Cad work today, did some small refinments to the electronics bay and double checked that it would fit my motor driver pcb, my orignal version was too small, and thats basically it I did some other small cosmetic changes and I still have yet to change the diameter of the circles but ill do that soon, I’m going to begin working on a seperate project so I’ll try to wrap this up.
Today I worked on my Cad, The main thing that took way too long was the air vents, I made some 0.4in diameter holes and repeated them around the whole outer casing. I also added a place marker for where the aroma pad will be, I chose to put it in the center of the base so that when the fresh filtered air comes in and is pulled up, the scent naturally mixes. I also removed the place for the oled screen because I didnt need it anymore and fixed some small errors. The whole thing will be controlled online through esphome, So I’ll figure that out tommorow, Also these are the main parts
1)Esp32
2)Custom L289N motor Driver
3)DC Power
4)SPST
5)120mm Computer fan(2x)
6)Aroma Pads
7)M4 Heat Set Inserts and Screw
I also have to fix my cad to fit inserts because right now they are set at 4.1mm diameter holes, and I’ll work on my github
So hopefully today is the last day of pcb, I dmed Pero on slack who had very good experience with pcb and electronics and got some feedback on my drc errors. Most of them were small errors and after adding a capacitator I missed I fixed some small silkscreen errors also. Tommorow I’m going to finish my final cad, refine the project an submit for review, I’ve decided to drop the external enviorment monitor part of the project for simplicity but I’m still working on it and I’m going to make a seperate project for it in the coming days.
So I found something, I realized I have been overcomplicating this project. I found a much simpler way, A L289N motor driver, This simplifies much of my project, This allows me to control everything including the fan speed but all I need it this motor driver and an esp32 and an app to control the speed, Today I worked on my custom L289N motor driver and it took a while but eventually I got it and managed to finish in one day. There were a couple drc errors but nothing to worry about.
Also Note to Reviewer, during my lapse for about 10 minutes towards the end I went to watch the end of argentina vs cape verde match and forgot to pause it, so you can deduct if needed.
So I messed up, I realized this after I was done with the lapse but this was my orignal plan, I was going to use a potentiometer to adjust the speed but there were several severe flaws in my work for some reason I completely dropped the mosfet plan(I dont’t know why I did any of this my brain is on a weird autopilot that isnt smart).
microcontrollers can’t even drive this fan because they only have 3.3v and 5v as options and the 120mm computer fan runs at 12v, which if I continued with my orignal idea would most definitely blow up everything, and the microcontroller can’t even read rpm,
Now I’m going to try this again except this time try and use a little bit of my brain. My new plan is much simpler I’m going to use an esp32, L289N motorr driver which can take the 12v dc power supply,
So I was hoping I could finish the pcb today but by the looks of it definitely not, after finishing up my schematic I went over to the pcb to began routing, I’ve never attempted a pcb like this most my other pcb’s were simple and tutorial based so this was a learning curve, after spending time organizing all the components to the way I wanted them to be on the board and kicad crashing about 80 times I began routing, and eventually finished, I went to check the drc and saw 135 errors which made me really happy, now after solving some errors it went down to 131, I then reloaded kicad and checked drc again and somehow went down to 54? But thats good
Other than that I made some changes to this project, my main goal was to make sure that this was cheap, so instead this monitor sensor will be like an addon to this project, the main air purifier will hold a pcb with a xiao esp32, the 2 fans wires in parallel, and a 10K Potentiometer, which can be used to manually control the fan speed.
Now the other enviorment monitor will be placed on the wall and this will also give it better readings because im pretty sure if I put it inside the air purifier it wouldnt give accurate readings.
The 2 pcbs which both have bluetooth will connect to an app together and based off that it can automatically change the speed.
The main hierarchy would be:
Thats my new plan, other than that I figured that I could add a sponge to the bottom of the air purifier which I can add essence drops, to give a better smell.
So small work today I actually did about 37 minutes of work, but by tradition I only realized I was recording my work after I was about halfway through, today basically I worked a small bit on the usb c, by tommorow I think i’ll finish the whole board and work on the mosfet parts.
So today I worked on the schematic for my pcb, I found an open source project that used an esp32 and many of the sensors I needed for this project, I used that as a refrence to design this part, Tommorow I’m going to finish this part then began work on the fan speed control part which will take much longer.
Today was the final cad modeling for this project, I began by working on the top diffuser which the fresh air will be routed out of, it took me way too long to figure out how to model the fins the way I wanted it but after I got it, I moved on to the screen placement, my plan is to use a 1.28in lcd display which can be used to control fan speed, i’m also going to have like on override button on the pcb incase the screen tweaks out.
Now for the pcb part this is my plan
1)ESP32-S3-Vroom
1)AGS10 (Air Quality)
2)BMP388 (Air Pressure)
3)TMP102 (Temperature)
4)Screen (1.28inch Round LCD Display)
5)Mosfet (Controlling Fan Speed)
the main 1-4 parts will what connect to the app and determine which fan speed is most efficent(im still working on this part) the worse the air qualoty faster speed basically. For the fans i’m going to use a 12v dc power supply and wire the 2 fans in parallel and a mosfet which will control speed. I have no clue about mosfets but i’ll figure it out somehow hopefully, other than that tommorow is pcb day.
So I worked on the final parts of my cad today, this devlog is short because for some reason my lapse stopped at 45 minutes and wouldnt start so im going to continue with a new lapse
So I got some good Cad work done today, I first began buy modeling all my components like the hepa filter and the computer fan and took some time to try and model the blades on the fan which took a while but I got it eventually, After that I began working on the case, My first issue came for how I would replace the filter, I though about making a little door to open and take the filter out and replace but that would go against the whole minimalism thing, So I decided to actually go with attaching the fan directly to the main casing and adding magnets to the base and edge of the top case to make it easily accesible. now for the fans I chose Artic P12 120mm fans which are known to be quiet and they are pressure optimized which is good for this type, and the last thing I need is buying a cheap fan and just hearing a constant noise from it. I know hackclub probably wont sponsor this part so ill pay for the fans myself. Tommorow I’m going to begin working on the electronics part, which will include an air quality monitor and many other things to make it really cool. I also will try to finish the top of the purifier and add a place for a touch screen there maybe. I also chose a name Clarus which is the latin root for “clear”.
So today I worked on an air purifier, now my idea is pretty simply an air purifier that is compact yet powerful and most importantly silent because I dont want to listen to a fan all the time, I first looked through some avalible air filter and some cool open source ones and I took inspiration for the deisign from Dieter Ram who is famous for making all kinds of really cool minimalistic stuff
The main parts:
3d printed case
True H13 Hepa Filters
small filter paper
I also plan to include an custom pcb which includes a pcb with a Temperature, Humdity, and VOC , I want to use an esp32 for its bluetooth and maybe make an app to control it remotely?(idk about this part)
I also want to have a small screen but I haven’t looked through this idea yet, becuase I want this to be really minimalistic and easy to use
