How ‘bout those Gators!? Like how the basketball season has ended (Gators won the national championship), we are close to the end of the IPPD season. With FDR in under two weeks, the team is smoothing the rough edges of the project and in the process of drafting the FDR report.

The Final Housing

The final housing has been modeled and printed! The model was designed such that the housing could be printed as two halves. The two halves were necessary only for our own model of the system as our printers are unable to print the entire housing due to its size. Once we hand this off to Arthrex, we will recommend the housing not to be split in half or 3D printed to allow for mass manufacturing. The housing includes fixture mounts for each of the electrical components as well as a lid to the pump to open and close.

Not One, But Two ESP32’s

Results from flow generation testing proved that the standalone pump module reaches the higher RPM consistent with the step, while the integrated pump module does not reach the desired RPM. This led the electrical team to install an additional standalone ESP32 that will be dedicated to pump control. More specifically, one ESP32 will be used for motor stepping and removing advanced functions of TMC2209 to improve accuracy, whilst the other ESP32 will be used for sensor reading, Nextion communication, the remote control, and PID control. With this solution, improvements to the system include dedicated step timing, UART offload from the first ESP32, and achieving a modular system.