Week 5 - Journal

I 'dragged and dropped' the components of the circuit in design workspace in Tinker CAD as shown below.

The RGB was parallelly connected with the fan and the buzzer.

The cathode of the power source as well as those of every component were all connected to the common cathode rail in the breadboard.

A pair of 220 (ohm) resistances were connected in series with the RGB.

Finally, all components were connected.

Circuit simulation on Tinker CAD can be viewed from the video below 😄

I started to mount the electric components on the breadboard; the first one was the RGB. I used Google to learn more about the different terminals of the RGB and their correspondent light, and this image was really helpful.

Check video#1 for circuit testing and outputs.😄

Check videos#2&3 for circuit mounted in cardboard enclosure and works properly😄

During one of my attempts to power and test the circuit, I found that Buzzer didn't work. I used the multimeter for troubleshooting, and found that voltage reading over the buzzer was 1.87 V despite the expected value should be 5 V. I asked Sherif who advised that there was a missed jumper wire that should connect the two separate parts of the breadboard (right and left sides). I used a jumper, and luckily it worked.

My first approach to the assignment was using the mini breadboard. I connected all components, and turned the switch on, but ...it didn't work! I revised the videos tutorials again to check the characteristics of the breadboards, and I realized that the mini breadboard has no common rails; thus, the circuit was open and didn't work accordingly. Finally, I switched to use the other large breadboard with rails.

This device contains some of the minimum (basic) features of my final project device. I took the chance of this assignment to learn how to integrate a 'slide switch' into a circuit accompanied with ON/OFF switch. Moreover, slide switch will be used as a selector between two modes in the final project device (setup and running modes). Besides, final project device will display more than one output per condition within running mode (if on-hand is above the reorder level, then RGB turns green 🟢 - some sort of 'OK' message is displayed on LCD 🖥 ) or (if on-hand is below the reorder level, then RGB turns red 🔴- a message of warning or a reminder displayed on LCD 🖥 - buzzer sound activated 🔊 - an alert is sent to mobile phone via Bluetooth 📲 ). Accordingly, this week assignment is a great chance to learn how to manage more than one output given a single condition/status.