So while I've been waiting for the custom electric motor; I've been playing with the current electric motor that I have in my person so I can perfect the control module. I have connected a Pot to the breadboard which will allow me to control how much power to send to the motor. I have also been playing with my current Arduino sketch to visually output how much power I'm sending to the electrical motor. I also decided to change the colors of the lights to optimize the feedback of power from the motor.
I must admit that I'm quite pleased with the results! I've also decided to use the vehicle's OBD-II port to send signals to the Arduino board instead of tapping in to the cars existing wires. This should simplify the installation as well as the sketch required to control the ESC.
On a side note, I will be developing a different sketch for those who have older cars.
I'm currently still waiting to hear back from the electric motor company. I think waiting is the hardest part considering that the project should work considering the math involved. Once the electric motor is in, I should be able to get the compressor housing back plate made as well as mount the compressor wheel to the shaft and ultimately the compressor housing.
When that is done, I will do some fitment tests to make sure that the wheel is not hitting the walls on the compressor housing and then I will proceed to attach the electronic speed controller on to the motor and Arduino board.
After that's done; the batteries would be the only thing left to start some real bench tests! I'm thinking of using 4 car lead acid batteries for the sake of testing and then finding something more compact for real world applications.
So one of the projects I posted relates to creating a solution for real time language translation during video conferencing. While there is a pretty neat google app available for translating; it would be counter intuitive to speak to your phone when you are already speaking to your computer.
my idea revolves around 3 technologies. The first is web RTC where we could stream video and audio data in a peer to peer fashion. the second is Microsoft's Cortana API which will be used to translate audio in to text and lastly; Google's translation API.
Without giving this too much thought, id assume that the challenge will be to maintain an open communication with the Cortana API and google translate API.
this should be a fun project!
hmmm i could also make a thing... a device that will translate on the spot!
I get to talk a little about the electric supercharger that I'm creating. First off: This is not your typical ebay grade "Electric Turbo" that guarantees large amounts of horse power from a PC fan. This is a true, fully functioning Electric turbo that will be capable of compressing a substantial amount of air.
There are two markets I'm making this electric turbo for. The first and most obvious market is the performance sector. A lot of people would love to have instant boost when they want it, It should remove turbo lag and would be an amazing accessory for performance cars with large turbo's that take time to spool up.
The second market is the gas saving market. If I can get the electric turbo to keep 2-8 PSI throughout the entire power band; It should improve the engines overall flow considering that there will be no restriction on the exhaust side.
The E-charger is made up of 3 parts. The first is the control module which will be connect to the Vehicles ECU or OBD-II port. The control module needs to know the current RPM and the current TPS (Throttle Position Sensor). The reason the control module needs these inputs is because it tells the Controller how much power to push the electric motor at. This will be controlled by software I'm developing where users can manually enter how much power they want the electric motor to output when the TPS and RPM are at X. Below are pictures and a video of the control module:
Here you can see some of my "Fantastic" Electrical engineer innovation. I 3D-Printed a small board and attached two strips of copper wire. I then connected them to the positive and negative terminals of the Arduino which allows me to then connect the LED's to the copper strips and only worry about wires that Arduino controls.
*Phew - The second part of this whole thing is the controller. I'll spend very little time talking about this as I'm waiting for the motor to come in and haven't had a chance to play around with a specific controller. In an earlier, smaller prototype build (Will have a video at the end on this) of the motor and a controller; I was able to send signals to the controller via the Arduino board. When the Arduino board reads X RPM and Y TPS, It will send a signal to the controller to spin the motor based on the signal sent from the Arduino. I do have a controller in mind but I'm holding off just in case it'll change due to the custom motor.
Lastly! The third part is the part that sits under the hood. The electric motor, the compressor wheel, the compressor housing, and the cooling solution. Because I have a company building me an electric motor from scratch; I don't have a picture of the motor but I do have a 3D printed model of the proper dimensions of the motor. Below is a picture of the Compressor wheel, housing, and 3D motor model:
There will be a plate that I would need custom made to attach the motor to the back of the compressor wheel. I have a 3D model created for it BUT! I don't have it printed yet. The electric motor will connect to the back plate then the compressor wheel then the compressor housing. The electric motor will then have a cooling jacket which will be attached to a separate cooling system (work in progress). Below is a previous version of the Arduino set up to controller to smaller motor on an previous gear driven idea that I scrapped:
Hope you all enjoyed the write up! I'll make sure to keep updating the blog!
As Promised, I'm going to talk a little about the idea behind this robot as well as put up a better video of it. The Idea of GITR came about when I told the company I'm currently work for that I could build a telecommuting robot with a budget of $1,000 or less.
As I was building GITR, I learned a ton about the Arduino boards as well as the possibilities that these boards introduce to us as developers.
After finishing GITR; I realized that it had a multitude of uses. The tablet and the video is controlled via WebRTC. I'm sending data to the servo's via an Arduino board which is receiving commands from .Net. Because I used WebRTC, one person can control the robot while multiple people can log in and have a multi-person telecommuting session.
Aside from having a multi-person video conference meeting; What other market would benefit from having a multi-person conferencing feature on a mobile medium? Healthcare.
What if hospitals had special rooms for these robots for people to log in and check in on their loved ones? What if we had one of these robots in every home to keep an eye out on our parents and children? GITR and even any other telecommuting robot on the market gives us the true ability of being in two places at once and that's the real benefit.
Below is a clearer video of GITR! I hope you guys enjoyed the tid bit of background:
After having so much fun at the Dev Intersection hosted conference (AngleBrackets); I figured that I would absolutely dedicate more time to the blog!
That being said; I've been working on the electric turbo and will upload pictures of the progress so far. I've also added a couple of projects to my list of ideas which will also force me in to posting more about them.
Stay tuned! I'll have pictures and a video of the electric turbo soon! I will also talk a little bit more about the new projects as well as add more videos for the Telecommuting robot.
It's been a while since my last post but I figured I'd give some sign I'm still alive! So I've been working on a couple of projects lately and figured I'd let you know what I've been working on. But first! I'd like to say that I acknowledge this was supposed to be a coding blog but turned in to a project blog. Because of this, I am going to be creating a page within this blog full of code samples and will try to come up with some code related topics.
That being said, The project that I'm working on is an electric turbo! I'm grabbing a standard turbocharger from a car, and replacing the exhaust housing with an electric motor with gears to hopefully spin the compressor wheel at 200,000 RPM.
I'll add this project to the list and will post pictures as I go through the project.
On a side note, I purchased a 3D printer and have been slightly distracted as I am modeling and printing my own parts. I'll have updates soon!
