Sun Tracer

4^th year 2^nd semester of college we were tasked to create a device that is an application of both Industrial Electronics and Instrumentation.

Instrumentation requires systems that have something to do with measuring, recording, and controlling while Industrial Electronics requires closed-loop systems using mainly on mechanical functions.

This was a school activity and there were the four of us in the group: Macbeth, Kenneth, Joe, and I. By days, no, weeks of wondering we have finally agreed to propose…

The Sun Tracer

It’s a cellular phone battery charging system that is powered by solar energy

 

Of course it’s totally not solar energy to cell-phone. A more technical view on the device is that the solar cells charge up the 8V battery inside the system, the 8V is then juiced up to 4V that charges the phone’s battery. It’s also equipped with a full charge sensing unit, we don’t want our costumer’s phone to pop, do we?

It traces the movement of the sun from sunrise to sunset. And set’s itself back to its original position after the sunset. That’s the mechanical part, that’s our Industrial Electronics application.

Beautiful sun huh?

 

This was the sun’s rise on the day of the exhibit. It also reminded us that we went through the whole night working on the project. Well I’m not promoting procrastination here, and I apologize if we procrastinated. Lesson taken already.

 

 

This is the LDR that were installed on the left and right ends of the panel. It senses the light’s intensity.

So whenever it detects a difference (ex. dark on the left, and bright on the right) the program that we placed moves the motor to the desired position.

 

This is the LM35 Temperature sensor. We placed a temperature sensor to of course, sense the temperature around. It is one the main applications of Instrumentation that we proposed. We then had the temperature displayed on the LCD on our black box.

 

The BLACK BOX, my nerdy friends named this. They treated this black box very special because this box contains it all. The 2 main circuits inside, the LCD, calibration knobs, all of them put in to one box.

 

The blue knobs on the top most are called potentiometers. It is used to bias or to adjust the sensitivity of the sensors.

So here it is. The full-force group (Macbeth, Me, Kenneth, and Joe).

Yeah I am thankful I had worked with these guys. Macbeth here is the hard working one, Kenneth makes the laughs and Joe – gives out the aura that brings to dirty topics.

 

This video was during the exhibit. Please forgive my undetachable smile, presenting it just makes me so proud. Lol. In addition, we also hired an endorser, her name is Sheerah.

Yeah, the market sales (viewers) did increase when she got the stage.

We were also aired on the television (Look ma! I’m on TV!). It’s a local program though, we had to explain in our dialects.

All throughout, it was the best project so far that we made. I am thankful that we were given a chance to do stuffs like those, it really did taught us a lot.

Professors Involved:    Engr. Jay Villan, Engr. Alain Comendador, Engr. Jasper Sur