Build Instructions

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• 1

  Design

  At first I saw a lot of professional projects that wasn’t able to implement because the complexity of it.

  Then I decided to see to make my own product inspired by the other projects, so I used Google Sketch up 2017 pro. each part was designed to assemble beside each other in a specific order as shown in the next picture.

  And before assembling it I had to test the parts and choose the suitable soldering iron, this happen by drawing a virtual finishing project as a guide for me.

  These draws shows the actual finishing life size shape and the correct dimensions of each part to choose the right soldering iron.

• 2

  Operating and Installation

  During the work I faced some obstacles we have to announce about it.

  1. The arms was too heavy to be hold by the small stepper motors, and we fixed this in the next version or laser cut print.

  2. Because the model was made from plastic material the friction of rotating base was high and the movements wasn’t smooth.

  The first solution was to buy a bigger stepper motor that able to bear the weight and friction, and we re-designed the base to fit a bigger stepper motor.

  Actually the problem stills and the bigger motor did not fix it, and that was because the friction between two plastic surfaces beside we can't adjust the pot by percent. The maximum rotation position is not the maximum current that the driver can provide. You must use the technique shown by the manufacturer, where you measure the voltage while turning the pot.

  Then I resorted to change the base design totally and put a servo motor with metal gear instated of gears mechanism.

  3. voltage

  The Arduino board can be supplied with power either from the DC power jack (7 - 12V), the USB connector (5V), or the VIN pin of the board (7-12V). Supplying voltage via the 5V or 3.3V pins bypasses the regulator, and we decided to buy special USB cable that support 5 volt from the PC or any power supply.

  so The stepper motors and the other components works properly with only 5 volt and to secure the parts from any problem we fix step down module.

  The step down module is a buck converter (step-down converter) is a DC-to-DC power converter which steps down voltage (while stepping up current) from its input (supply) to its output (load) and also keep the stability or the voltage.

• 3

  Modifications

  After some modifications we changed the design of the model by reducing arms size and make a suitable hole for servo motor gear as shown.

  And while testing the servo motor succeeded to rotate the weight 180 degrees correctly because its high torque means a mechanism is able to handle heavier loads. How much turning force a servomechanism can output depends on design factors—supply voltage, shaft speed, etc.

  Also using I2c was nice because it only uses two pins, and you can put multiple i2c devices on the same two pins. So for example, you could have up to 8 LCD backpacks+LCDs all on two pins! The bad news is that you have to use the 'hardware' i2c pin.

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