This week I decided to try to create a really dramatic output device that would show a simulated explosion and implosing using a DC motor.
I wanted to program the motor to go backward and forward in sequence.
I built the H-bridge board of Neil's design:
I encountered several problems:
- had to change the order of the commands to use the fab module (but I've since heard that the website has been updated)
-backward H-bridge burned of a few of my fingerprints (now I can get away with all my crimes!)
-replacement of chip and regulator
-7 hours of debugging to make sure pcb and connection were working properly (which they are)
After all of this the board still would not program. What I know at the moment is that there are no bugs and the programing process runs but encounters an error in the process of verification. I am not sure if this is a design problem with the board, but I am hesitant to build the same one again, as I believe it might encounter the same problem.
I then switched to creating a tilt switch (Thank you Jie!) which will at least allow my machine to operated in essentially the same way that originally intended.
I think that this is an interesting excersize, as it does show the potential of simple electronics and mechanics to accomplish something that would have taken much longer with an accelerometer and and a microcontroller.
I found that the motor is not strong enough to function when anything is attached to it, so that ruled out the explosion implosion idea. Now it is just a big shiny tilty toy:
See a video here: