Detailed Electrical Update — Day 4

Badgerloop
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

On the electrical side, the day started off with the main microcontroller being powered on for the first time and drawing a high current which we soon realized meant the board was compromised. We replaced the board with our one backup and moved on to finishing up some loose ends with DAQ firmware in addition to verifying some harnessing pinouts. At some point when we connected our retro-reflective sensors to the electrical box which lead to another microcontroller board sustaining damage and we had to solder headers to our unopened microcontroller board to use that. This was done at the hotel around 6:00 P.M and when we went to test the fresh microcontroller board a high current was still being drawn so at this point morale was low. Fortunately, a quick touch-test for hot components revealed that the accelerometer sensor on the microcontroller shield was extremely warm indicating that it was compromised and effectively a short to ground.

We had one replacement sensor that we quickly soldered up, but when we powered this new sensor on we could not read from any of the I2C sensors on the board. There was an I2C pressure sensor directly soldered to the PCB which we removed to try the removable accelerometer and this sensor was re-installed but could not be read from.

This indicated that the board’s I2C pins may have sustained damage which means a new microcontroller board would be needed and luckily these were purchased with overnight shipping immediately after the second board sustained damage.

We continued the night without any working I2C sensors and were able to actuate all of the solenoid valves from the dashboard before we left at 2:30 A.M from Bulletproof to sleep

From left: Ryan Castle, Tristan Steiner and Vaughn Kottler work on the pods internal harnessing
Cooper Green hard at work

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