ME 463 is our final senior engineering design course before graduation and is typically taken by students in their last semester. We usually utilize all knowledge and skills we have learned in this course. I took this course in Summer 2020.

Our mission was to produce a cost-effective, modular tabletop design of a compression feed screw for formulation and validation of predictive models of torque, angular speed, and mass flow. As the electronics lead, I focused on the mechatronics and control portion of the design project, including picking, designing, Arduino coding, integrating and implementing all components. 

The components include a Mega Arduino, a hall effect sensor to record motor position/speed, strain gauges for measurements in screws and bolts, an emergency stop button, 5 load cells to measure force on springs, a load cell amplifier, a current sensor module to measure current values, a low rpm high torque DC planetary reduction gear motor, a dual H bridge DC motor driver speed controller and a rotary encoder code switch digital potentiometer.

I utilized an Arduino to receive data from sensors and output command signals to the motors, while the sensor readings could be streamed to Excel in real time and monitored by the user on the computer.

Motor Controller Flowchart

Motor Controller Mechatronics Wiring Schematics