1-21-2013

1-21-2013 I came into the lab and eased into the new semester and the return from break by connecting the power supply to the Arduino motor controller inside the system that will control the scope that Alex asked Matt and I to rebuilding before break. It is not the scope I will be using but nevertheless it needed to be done. I then used the Dremel tool to cut a square out of the copper piece pictured below. The small square will be placed in the control system and I will be doing more complex wiring and soldering with it on Thursday. I observed as Matt reverse-engineered the schematics for part of the control system using the source code he had written for the original scope. I was then going to solder those parts but it was already past five o'clock and we needed thin wire that was available in the physics stockroom but it was after five o'clock so we could not move any more forward today. I ended up leaving around 5:40 pm.

1-24-2013 I came into the lab today and got right to work on wiring the control box for the scope that will be run by the electronics Prof. Kandel developed. Matt and the new graduate student Ashley were working on getting the scope that they already rebuilt to work on the already existing electronics. The goal here is to have the scope work on both Prof. Kandel's electronics and the electronics that powered the scope that I used last semester and most of the summer. To control the scope in a similar manner, I have been working on a control box which houses an Arduino motor controller. The front of said box will be as shown directly blow. The furthest switch on the left will be used to turn on the Arduino which Matt has already written code for. The Arduino will allow us to use Prof. Kandel's electronics and to control the scope through them. The middle switch, for now, will not control anything and may be used in the future to switch between the two different electronics system. The right switch will control whether the scope is moving forwards or backwards. The LEDs, if I'm not mistaken, will indicate if the scope has crashed or not. The bottom left knob is a potentiometer which will allow us to adjust current sent to the Arduino. If I remember correctly, the bottom BNC port will be connected to the Arduino outside and Prof. Kandel's electronics on the inside. I think the top BNC port will go unused for now though I will update the whole box's status as I learn more. The four holes on the right side will house banana plugs. I spent most of the day soldering wires to their proper places.

Here is the Arduino that will control the electronics. The Brown wires here connect to a five volt output which connects to the two switches that will be used on the front. Both switches are connected to the part of the Arduino that will allow us to control the scope with the computer. The light red wires will power the LEDs and the dark red wires connect the switches and the potentiometer to ground.