Week 3/17-3/21

So this week I didn't work on the shopping cart at all because I still don't have the pedals so there wasn't anything I had left to do until I order the pedals and order more steel for the roll cage. With that I started a little mini project for this week which is similar to a lightbox but serves a different purpose. I am currently going to ceramics club and I'm making some things that I want the inside to be lit up so I thought I'd make a box for them to sit on which would light them up.

I drew up a picture of what I wanted the box to look like and got it modeled quickly in CAD and then I got it all cut out in wood and put together in the picture above. I went with a simple design of the t slot box because it is really quick to model and simple to assemble. After assembling I got the box all glued and spray painted black. I also attached the acrylic pieces which allow you to see inside. I just thought it would be a nice touch like on the zoetrope.

After getting the box basically fully assembled I decided I wanted to change the power source from a battery to instead a USB because this isn't really going to be moving a lot of places and is much simpler to design. The change was quick I just added a hole for the micro USB port to mount on the acrylic and got that recut and reassembled.

Once the box was really complete I moved onto the electronics which were very simple. I wired up 4 LEDs on a breadboard to test the circuit and it eventually worked when I wired 2 sets of 2 LEDs in series in parallel with each other which worked. The pcbs themselves were pretty simple, to get the LEDs up and out of the box where I want them to be I have to put them on a tiny pcb which will then connect back to a larger pcb by wire.

While writing this however I am realizing I forgot to use the resistor component in the schematic so it might be a tight fit for the resistor. These pcbs are extremely tiny as well because they don't have too much going on just mostly 2 pin headers connecting everything together. Today I plan on getting everything soldered and crimped and the box will be done and next week I hopefully can get back on the shopping cart project with the pedals.