Week Review 3/22/2024

Float Electronics

This was a successful week for the float on the electronics front. There were some small issues with the PCB that needed to be corrected. I was supplying the 5v pin with 5v, but that is actually and output pin. I was thankfully able to correct that by simply cutting the trace.

The hall effect sensors were not acting as reliably as I was hoping they would. I isolated the circuit and tested until I realized that the issue was one extension wire that we were using.

There was also one faulty soldier connection so I recut the board and soldiered it again. From the testing that I have done on the board after these changes were made it is completely reliable.

Float Hardware

On Thursday disaster struck. When I went to grab the tube I saw that it was cracked all the way down. I don’t know how this happened, somebody could have knocked it over and not told us, or it could have been due to cumulative stress from the set screws that hold the magnets in place.

I did a quick acrylic welding job on the tube so that we could continue using it for testing, but we need to build a completely new tube in order to pass safety inspection.

Thankfully the piston that we have fits another tube. We ordered multiple tubes from the same batch because in our experiences different batches have different enough dimensions that a working piston for one will not work in another.