino power supply and hole to put the gas sensor through
Thus our solution was to drill 2 holes into the base
Problem #4
The Initial servo code made the back and forth swinging of the servo too inconsistent to act as a fan
the solution: Reviewed code with previous iterations of code done in practicals and practises and edited the accordingly
Problem #5
When using the servo, the arduino could not be programmed to run the servo swing and the LED simultaneously. the servo would only operate despite the LED’s code being uploaded as well.
Solution: We looked through the arduino kit and realised that there is a transistor, after consulting Dr Noel, and just changed the servo into the intended motor
Project design files as downloadable files
Learning reflection
The very first thing i want to reflect on about is how things do not always work out. This is because this problem kept haunting me over and over again throughout this project. Especially during the CAD design phase.
During the CAD design phase, Joelle and i actually had to re-design our box a few times.
This was actually our very first intended design, we wanted to have a sliding gate to allow for easy access to the inside of the box. However when we finished this first drawing, we realised that it is not realistic to 3D print nor laser cut this design because it was one whole body to print/cut and it had very big dimensions (15cm x15cm x15cm)
Thus we had to redesign the whole box into such a way that it can be broken down into smaller pieces to allow for easier and faster printing. This actually made us feel very 'sian' because we had to think of another way of designing the box. However i would not take this as an annoying obstacle but a good learning checkpoint because in the newer designs, we managed to include joineries which we learnt in ICPD and CPDD.
Also, this project gave me more practice in drawing in fusion 360 and it allowed me to explore more functions of fusion 360. This is because the last time i used fusion 360 was in the egg drop challenge for ICPD and i forgot most of what i have leant, so i had to spend some time re-learning all the different functions along with a few new ones. For example, when i had to create the holes for the vents, i had to search up on Youtube on how to draw it and that taught me how to use the pattern function. I also learnt how to use shortcuts such as 'E' for extrude, 'C' for circle, 'R' for rectangle and so on.
Thus with the end of this prototyping project, i am confident enough to say that i am fluent in fusion 360
Another learning point that i would like to say is that everything can be done in an efficient way. This is because when we were planning to 3D print the whole box, Mr Louis from FabLab at T14 actually questioned us on why we wanted to 3D print the walls when we can just laser cut, which could save us almost 10 hours of our time (5 parts taking 2 hours to 3D print each). This made me re-consider my decisions because i realised that changing our design from 3D print to laser cutting actually does not affect our final prototype and we get to save a whole day's worth of time. Therefore i would like to take this opportunity to learn from my mistakes and try to explore other more efficient methods of doing things before actually doing them.
From this project i also realised that ideas in my head are very different when drawn out or executed in real life. While i was brainstorming with Reinard on how to implement a mechanism into our product(because nearing the end of the project we realised we did not have one), i though of using gears to allow for the motor house inside to move.
but when i thought about how we were going to connect these parts, i realised that one of the parts neeeded to be moving freely to allow the motor house to move, and there was no way we could make that work unless we drill a hole into the acrylic. Therefore in the future i will keep in mind to draw out or use objects to help me visualize things better.
The last learning point that i would like to say is that i should start on projects since day 1. In ICPD, the egg drop challenge i did was very last minute and we had to rush and compete with others to print our product. This made me wake up at 5 in the morning just so i can reach W3 in time to get a slot to print our product, because the first prototype is not always perfect, i had to come early to school multiple times just to get the project done. However i can proudly say that in this CPDD project, i did not make the same mistake and started on the project early. This gave us more time to be able to do troubleshooting and lighten the weight of the amount of stress.
Although there is one thing i regret and that is that my documentations skills are still honed to my desired level. After going through the photos and videos, i realised that i did not really take a lot of pictures to capture my progress. Because there are no other blog entry requirements, i would like to give myself a small assignment to do and that is to document the rest of my journey in SP. This is because i feel that it is very important to keep track my the milestones i have reached so that i can remind myself how far i have come whenever i feel discouraged in future endeavours.
Another thing i regret is not having the chance to refine my coding skills, this is because we were split into different tasks and i did not really have a chance to know how the codes work. As much as i hate coding, i still think it is a valuable skill that could come in handy in the future.
With that, i would like to end off this blog with a quote
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