weekly team blog for 6/20-6/24

6-20-16

Our team came up with a new design for the half bogie that implemented a jack mechanism inside it, so that the bogie would be easier to take off the track and perform preventive maintenance on it. The design went through a review and we had to take into consideration of the torque between each half bogie. Our next goal involving the design of the bogie is to test it on the solidworks track. The control systems subteam researched the circuitry and wiring configurations of the motor and its’ controller. The circuit board that was given had to be debugged to make sure all the components on it were working correctly.The wire configurations had to be debugged due to a faulty battery and incorrect connections of the phase pins from the controller to the motor. The fail safe mechanism and the propulsion system of pushing the motor up against the ceiling was researched and brainstormed. The team also started researching how brakes work and how to implement them onto the motor.

6-21-16

Some changes were made to the design due to our new design of the bogie not fitting properly on the track. The team also began implementing or designing new joints and links on solidworks to connect the two half bogies together. The most important of one was an universal joint that had to be designed, since we couldn’t use a Mcmaster download. This universal joint will be used to make the motion of each half bogie independent of one another and remove the torque between when switching. We were able to get the motor to spin at different speeds using the throttle. To show more detail involving our research and brainstorming of the fail safe mechanism and the propulsion system, a few sketches were drawn of how we would implement these features. Some calculations were performed involving the braking system to determine, which brake would be the best for the motor and the project.

6-22-16

The two halfs of the bogie were put together on solidworks using the new joints and links that were made. Then the new assembled bogie was placed on the solidworks model of the track to run simulations to test it. There were some issues with putting it on the track, so the dimensions of the bogie and track were measured and changed to solve these issues. Basic programs were uploaded to the an Arduino to see how the motor and its’ controller would respond. We were able to get the motor to spin at a constant speed using these basic programs.

6-23-16

 After brainstorming with the team, we decided to change the design of the connection between the bogies. We initially had a universal joint connecting a metal rod in between each bogie, but we changed it to a ball and socket joint. We began developing a program that would spin the motor at different speeds based on the tracks geometry