FYP Sem II : Week 14

Title of Activity:

Prepare poster for presentation

Analysis:

This is one of the criteria in the final year project. During the Industry @ Engineer's Day, I need to present my project and the poster already simplified about overall project. It is needed to print on A1 size. Below is the poster for my project.

Conclusion:
Poster should be packed with important information about project.

FYP Sem II : Week 13

Title of Activity:

Make the prototype for entire project.

Analysis:

The prototype of my project is the assignment box and circuit box. These are the process of making prototype to represent my project:

1)    Design the cover of RFID card.

2)    I'm using acrylic to build the circuit box and assignment box. I bought the acrylic at Jalan Pasar and cut

       it there based on the size that I designed.

3)    All the acrylic is being cut and drilled in order to place some of components.

4)    Now, the parts of acrylic is being painted to make it look neat and proper.

5)    Joint all the acrylic to make it look like a box.

6)    The final touch to make the prototype is by placing the display components and write the specific name

       that indicates them. I must make sure that the wiring of components is neatly placed to avoid messy and

       malfunction of components.

Conclusion:
The project is now ready to be presented.

FYP Sem II : Week 12

Title of Activity:


Testing the combination of hardware and software part.

Analysis:

In order to check that both hardware and software part is functioning well, I need to test the whole circuit. I need to check the data from RFID tag is responding or not. The tag should sending back its data (uniques serial number) to the RFID reader. Then, the data can communicate with PIC. Therefore, computer can read these transmission of data.

Here are the procedure or sequence for the project:

1)    Firstly, I need connect all the wires correctly. I also need to connect the main power supply to the plug and serial port from circuit to computer using USB converter. The visual basic also must in running mode.

2)    Then, turn on the ON/OFF switch to turn on the whole circuit. Yellow LED is turned on to indicate the circuit is now running.

3)    The RFID card is touched nearer to the RFID reader and blue LED is turned on to indicate the card.

4)    The PC will displaying the student's identification and the PIC now activate the IR sensor.

5)    Red LED will turn to indicate that there is no voltage bounce to IR sensor.

6)   If IR sensor detects any object, it will turn on the green LED and send signal to computer to print the receipt.

Conclusion:
The project is functioning but the data sometimes did not shown at the PC monitor. However, this is how my project is running.

FYP Sem II : Week 10

Title of Activity:


Burning or uploading the PIC program into PIC micro-controller

Analysis:

The below instructions are the basic steps to burn the program into PIC

1.      Make sure the connection of PIC programmer is into computer via serial port / USB port.

2.      Insert PIC used which is PIC16F877a into the programmer socket.

3.      Copy ‘Winpic800’ folder from programmer CD into Desktop.

4.      Look for Winpic800.exe in the folder.

5.      Double click Winpic800.exe to start the program.

6.      Select proper PIC name in the top right combo box.

7.     Open the .hex file which is needed to download into PIC. 

8.   Lastly, go to ‘Device’ -> ‘Program All’ to start download program into your PIC.

Conclusion:
The program coding of project is now inside the PIC. The PIC can be connected to PCB board and can be tested. The same procedure is repeated when I have problem during testing the program.

FYP Sem II : Week 9

Title of Activity:

The making of software part, PIC programming

Analysis:

• As PIC is the main component to control the whole system, the correct programming is needed to be written.

• C programming is preferred language to be written in PIC16F877a and PIC C compiler is the software used to compile the program.

• In this project, the PIC need to interface with some other components and devices such as RFID reader, IR sensor, switches, RS232 level converter and LEDs.

• It is compulsory to determine and declare the input and output port. In this project, 
1. Input port - 
• pin 2 (RA0) for IR sensor
• pin 28 (RD5), 29 (RD6) and 30 (RD7) to detect RFID reader
2. Output port - 
• pin 38 (RB5) for blue LED to indicate IR sensor detected
• pin 39 (RB6) for green LED to indicate document detected
• pin 40 (RB7) for red LED to indicate no document detected
• pin 25 (RC6) for serial port to send data to computer
•  pin 26 (RC7) for serial port to receive data to computer

• Below is the program build for PIC:

Figure 1: Set the variables and port address

Figure 2: The main program

Figure 3: The sub function of detection card

Conclusion:
This coding is crucial to execute the performance of circuit.

FYP Sem II : Week 8

Title of Activity:

Drilling and placing the components to PCB Board to solder them

Analysis:

• After the process of PCB fabrication is done, the components  are needed to be placed one by one. The correct size of component's hole is needed to be drilled according the the leg size.

 Drilling the big size of hole for PCB stand.

 Drilling the component's size of hole.

 Complete PCB drilling.

• Once the component is matched with the hole that has been drilled, prepare the soldering gun and tin.

•  Try to fit the leg size of components and soldered it properly. 

 

Trying some of the components at the PCB board to whether it fits or not.

Soldering the components leg

• To make the board look neat, the extra leg from the component is cut. 

     

• The same process is keep on continuing until the last component is being placed.

• The final PCB board is now completed and it will be looked like the pictures below:

Conclusion:
The PCB board is now ready to be tested. After all the component had done soldering, I need to make sure that all connection from PCB board especially to RFID reader, and RS232 to serial port has the correct one.

FYP Sem II : Week 7

Title of Activity:

Making the PCB Fabrication

Analysis:

1) PCB Drawing: 

     Designed using Protel DXP 2005. Once the PCB layout has been correctly design, it is now prints out the layout on the A4 size transparent OHP paper. Only laser printer and the carbon type of printer such as Photostat machine are allowed to print the PCB layout. 

2) PCB Cutting: 

      Cut photo PCB size according to the film size and OHP paper according to PCB size. 

3) PCB Photo Etching: 

Exposing the photo PCB in photo etching kit or can be using iron to transfer the ink into PCB board in about 8 to10 minutes.

4) PCB Redrawing: 

Redraw the remaining circuit design by using PCB marker or any marker.

5) Acid Etching: 

The purpose of etching is to remove unwanted copper from the PCB surface to achieve circuit design requirements. The etching process takes around 30 minutes to finish.

6)Thinner Washing:

This is a process to remove the remaining copper on the PCB board in order to solder the components. This also can be done by putting some aerosol to remove the remaining copper.

Conclusion:

I learned how to do the PCB fabrication. It is the basic step to make a circuit on a PCB board. The same process will be done if any damage occurred on the previous circuit.

FYP Sem II : Week 6

Title of Activity:

Designing circuit to be placed on PCB Board

Analysis:

Here are the PCB drawing that has been designed:

This is the circuit that will be printed on the PCB board. It shows how the connection from one component to another component.

This is the look of the circuit when the component will be placed on the board.

Conclusion:

These drawing will be placed on the PCB board.

FYP Sem II : Week 5

Title of Activity:

Testing the circuit using breadboard

Analysis:

In order to ensure that the components that I bought are functioning or not, I do the testing on the breadboard. Basically, I test the circuit of power supply. In this project, I need 5V and 12V as the power supply of certain device and components. 12V can be obtain from the 12V adapter while 5V is obtain by constructing the voltage regulator module.

This the voltage regulator module circuit that I assembled on the breadboard.

 

By using 9V battery, I test it and measure the output value at output leg of LM7805 by using multimeter. The value of output voltage is nearly 5V which is 4.8V. Hence, it can be used to operate most of components such as microcontroller, LED and so on.

Other than that, I do the basic testing for each of the LED to ensure whether it is functioning or not. It will be on when it was connected to the circuit that I've been constructing before.

Conclusion:

All the tested component is functioning well and the output produces are same as the theory.