1.5 - Implementation

Our implementation went smoothly, with the exception of belts being tricky to get perfect. A handful of tolerancing changes were made to ensure smooth operation of the mechanism without skipping and over-tightness.

Fabrication and Assembly:

We fabricated our base from 6mm acrylic for its ease of use, visibility, and strength capacity. All other custom-manufactured components were 3D printed with PLA+, settings being dependent on the load on the part. Gears and small fastening components were printed at 100% infill while decorative pieces were printed with sparse 15% infill to optimize the system’s weight.

3D printed parts shrink, so tolerances were added to ensure the usability of through holes, threaded holes, and connections.

During design, we ensured the existence of access holes and considered assembly order, so assembly went seamlessly.

We built our scrubber pad using foam and a rag.

Electronics and Circuitry:

The electronics consisted of an Arduino and a motor controller, both configured to be powered by the same 9V battery. The battery was directly wired into the motor controller, and from the motor controller’s output voltage port the power was transferred to the Arduino. The motor controller was connected to a Greartisan 12V DC motor to give our system the rotational motion the crank required.

Software Development:

Control of our system was handled via Arduino. The software was coded so that the Arduino would tell the motor controller to start turning the motor a few seconds after being connected to the battery. The motor was coded so that it would continue to run until power was disconnected from the system.

We decided this would be the best approach because our system could only move up or down with the proper voltage, so it wasn’t necessary to have complex control methods like joysticks or receivers/transmitters.