Project
| # | Title | Team Members | TA | Documents | Sponsor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 80 | Motorized Assistive Track Lighting |
Adithya Bellary Ethan Hickman Pratik Ainapure |
Zhen Qin | design_document1.pdf design_document2.pdf design_document3.pdf design_document4.pdf final_paper1.pdf final_paper2.pdf proposal1.pdf |
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| This is a revision to a previous posted RFA that was rejected. We met with Professor Smith and talked to a few TA’s to further improve this proposal. ** We propose to implement a track lighting system that will allow a user to adjust the lighting requirements of the room depending on the current needs of the user. The ideal use cases would be in art exhibits and museums where artifacts and art pieces are changing every few weeks. Currently to reconfigure lighting in some of these spaces, users must manually configure lighting to fit the current needs of the room. We believe this is unnecessary and can lead to safety hazards with trying to configure lighting that is affixed to high ceilings. We intend to design this system such that multiple lighting modules can be controlled on the same track. To minimize some of the mechanical complexity, we plan to utilize current track lighting solutions to handle the powering of the receptacles and handling of maintaining power on a bus bar. To allow for the lighting mobility, we plan to retrofit the current track lighting bar into a custom track consisting of C channel to hold the guide wheels for the movable light cart, but also a slotted channel (like 80/20) To fix the bus bar to ensure the cart is constantly powered while moving along the track. By inlaying the bus bar in-between the guide wheels, we can minimize shorting hazards that could occur. The light carts will move by first latching onto a moving belt slightly above the track with controlled by a AT328 processor and a servo motor. The other side of the belt will contain a free spinning wheel to allow for bipolar direction based on movement needs. The products we intend to use to retrofit our design can be seen below. They will be used to remove some of the mechanical design complexity. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia-Lighting-Meshback-1-Light-White-LED-Track-Lighting-Head-LTHMSBK-MR16GU10-LED-27K-MW-M4/206168599 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia-Lighting-8-ft-White-Linear-Track-Lighting-Section-LTS8-MW-M6/204323316 In regards to the electronics, our design proposal will require 2 separate PCB modules, and 3 total. We plan to utilize the same PCB module for each light cart and have a separate module to control the linear motion belt. The light cart PCB module will contain electronics to prevent collision between light sources (simplest solution would be limit switches, but other alternatives like gauging distance with photo-sensors or IR could be damage preventative). It will also contain a servo motors that will power the lead screw latching mechanism as well as an additional servo motor that will control the rotational position of our track lights. (2 motors per light cart). There will likely be noise that may occur as our cart moves across the bar, but we plan to compensate for the noise by implementing some smoothing through circuit design. Each cart will need a bluetooth receiver to receive instructions from the app on the ground. Circuitry will need to be designed to prevent sequencing errors with the procedure to latching onto the belt and moving to the desired position. We also plan to add dimming features through PWM to allow the user to have more control over the brightness of their source. The 2nd unique PCB module that will need to be designed will mainly be focused on running the linear motion belt. It will also require a bluetooth receiver to get instructions from the user app. The motor driving this belt will need to be the most powerful in terms of torque. In regards to power considerations, aside from the initial AC-DC converter which we plan to buy off the shelf, we plan to mainly operate within 3.3 - 24 VDC to power all our sensors and devices. From the user end, we plan to utilize an App that will allow a user to communicate with a certain light cart and manually adjust the position (left and right) from the app as well as the orientation of the light off the app. In terms of competing products, there are devices that deal with track lighting in various applications such as horticulture and stage production, however we feel they don't target our consumer market at all. Those products are offered at a much higher in cost with excessive features and lighting configurations that aren't necessary for our ideal user space. Original Idea Post: https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=31695 Rejected RFA Post: https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=32297 |
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