itp-blog

Week 5

Meshtastic + LoRa Pager Project

Which to buy?

Okay, I bought Rak Wireless boards (and two of everything).

I bought a supercapacitor and then realized it’s not going to work out…maybe another project can use the supercapacitors?

digikey

I tried to purchase every electronic component that seemed relevant to making a LoRa pager. I bought two real time clocks, buzzers, and keypads.

I even bought (2) SD cards for storing contacts on the pagers!

I think my teammate’s idea - making physical contact cards for sharing LoRa pager contact information - would be really fun. It would be like a business card but informal.

rak order one

rak order two

I took these notes about the LoRa pager to share for our group meeting, so we were all on the same page (I was wrong about the power supply):

Interesting non-traditional(1) energy(2) projects(3) to investigate. overview one

overview two

We will not engage with the Halloween theme (if it is up to me, at least).

Lab: Using a Transistor to Control High Current Loads with an Arduino

First, I tested the potentiometer’s ability to vary in resistance by making a simple circuit that wasn’t part of the lab.

simple potentiometer circuit

Then - after hours, after coming to school in the early morning, and working until just before class - I read a schematic for the first time.

My professor helped me understand how to read schematics in the lab tutorials instead of relying on the semi-representational breadboard views.

I think the breadboard views have started to be more confusing than the schematics. I’m so grateful to my professor and shop staff for helping me finish 1/4 labs due this week right before class.

I think completing labs by following schematics instead of breadboard views might help me gain an intuition for this subject and/or perform better in class.

high current circuit

I’m trying to document my thought process beyond saying “I did it” and moving on.

I thought it was interesting that I forgot to connect the high current circuit to the Arduino at first - after being confused about how to power the circuit for so long, I forgot that I needed to program the behavior of the circuit.

I think I learned that transistors are like pushbuttons, but can be programmed. Apparently transistors are [part of / can be used to make] logic gates, which I find interesting.

Lab: DC Motor Control Using an H-Bridge

didn’t get to this one!

Lab: Controlling a Stepper Motor With an H-Bridge

didn’t get to this one!

Lab: Controlling a Stepper Motor With a Step and Direction Driver

didn’t get to this one!