Final Project Journal

Project Ideation

1- Tell us about the idea of your project. Why do you care about this? What were you inspired by? Include images and videos of similar projects

Reference: Simple Dual Axis Solar Tracker : 23 Steps (with Pictures) - Instructables

I care about this idea because I believe that we have to start to minimize our use of nonrenewable energy sources which are limited and cause a lot of pollution.

Project Construction

2- Explain the CAD process of your project. How did you use the software to design your project? (List the softwares/tools/materials...etc that you used)

Software:

Fusion 360 for the design.
RD Works for laser cutting preparation.

Design Process

Sketching:

Enclosure parts:

Base sketch

Firstly, I started to draw sketches of 6 sides of the design, so I started my design process by, determining the dimensions of the box, I choose to be something around 20*25*15cm, and here is the first side that I started to draw.

In this sketch I was drawing by following the following methodology:

Drawing: using the following commands:

Line (L)
Rectangle (R)
Mirror
Circle

Modification: using the following commands:

fillet
Trim

Fully defining: using the following tools

Dimensions
Constraints

I followed the same methodology as before in drawing the other sketches

Front Side

Back side

Top side

Right & Left sides

Tracker Parts:

Base of horizontal servo

Horizontal axe

Vertical servo holder

1st Light axe

Supprort

Vertical support

Panel holder

Solar panel sheet

2nd Light axe

Extrusion:

Now, This is the time to extrude all sketches which I drew to transfer them into 3D parts to be able to assembly them with each other by using the feature "Extrude".

Assembly:

Finally, I started to assemble all parts by using the feature "Assemble" as "Joints" to be able to attach all of them to each other in the right position.

3- Explain the fabrication process of your project. How did you use the machine to fabricate your project? (List the softwares/tools/materials...etc that you used)

Machines:

El Malky ML1390 CO2 Laser Cutter.

Tools:

Screwdriver
Caliper
Sandpaper

Material:

Plywood sheet 0.3*30*50 cm.

Fabrication Process

Preparation for Cutting:

Fusion 360:

After finishing my Sketches on fusion 360 I saved them as *.dxf files to be ready to import them to RD Works software.

RD Works:

After saving files in the format *Dxf, I imported them into RD Works to set the parameters of the cutting process.

Setting the parameters:

I selected the layer parameters according to the following factors:

processing mode: cut
Speed of cutting: 25 (mm/s)
Power of cutting: 65 %

laser Cutting:

Project Electronics & Power Management

4- Describe your electronic circuit. What are the input and action components? What is the function of each? How do the components integrate together to form your smart system? (List the softwares/tools/components...etc that you used)

I started to build my circuit on Tinker CAD which is composed of

Brain:

Arduino UNO.

Input Components:

4 LDR Sensors
Voltage sensor

Action Components:

2 Servo Motors.
LCD
Buzzer

Power Management:

9v Adaptor.
ON/OFF switch.

Connections:

The horizontal Servo goes to Pin 7.
The vertical Servo goes to Pin 8.
TR goes to Pin A0
TL goes to Pin A1
BR goes to Pin A2
BL goes to Pin A3
V Sensor goes to Pin A4.
Common Negative (from the Breadboard) can go to any of the GND (Ground) pins.
Common Positive (from the Breadboard) can go to the 5V pin.

It is summarized how the circuit works when the average intensity of illumination on two of the light sensors is greater than the value of that on the other two, then one of the motors starts moving until the solar panel reaches a position where the intensity of illumination is equal and the value of the voltage produced by the solar panel is displayed on the LCD With a beep sound when the voltage value reaches the highest range.

Unfortunately, I could not actually implement this circuit, as it needs seven analog inputs, while the Arduino Uno provides only six, so I just turned the circuit on the sun tracker only.

5- What is your power source? How did you select the suitable power source for your project? (List the softwares/tools/components...etc that you used)

I had used a 5 volt adaptor and it was fine with servo motors, but when I used the LCD screen with them, its lighting was weak, so I decided to use a 9 volt adaptor and it worked properly.

Project Programming

6- Describe the code of your project. How did you program each function of the project?

First, I started by defining the variables and including the libraries of both the servos and the LCD screen, then I started writing the code for the voltage sensor and the intensity of the lighting, and finally, I wrote the servo movement code according to the average of LDRs values as shown in the embedded code and it will work as follow
we will calculate the average of

Project Integration & Testing

7- Demonstrate with text and visuals how did you integrate the project’s modules together? What are the testing results? (Include a Demo video separately, showing a proof of functionality)

Firstly, I assembled the parts of the enclosure, then the parts of the tracker, and then I installed the electronic components in their places with screws and nuts as shown in the following pictures.

Building the enclosure and mounting the electronics

Fixing the supports

Four supports

Mounting the horizontal servo

Mounting the vertical servo and panel holder Integration

Mounting the horizontal servo's horn

The panel holder hinge

LDRs mounting

4 LDRs

components connections

ON/OFF switch mounting

Vertical servo's horn

Final result

km_20220331-3_1080p.mp4

Sharing & Collaboration

8- Did you ask for feedback? What are the ideas that others have contributed or suggested? What was someone else’s idea that you built upon? How did you help your peers? How did your peers help you?

My peer, Mohamed Ghazali, helped me when I faced some problems in the design phase and preparing the files for laser cutting, and also helped me to operate the machine. Also, when the lighting of the LCD screen was weak, he guided me to use a 9-volt adaptor. Hussein also helped me to solve the problem of slow servo motors.

And for me, I helped Merit in the design while she was facing a problem with Fusion360.

Overcoming Challenges

9- When you got stuck, what/who did you turn to? At what point did you have to pause to research or learn more before moving on? What are some mistakes, pitfalls, or challenges that others can avoid if they were doing this project?

I encountered many problems while working on this project in almost all its stages, from design to programming to the assembly stage, but when I was looking for solutions to these problems I usually found them on the following sites:

Also, if there was one piece of advice that I could say, it would be that all dimensions must be carefully checked and made sure that they fit together by simulating their assembly on Fusion360 and also taking into account the wires and electronics passage holes before cutting them on the laser cutting machine.

Future Work

10- If you had more time, what is one thing you would change/ Do next in your project?

I think that I may spend some time working on developing the project in terms of the possibility of obtaining both lighting and voltage data throughout the day and tracking their values in terms of intensity and weakness and collecting this data in an organized form that can be displayed on an excel sheet, as this may be useful in research work as shown in the attached picture.

Final Project Design Files

Solar Tracker code

Design file

DXF files

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