WEEK 14: ENGINEERS DAY

Now the time has come. After we spend 13 weeks to complete the development of our FYP project, Wind Speed Meter, today is the day where we will present our Wind Speed Meter to everyone in Unikl BMI and we will also be assessed by our assessor, Sir Mohamed Raziff bin Mohamed Noordin from Electrical Section and Madam Azliza binti Mohamad Arshad from Elecronics Section. We already prepared everything that we have learn for previous 13 weeks and InsyaAllah we hope that everything will run smoothly. During the assessing process, we have learn many valuable knowledge from our assessor regarding to our Wind Speed Meter. Every knowledge that we have learn is very useful for us to do future development to our project. I would like to express my biggest and sincerest gratitude especially to our supervisor, Miss Norrolhuda binti Sanif for being a person that always encourage us to always give the best in everything that we have done. I also want to say thank you to our friends that always give support to us during this process and to everyone in Unikl BMI, Thanks a lot.

FROM LEFT : Shamin, Faiz, Miss Noi, Daus, Mahfuz, Syafiq, Zaheerudin

WEEK 13 : PREPARATION FOR EXHIBITION

Assalamualaikum to all viewers. Thanks for viewing my blog. For this week, we have to prepared all stuff that we need for our booth. There are a few things that my partner and I have make for the guest during the exhibition that will be held next week. Some of it are :

WIND SPEED METER POSTER

WIND SPEED METER BROCHURE

WIND SPEED METER FLYER's

WEEK 12 : FINAL STAGE

Finally we have completely finished and done with our project wind speed meter. Even though the same problems still occurs like last week, we are running a very tight schedule for our Final Year Project Schedule. After consulting with our supervisor, Miss Norrolhuda Binti Sanif has given us the green light to declare or project completed. But still, we need to properly explain in detail to our assessors any question that will be given to us.

WIND SPEED METER (INTERIOR LOOK)

WIND SPEED METER (EXTERIOR LOOK)

WIND SPEED METER (OPERATION) 

Starting next week, I will be working on my presentation for my upcoming Final Year Project Exhibition.

WEEK 11 : TESTING & TROUBLE SHOOT

Assalamualaikum to everyone. For this entry i will give an update about our project. Now our project is almost done. My partner Zaheerudin already finished programmed the PIC16F877A and now it's time to put the IC into the circuit and test the circuit in order to check either this project is function or not. After we run a few tries on our wind speed meter, we found that our project failed to function as required. So we try to figure out what is the problem with our project. We do the trouble shoot on our project and we found that there is a problem on our hardware. Basically the problem is came from our circuit which is the new design that we use don't have the same circuit function as the old circuit. So the problem occurred in this circuit is :

- The new circuit don't have a multiplexer
- maybe there is mistakes in programming


Actually based on the operation of this circuit from theoretical part that I already explain before, the multiplexer is very important because the multiplexer operate as a selector for which transducer will become a transducer or receiver at that time. So this new circuit don't have the multiplexer and that make this circuit cannot function.

We try to find the best solution but because the limitation of time that we have, we cannot find what is the suitable solution for this circuit.

WEEK 10 : CHECK CIRCUIT

Actually this week I don't have much thing to do because I already done with all thing required for hardware part. So now I just have to wait till my partner Zaheerudin finish the software part. All I can do now is to check our project condition in order to make sure that there is no problem before we test our circuit. So by using multimeter and buzzer, i have checked all the connection based on the schematic diagram.

Figure 1 : Example of circuit checking

So after finish with all circuit checking, I have got no problem in term of circuit connection. So now we just wait till Zaheerudin finish programming the PIC16F877A. That's all for this week and please give your feedback for this project.

WEEK 9 : SOLDERING PROCESS

Assalamualaikum for all viewers. Last week i already update all the things that i have done for drilling process. Now for this week, i will talk about soldering process. First of all, before we start the work, we have to make sure that we have every tools that we need for this process. i will list down all the tools used in this process.

Figure 1 : Soldering iron

Figure 2 : Stand for Soldering Iron

Figure 3 : PCB Holder

Figure 4 : Solder lead

Figure 5 : Sucker Pump

Figure 6 : Solder Wick

Figure 7 : Cutter and Long Nose

Now we can start solder all the component. First put the component on the PCB and make sure that the components are in the correct position. Then switch on the soldering iron and wait for 5 minutes in order to make sure that the soldering iron is heat enough. Then put the PCB on the PCB holder so that we can easily doing the solder without having a difficulty during the process. Now we can start solder. During this work, make sure that we not put the soldering iron too long on the PCB because if too long we might give the burn to our PCB and it will damage our PCB. If we want to desolder, we have to use desolder pump to suck the lead. Then use the solder wick to clean the tip of soldering iron.

Figure 8 : Soldering Process 1

Figure 9 : Soldering Process 2

Figure 10 : Desolder Process

Now i have done with our soldering process. This time, my partner Zaheerudin still work on the programming for our PIC16F877A. All the update is on his blog http://fyp4bmi.blogspot.com.So that all for this week. Hope you enjoy reading this blog and please leave your comments that can help me  to find what is my mistake if any.

WEEK 8 : DRILLING PROCESS

For this particular week, what we're going to do is we are going to drilling our PCB in order to place the component on the board before we can go to the soldering process. We are using a cordless drill with drill point size 1.0 mm. For safety precaution we put a Styrofoam as a pad for our PCB. We have to do it with gentle and precise because the size of the components pin is to small. By using my own cordless drill I'll start drilling all the pin for every components.

Figure 1: Drilling Process 1

Figure 2 : Drilling Process 2

During the process, i have to make sure that every hole drilled is fit in size that we already set because if we don't do precisely, we might face a problem when we move to the next process of soldering all the component. During this process my partner zaheerudin zabidi already start working on the programming for this wind speed meter which is using IC PIC16F877A. As i know, he is using a MPLAB IDE v8.70 for program all the instruction need for this project using assembly language. For more detail you can go to Zaheerudin's blog. This is the link;http://fyp4bmi.blogspot.com.

So that's all for this week. So for the next week, I'll be move to soldering process of this project.

  

WEEK 7 : PCB DEVELOPMENT (CONT'D)

4. EMULSION PROCESS




Now we continue to the next process of PCB Development which is Emulsion process. In this process we are going to use 10 gram of sodium hydroxide pellets mixed with distilled water. Mixed them well till sodium hydroxide pellets completely dissolved. Then soak the PCB into the solution and gently pan the pcb untill the circuit can be visible. 

sodium hydroxide pellets

panning process

After finished this process, we now move to the next step

5.  ETCHING PROCESS

By using the Etching machine that we have in PCB Room, we just have to put the PCB that already being emulsion into the machine and set the temperature to range of 40 - 50 degree Celsius. We used 44 degree Celsius and then we wait for about 4 minutes until the process done. Then after etching process done, we scrub the PCB till we get the layer. 

now we move to the next process which last process of this PCB Development

6. TROUBLESHOOTING PROCESS

The above mentioned exposure timing should be determined experimentally. But even when the exposure timing is correct PCB etching failures could happen because of low quality or too old photosensitive PCB, the photosensitive layer has aged despite the protective plastic layer. Other possible causes are too high concentration of development solution causing the photosensitive part not exposed to light to be dissolved by the sodium hydroxide solution as well. When developing too short not all of the copper of the PCB will be etched. Developing might take some experimenting to get used to it and know what to expect.

That's all for this week. We will update next process on next week. Thank you.

WEEK 6 : PCB DEVELOPMENT

First of all, i would like to show our block diagram for this wind speed meter.

As referred  to the block diagram above, there are 4 main part in this circuit. First is control circuit where this circuit contain a PIC16F877A where this PIC will generate a pulse signal that will be transmitted to the ultrasonic transmission and reception circuit. In ultrasonic transmission and reception circuit, the signal will be routed to the transducer. After that the transducer will detect the feedback from the speed of wind if there is any changes during the transmitting and receiving signal process. So that, the feedback will be send back to the ultrasonic circuit and the circuit will amplify the feedback and redirect back to control circuit and the result will be display on 16x2 LCD.



PCB DEVELOPMENT

So after we have done with our schematic diagram last week, now we are going to do the next process of putting our circuit on Printed Circuit Board(PCB). In this process, we required to follow every step on doing the PCB. There are 6 steps on doing this PCB Development:

1. PCB Layout

- The PCB layout is a mirrored positive one - black on white. Mirrored as viewed from the silkscreen top (component) side. The PCB layout is printed 1:1 on paper by means of a laser printer or copier machine. The laser printer or copier toner will not run out when it gets wet or oily. The ink of an inkjet paper print does run out and inkjet printers are therefore useless with the described method. So this my PCB Layout:

ULTRASONIC TRANSMISSION AND RECEPTION  CIRCUIT

CONTROL AND DISPLAY CIRCUIT

2. PCB Preparation

For this process, we are going to use the Overhead projection paper (OHP) and print our PCB Layout on this paper using Laser-jet Printer.Then we move to the next step

3. PCB UV Exposure

In this process, we are going to exposed our PCB to the Ultraviolet using a UV Box. For this particular process, what we have to do is we stick our PCB layout that we already printed on OHP paper to this PCB board. Then we put this PCB board in the machine and set the time to 60 seconds. Then wait till the process finished.

Then we moved to the next process which will be continue next week.

WEEK 5 : CIRCUIT CORRECTION

             Sorry for being late on giving an update for my Final Year Project. After me and my partner have a discussion with our supervisor Miss Norrulhoda, she asked that we need to divide our task into two part which is hardware and software. So after a discussion, i decided to take responsibility on finishing the hardware part for this project and Zaheerudin will take care about the software part.
              Actually there is a problem occurred when we purchasing the component that we need for this project  where we cannot find the IC for Microcontroller which is using PIC 16F628. So after we asked our supervisor, we decided to used another microcontroller of PIC 16F877A and because of this problem, we have to redraw another circuit that compatible with the microcontroller. So after working on for the new circuit this is the result and we still don't now either this circuit is suited with the old one or not.

ultrasonic schematic:-

control and display function schematic:-

Thanks for everyone that help us to complete this redraw process. Now i will give a list of the components used in this new circuit.

RESISTOR(Quantity)

- 2.2K(2)
- 2.7K(2)
- 10K(2)
- 100K(3)
- 1K(5)
- 330R(1)
- 1M(1)
- 4.7K(1)
- 10R(1)

POTENTIOMETER
- 10K min. preset. round

CAPACITORS(Quantity)

- 100n(7)
- 100u(1)

SEMICONDUCTORS(Quantity)

- 1N4007 Silicon Rectifier(3)
- BC 547 npn Transistor(3)
- LM311 Voltage Comparator(1)
- LED red(1), green(1)
- PIC16F877A(1)
- 78L05 voltage regulator(1)

MISCELLANEOUS(Quantity)

- push-to-make switch(1)
- Resonator 4M(1)
- JHD 16x2 LCD(1)
- 40 KHz ultrasonic transducer(transmitter and receiver pair)(1)
- Reset button(1)
- Buzzer(1)

All above is the component used in this circuit. So that mean we have to go back to Jalan Pasar and  buy all this thing. That all for this week. I will give a new update for this project time to time. I hope all the readers can give comments on what we are doing now because seriously i need all that for my learning process. Thank you very much.

WEEK 4 : PURCHASES OF COMPONENTS

For this particular week, me and my FYP partner Zaheerudin went to Jalan Pasar located near Kampung Pandan. Our plan for this week is to browse and purchase the hardware equipments which are required to build our Wind Speed Meter

LIST OF ITEMS TO BUY

We then reach Jalan Pasar  and went to Maplin Electronics Sdn Bhd. Maplin Electronics Sdn Bhd is one of the leading and have a reputation of having a variety of resistors, potentiometers, capacitors and semiconductors. Plus since the price they offer is much cheaper.

After spending a few hours there, we managed to complete buying all the electronic components which are needed to build our Wind Speed Meter. Below were some of the item that we bought during our time at Maplin Electronics Sdn Bhd. Below are the equipments that we bought at Maplin's.

And to make it clear that we actually bought those stuff, below are the pictures of purchase.