ME 374 Mechatronics Lab

This is an overview of the system you are building for your first project. From day to day, you will be building each of the small components shown in the block diagram.

from http://science.howstuffworks.com/electricity.htm

from http://www.launc.tased.edu.au/online/sciences/PhysSci/done/electric/acdc/ACDC.htm

Pinouts, circuit diagrams, and other visuals that are helpful throughout the thermochamber project.

Basic Soldering Instructional Video

from: —http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/202

from http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/209

Select desired voltage drop and current of diode based on 1) desired light level (use LED spec sheet) and 2) power/voltage available from source (use sources spec sheet).  You can fry both the LED and part of the source by making the desired current larger than the item allows.

We are not using this approach for this course.

If you are interested in learning about microcontrollers and coding in Assembly and C, this would be good to look into.

Taken from the Arduino Programming Notebook v6

How to properly ground your Arduino in a variety of situations. 

www.tele.pitt.edu/resources/lab_manuals/laboscope.pdf

Identify the COM Port your computer uses and how to communicate through the COM port using PuTTY.

This is only an excerpt from the user manual.

The complete manual can be found at: http://akizukidenshi.com/download/ds/owon/PDS%20Series%20USER_MANUAL.pdf

Very basic explanation of how ideal operational amplifiers work and can be used.

Be sure to do mostly everything in this Powerpoint. A common test frequency in the audio world is a 1000 Hz.

A Hack-a-Day tutorial on using the arduino to find the capacitance of a capacitor.

Explains some details about the circuit constructed in the powerpoint.

Do not remove silicon likely will break off resistor. Pictures show how it looks with silicon removed. 

MW Fall 2014

Taken from Arduino Programming Notebook v6

A simplified code for changing and displaying the temperature set point.

Simplified Arduino code for graphing the set point.

This code as a more intelligent output to the LCD, which only occurs when the set point is changed and every 250th cycle for the current temperature.  This makes the temperature readable, and decreases the work done by the Arduino each iteration.

This sample code can be used if you're having trouble getting your relay and fan to work together.

After creating an account with Adafruit, you can access facilities on Adafruit.io to control IoT devices from the web and send data to the web. You should have the Arduino send data to the Huzzah via serial communication. This data is what the Huzzah sends over to Adafruit.io.

This tutorial uses the cheaper model of the Adafruit Huzzah which has some slightly different settings then the real one. Make sure you select the right board in arduino or else this model will not work.

Setting Up Secured WiFi

Introduction to C programming on the Butterfly including Serial Connection, Terminal Use,  Programmers Notepad and Introduction to AVR-Studio.  Nice getting started tutorial.

Detailed Product Manual

Learn how to could a microcontroller in C.  Ideas work on all microcontrollers.

A tutorial for designing and simulating circuits in Altium.