S16: Laser Cutter Motor Controller

Grading Criteria

• 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.

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

Week#	Date	Task	Actual
1	4/11	Initialization	Completed
2	4/18	PCB Design	Completed. Some of the traces are not ideally placed but they should still work.
3	4/25	Order Parts and Start Coding	Completed
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.)
5	5/9	Finalization	Completed.

Parts List & Cost

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.

Hardware Design

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

Implementation

The following are simulated renders of the above board and schematic.

Figure 5. Front of simulated board

Figure 6. Back of simulated board

Testing & Technical Challenges

Describe the challenges of your project. What advise would you give yourself or someone else if your project can be started from scratch again? Make a smooth transition to testing section and described what it took to test your project.

Include sub-sections that list out a problem and solution, such as:

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

• Sourceforge Source Code Link
• SJSU_Dev.7z
• 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.