Piedmont Virginia Community College
Fall 2018 | M 3:30-6:00 PM
Syllabus
Documentation Guidelines
Fall 2018 Open Lab Hours
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ETR140 - Mechatronics:
Presents foundational concepts in mechatronics including analog and digital electronics, sensors, actuators, microprocessors, and microprocessor interfacing to electromechanical systems. Surveys components and measurement equipment used in the design, installation, and repair of mechatronic equipment and circuits.
Skills:
Soldering Comic - MightyOhm
Breadboard Intro - Sparkfun
Resources:
Boards Manager URL: https://adafruit.github.io/arduino-board-index/package_adafruit_index.json
Welcome to Mechatronics! This is where much of the class material will be posted. I will email each week to remind you.
It was wonderful meeting everyone and beginning our first step into microcontrllers using the Arduino platform. We were also introduced to Fritzing as a design tool for creating project breadboard and schematics. We had a small goal in class of developing a blinking light and coding this from scratch. Everyone was successful in this area and pushed forward. Included below are examples for the pushbutton and light combination. There are included fritzing diagrams, firmware files, and videos to help you refresh your memory! Below are some links and resources to help keep you going...
Resources:
Arduino Pushbutton + LED - Fritzing
Arduino Pushbutton + LED - Breadboard PNG
Arduino Pushbutton + LED - Arduino Firmware
Part 1: Arduino Pushbutton + LED - Fritzing Setup
Part 2: Arduino Pushbutton + LED - Coding Video
Additional Board to Arduino IDE
Arduino Tutorials
Arduino Tutorial Series - Adafruit
Adafruit 32u4 Basic Proto - Arduino IDE Setup
We dove right in! Class was filled with new supplies, finishing our button example from the previous class, connecting a motor to the board, and lastly soldering the pins to the Featherboard 32u4 microcontroller. We spent time troubleshooting examples, building our drawings, and creating the firmware necessary to build the next projects.
Resources:
DC Motor Control Circuit - Fritzing
DC Motor Control Circuit - Image
DC Motor Control Circuit - Firmware Arduino
TIP120 NPN Transistor - Datasheet
DC Motor, How it Works? - LearnEngineering
Transistor Motor Control - Arduino.cc
Adafruit Feather 32u4 - Pinout Diagram
Transistors - Sparkfun
Our goal today was to complete the motor switching circuit. We will program this next class. Refer to the previous class for documentation on building your circuit. We used the power supply to power the motor and the 3.3V logic to control the switching transistor with PWM (Pulse Width Modulation). We used this class to catch up a bit and finish our circuits, while building our last few boards.
Resources:
PWM- Wikipedia
We had listed 4 potential goals for class today building on all of the previous classes:
DC Motor Control w/TIP120
Add speed control through software (HINT: analogWrite(pin,255);)
Add indicator lights for motor on/off, user input with a pushbutton
Add a temperature sensor to the mix. When the temperature changes, let's look at how the fan speed changes...
Resources:
TMP36-Datasheet
DC Motor + TMP36 - Fritzing
DC Motor + TMP36 - Breadboard
Using a Temperature Sensor - Adafruit
Example Temperature & Motor Code - Arduino
Today we focused on basic servo control using a small 9g Servo and the Adafruit 32u4 Basic Proto. Our first set of goals for the servo control included:
Manually rotate the servo based on a potentiometer's position
Add to previous circuit, a pushbutton that automates certain servo movement
Resources:
Feather 32u4 - Arduino IDE Setup
Arduino and Servo Control - Adafruit
Pushbutton - Arduino
Today we are working on developing a radio module that will communicate via LoRa (Long Range) RF the temperature and humidity of an area. We will solder the temperature and humidity modules on the board, design an enclosure that will fit the battery, and create some example code to begin the process of communicating back and forth. You are to pick a group and send information back and forth to test the modules. Follow the below Adafruit tutorial for setting up your board, preparing it in the Arduino IDE, and generating some communication back and forth. Using the RadioHead Library to communicate, remember that pins 8, 4, and 3 are used by the RF module. You also need to install Arduino SAMD boards AND Adafruit SAMD boards in Boards Manager.
Resources:
Feather M0 + LoRa Module Tutorials
Feather M0 LoRa - Pinout Diagram
RadioHead Arduino Library
MCP9808 Temp/Hum Sensor Module Guide - Adafruit
Adafruit MCP9808 Library - zip
We are going to be finalizing our temperature sensor nodes. We will create addresses for each of the nodes and send the temperature data to the server. Everyone can finish soldering and creating an enclosure on the laser cutter. We will be adding the temperature sensor data, sending over the RF nodes and collecting the data on a computer.
Resources:
MCP9808 Temp/Hum Sensor Module Guide - Adafruit
Adafruit MCP9808 Library - zip
Feather M0 + MCP9808 - Breadboard
Feather M0 + MCP9808 - Fritzing
Feather M0 + MCP9808 Client - Firmware Example
Feather M0 + MCP9808 Server - Firmware Example
Client Project Enclosure (Laser Cutter) - SVG
Server Project Enclosure (Laser Cutter) - SVG
Board Modules & Mounting