User:Mikehicks/enes100/My Work2

Write problem/project Goal
To create a robot arm and control it with arduinos and have it mimic the movements of and elephant trunk.

My First Task
Im going to run two stepper motor mounts on one arduino.

Summary of actual work over first weekend
This weekend I originally planned to hook up two stepper motor mounts to an arduino and have them run at the same time but was more along the lines of trouble shooting.

Week1 Narrative
Over the weekend mirrored the wiring of the 1st stepper motor mount as you can see in the picture. After properly wiring both stepper mounts, I used theMulti stepper sketch after uploading it the the arduino I ran into an issue with the 2nd motor seen in this video. From there I isolated the 2nd stepper motor and was getting this problem Also when the motor would get jammed at that one point it would make a really high pitched noise and the stepper motor was pretty warm to, along with the arduino. Overall there was an issue with either the power or the stepper motor.

My Second Task
For the second weekend I plan on fixing the issues with my 2nd stepper motor mount and work out the issue with it jamming up, maybe try a different motor shield also another stepper motor.

Summary of actual work over second weekend
I originally planned to figure out how to run two stepper motors simultaneously, but instead I decided to safe proof the wiring.

Week2 Narrative
Over the week I had tried multiple ways to have two stepper motors run at once. First I used a power supply to try and run two motors and using the stepper motor party arduino example i burned out the motor shield because it was to much for the arduino to handle with the fast speeds and the constant change in rotation with out delays. also the wiring was open and may have shorted out the motor shield. first i got some shrink wrap from class to secure the wiring because this may have caused the motor shield to burn out. So i put the shrink wrap on it as you can see here I was thinking maybe about getting some sort of enclosure, and mount the power supply and arduino and all that in there so its not such a mess with all the wires, and to help prevent shorting out the boards with the wiring all messed up.

My Third task
try to create a cleaner looking design for all the wiring and power supply, and also to create a 3rd motor mount.

Summary of actual work over third weekend
How is what you did different than what you planned?

Week3 Narrative
Tell a detailed story describing what you did for your team over the weekend.

My Fourth task
''Record what you are planning on doing for the team during the final weekend of project work. ''

Summary of actual work over fourth weekend
Stayed on task of finding ways to keep motor shield for over heating.

Week4 Narrative
Over the weekend i did some research to find out how to keep the motor shields from over heating. Ran into someone with the same issue on the forums and I think what i will need to do is get some heat sinks which will help keep the motor shield cooler because running two higher powered stepper motors require a lot of power and that heats up the board really fast. I will need to get a heat sink and some thermal paste from staples or some other office supply store.Thermal paste

Complete Team Page
Fill out the Team Form (should have already copied the form, created the team page, linked to it and started filling it out).