Sunday, 27 January 2013

FYP 2 Week 2

This week I was testing how to use LCD with the Arduino microcontroller. I just learn it from the Arduino website. I'm using the standard 16x2 LCD display. It's easy to display anything you want on the LCD display with Arduino. You just have to understand how to put what you want to display on LCD into your Arduino source code.


This is the connection of Arduino to LCD

The standard coding for LCD is like this:



/*
LiquidCrystal Library - Hello World

Demonstrates the use a 16x2 LCD display. The LiquidCrystal
library works with all LCD displays that are compatible with the
Hitachi HD44780 driver. There are many of them out there, and you
can usually tell them by the 16-pin interface.

This sketch prints "Hello World!" to the LCD
and shows the time.

The circuit:
* LCD RS pin to digital pin 12
* LCD Enable pin to digital pin 11
* LCD D4 pin to digital pin 5
* LCD D5 pin to digital pin 4
* LCD D6 pin to digital pin 3
* LCD D7 pin to digital pin 2
* LCD R/W pin to ground
* 10K resistor:
* ends to +5V and ground
* wiper to LCD VO pin (pin 3)

Library originally added 18 Apr 2008
by David A. Mellis
library modified 5 Jul 2009
by Limor Fried (http://www.ladyada.net)
example added 9 Jul 2009
by Tom Igoe
modified 22 Nov 2010
by Tom Igoe

This example code is in the public domain.

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LiquidCrystal
*/




// include the library code:

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>




// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins

LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);




void setup() {

// set up the LCD's number of columns and rows:

lcd.begin(16, 2);

// Print a message to the LCD.

lcd.print("hello, world!");

}




void loop() {

// set the cursor to column 0, line 1

// (note: line 1 is the second row, since counting begins with 0):

lcd.setCursor(0, 1);

// print the number of seconds since reset:

lcd.print(millis()/1000);

}

Tuesday, 15 January 2013

FYP 2 Week 1

This is the first week of FYP 2. So far I have only bought the components for my project but I haven't started the project. I also met my supervisor, Sir Halim to ask him about how to proceed with FYP in this semester.

For my project, I plan on using temperature sensor, 16x2 LCD display to display the temperature, DC fan that will spin according to the temperature and the Arduino microcontroller.

Monday, 12 November 2012

Week 14 (4 to 10/11/2012)

I finally finished all the proposal and progress report of my project. I need a whole week to do it all since the progress report needs the draft of chapter 1, 2, 3 of the project report too. Alhamdulillah, I still managed to finish my work in time. I submitted my proposal and progress report on the first day of week 15 which is on Monday, 12 November 2012. I hope I can complete my project successfully and on time for the next semester.

Sunday, 4 November 2012

Week 13 (28/10/2012 to 3/11/2012)

In this week, I tried to do the progress report for my proposal. This is how to do the progress report:

- Introduction/Purpose

Purpose of the report: Very briefly explain the project.
Briefly explain what this progress report is for.
Time period covered for the Progress report.

- Work completed during this time period. (dates)


Explain what you have accomplished. Provide details.
Project Staffing. How much effort has been used to date?
Project Deliverables. Have they met the quality targets set?
- Work you need to complete before you finish the project.


What is the next step?
When do you expect to complete the next step?
What do you still need to do?
When do you expect to complete the project?
- Problems encountered.


Explain any unexpected developments.
Explain what you plan to do to correct these problems.
State whether the project is on schedule.
If not, why not?
How do you plan to correct these problems?
When will you be back on schedule?
- Conclusions

Besides progress report, we also have to do the draft of the chapter 1, 2 and 3 of our final year project report. This task will take a lot of time since I haven't done any of the chapters yet. I hope I can finish it soon.

Sunday, 28 October 2012

Week 12 (21 to 27/10/2012)

This week I finally figured out the budget for my project. The costing of my project is just a draft but I try to save as much money as possible so that my project won't be too costly but still can function optimally.


Budget



Item
Quantity
Price per Unit (RM)
Total Price (RM)
LM 35 temperature sensor

1
3
3
Brushless variable speed DC motor

1
135
135
Transistor N-MOSFET

1
3
3
Arduino microcontroller

1
145
145
Resistors(10kΩ,1kΩ)

1 (10 unit per packets)

2
2
Capacitor (0.1µF)

1 (10 unit per packets)

8
8
Breadboard

1
15
15


Total

311

Sunday, 21 October 2012

Week 11 (14 to 20/10/2012)

For this week, since I have done the proposal presentation, I was trying to finish up my proposal report. I still haven't finish the budget section and conclusion section so I decided to do them this week.


Conclusion


Automatics Temperature Controlled Fan Speed using ARDUINO will be developed to change the fan speed automatically based on the surrounding temperature. This device will be more useful than a regular fan because the functionality of it is more convenient compared to a regular fan. If this project is being developed for human use, it can save more energy while function more automatically when it is compared to air conditioner and regular fan.
Also, the Arduino microcontroller has been used for the programming of the fan to generate the PWM output with varying duty cycle for the DC motor. For personal use, this project will be useful to cool the laptop or PC from overheating. It can function as a ‘smart fan’ for laptop or PC since it can adjusts its fan speed automatically according to the temperature. If the laptop gets too hot, the fan speed will be increased and once the laptop cools down, the fan speed will return to normal. So this project works best in a small scale to cool off the electronic equipments or machines.

Sunday, 14 October 2012

Week 10 (7 to 13/10/2012)

This is the week that I have to present my proposal to the assessor. I have to say I'm not that satisfied with my presentation. I felt that I didn't prepare enough so I didn't present the proposal like I imagined so. But I still feel fortunate that the assessors were understanding and provide very interesting questions to my project. Their criticisms made me rethink how to make my project successful.