View source for S16: Laser Cutter Motor Controller

=== Grading Criteria ===
<font color="green">
*  How well is Software & Hardware Design described?
*  How well can this report be used to reproduce this project?
*  Code Quality
*  Overall Report Quality:
**  Software Block Diagrams
**  Hardware Block Diagrams
**:  Schematic Quality
**  Quality of technical challenges and solutions adopted.
</font>

== Project Title ==
Laser Cutter Motor Controller

== Abstract ==
This is a PoC (Proof of Concept) project to aid in the design of my CmpE 195A senior project. For this PoC I will be using a joystick hooked up to one SJOne board to wirelessly (or not) control another SJOne board which will in turn control 2 stepper motor controller chips to finally control 2 stepper motors on my laser cutter.

== Objectives & Introduction ==
The LazTech Motor Driver should be able to drive two motors independently. It should be able to follow both scripted and manually input movement commands which include: moves, lines, and curves.

=== Team Members & Responsibilities ===
*  Alex Kennedy
**  Hardware design
**  Software design
**  System integration

== Schedule ==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! scope="col"| Week#
! scope="col"| Date
! scope="col"| Task
! scope="col"| Actual
|-
! scope="row"| 1
| 4/11
| Initialization
| Completed
|-
! scope="row"| 2
| 4/18
| PCB Design
| Completed. Some of the traces are not ideally placed but they should still work.
|-
! scope="row"| 3
| 4/25
| Order Parts and Start Coding
| Completed
|-
! scope="row"| 4
| 5/2
| Finish Coding and Assemble
| Not completed. Due to problems with assembling the board, it is going to be impossible to complete this project on time. (See the Issues section for details.)
|-
! scope="row"| 5
| 5/9
| Finalization
| Completed.
|}

== Parts List & Cost ==
[[File:laztech_bom.png|500px|thumb|center|Figure 1. Bill of Materials]]

== Design & Implementation ==
Below are the hardware and software design files. This includes both the hardware schematics and board layout (all layers). In addition the software workflow is provided.

The main interface is a simple GPIO clock pulse interface that latches into the Allegro stepper motor driver chips. Various options can be specified such as the direction, step size, and sleep functions. Details of how the interface works can be found in the Allegro documentation.

=== Hardware Design ===
[[File:laztech_sch.png|center|Figure 2. Schematics]]
[[File:laztech_brd.png|center|Figure 3. Board layout]]

=== Hardware Interface ===
In this section, you can describe how your hardware communicates, such as which BUSes used.  You can discuss your driver implementation here, such that the '''Software Design''' section is isolated to talk about high level workings rather than inner working of your project.

=== Software Design ===
For this project the task will enter the workflow at the flex scanner stage. from here we can manually generate move, line, and curve primitives which can be queued into the curve queue. For this project only one static graphics stack will be required and therefore graphics opcodes will not need to be decoded. Additionally a graphics stack will not be required. Once a set of curves is queued and a stroke command is sent, the cut_curve task will be started which will then perform the actual motor control movements.
[[File:laztech_sw_flow.png|center|Figure 4. Software workflow]]

=== Implementation ===
The following are simulated renders of the above board and schematic.
[[File:laztech_brd_sim_front.png|500px|thumb|center|Figure 5. Front of simulated board]]
[[File:laztech_brd_sim_back.png|500px|thumb|center|Figure 6. Back of simulated board]]

== Testing & Technical Challenges ==
Given another few weeks on this project, it could have been completed. A large portion of the learning from this project was in the hardware assembly phase. I learned that to effectively design and implement custom PCBs with SMT a good rework station or oven is required. I will be purchasing these items in the very near future.

=== Issue #1 Assembly ===
This project was ultimately stopped by a lack of manufacturing hardware. The Allegro stepper motor driver chips use a eTSSOP-24 SMD pad layout. This means that the pin pitch (spacing between pins) is only 0.6 mm. This proved too hard to solder by hand. In order to resolve this issue, a solder paste mask is required. This would allow solder paste to be applied to the pads only and would limit the amount of pin bridging. Due to time constraints it is impossible to order one of these in time for demo.

== Conclusion ==
Conclude your project here.  You can recap your testing and problems.  You should address the "so what" part here to indicate what you ultimately learnt from this project.  How has this project increased your knowledge?

=== Project Source Code ===
*  [https://sourceforge.net/projects/sjsu/files/CmpE_S2016/ Sourceforge Source Code Link]
*  [https://sourceforge.net/projects/armdevpkg/files/ SJSU_Dev.7z]
*  [https://gitlab.com/preet/lpc1758_freertos lpc1758_freertos]
*  [https://gitlab.com/LaikaN57/lpc1758_freertos lpc1758_freertos (modified)]

== References ==
=== Acknowledgement ===
I would like to thank my CmpE 195A group for their help in this project.

=== References Used ===
List any references used in project.

=== Appendix ===
You can list the references you used.