Interfacing
Overview:
The integration of the mechanical and electrical components was achieved almost exclusively through the motor that was connected to the protoboard via 28AWG wires with the voltage adjusted via a voltage divider to achieve a voltage of 5V. Control of the motor occurs directly via an Infrared (IR) sensor found in the entrainment and was connected to the protoboard. The feedback bridge between the protoboard and the software was accomplished via a DB25 ribbon cable. The software controlling the entire system was written in C++. With the above accomplished the user was able to input the number of pills needed and the machine dispensed the required dosage.
The next step in the integration process was to integrate the Blood Testing Subsystem (BTS) into the overall system. Communication between the blood testing subsystem and the software was paramount. The BTS sent packets of information to the operating software of the dispensing mechanism. The packets sent then had to be processed to identify the patients INR value. Once this value was identified it was save and used for the dispensing of the IUD.
The photos below illustrate the integration.
Trouble
Shooting:
Electrical
Problems arose from the definition of pin locations and actual locations that were assigned to those pins on the protoboard. This was attributed to the fact that there were two different people working on the circuitry and the software. Debugging was made possible by the circuitry and software playing off of each other to determine the problems of one through the other. This process was accomplished in one evening and all the kinks were ironed out.
Mechanical
A mechanical problem arose after the controls were sorted when the first worm was utilized, the delrin worm, sheared off of the shaft and was rendered useless. After the fact that too much force was being generated by the system to stay with the delrin worm it was decided that a steel worm with a setscrew would be utilized for the design.