Input Devices

Hall Sensor

The assignment for this week is to connect an input device to a cicuit board that we built. Since my final project involves electromagnets, I will be using the Hall sensors we have in the lab to detect the field made from my electromagnet. The end goal is to somehow use the input device to create a feedback loop where the current through the electromagnet will increase or decrease depending on where the levitating steel ball is. After milling the board and adding the components, testing the sensor was pretty straight forward. First, I loaded Niel's Hall sensor program into the board. Next, to test the program, I downloaded CoolTerm to read the serial output from the board. Seeing how the bits changed as I brought a magnet closer to the board.

Trying to understand what the change in bits meant was a bit more complicated, espceially for someone without a coding background. What I deduced from the code is that the last digits is what the magnet affects.

The input device was also largely covered through the hall sensor in my final project.