Week 10 (9.26)

This is the beginning of first week of semester break, our group members still focus on our technology project.We have many things to do during the holidays.Last Friday, we find a Honda car caliper and brake rotor in the Pick A Part.We measured the bolt hole distance in the test car, it is matched to test car bolt position. Finally, we get our caliper and brake rotor. It is a good news for us.

 

We also do our electronic part in the library. Jong already bought every electronic parts we need, like LED light, resistance, transistor, board and battery.We guys build our project board, but it is not like we thought it would work.We try to make light turning on one by one when the temperature sensor detected different temperature.But, when we connect the board to the battery, the LED light just flash together, it is not working one by one. We think that it may be a problem about potentiometer.After we check the potentiometer,we think it is not a problem about potentiometer, it should be a problem about the  programme.But we can not fix this problem now.We have to ask Simon after the break.

Week 9 (9.19)

It is the last class before second semester mid break start. Today, our class was finished very early.  But many classmates still stayed in the classroom. Those groups were going to discuss their technologies with Roman and Simon respectively, our group also. Jong already got his Arduino kit from Trademe seller.He discussed with Simon about our project- brake cooling system, and Simon gave us a lot of help. Meanwhile， Jin and I got a bad news about our project, the lecturer who use that existed project did not allow us to grind the brake caliper.So we had to get a new second hand brake caliper for our project.In the afternoon, Jong,Jin and I went to the Pick A Part to look for a new suitable brake caliper and rotor.

We looked for a suitable ventilated rotor and caliper in the whole yard. We checked more than 10 scarp car, but the size of  brake rotors is not suitable for our project. Finally, we find a Honda car had a similar size brake rotor and caliper. We went to take this one for our project.We checked the rotor size and caliper size, it is very suitable except the distance of two  bolt holes. I had not check the holes distance before. So, we just hide this brake caliper and rotor first. Then, we want go to workshop again to measure the distance of two bolt holes. If that rotor bolt holes is match to the bolt distance, we will go back to Pick A Part to buy them.

Week 8 (9.12)

This Friday, the remaining two groups had presented their presentation of stage one in the class.After the presentations,most of groups stayed in the class and discussed the latest stage of their project with the technical advisor. Our group went to the workshop with Roman this friday afternoon. We measured the values of the rotor and brake caliper.We decided the position where we can place our temperature sensor and nozzle.The caliper gap is too narrow for our chosen ventilated rotor.There are two solutions can be chosen to solve this problem. The first way is that we can find a suitable caliper to match the ventilated rotor and whole existed project. But this way may take us a lot of time. Second way is that we can grind the brake caliper to increase the gap. This can allow us to fit the ventilated rotor in the existed project to test our project.But we should ask the lecturer who owned that project first. The picture below shows the way we are going to grind the brake caliper.

Week 7 (9.05)

Every group presented the Stage one of project demonstration to the class yesterday. The stage one is about what have we done after the initial report and presentation. My group presented all the things we have done, including the components, design, technical information and calculations. We also describe the further steps we are going to do. The big problem troubling us is the component price. We have to use the temperature sensors to monitor the temperature of brake rotor in our project. But, the brand new one price is around USD 200 to USD 300.It is too expensive for us, obviously we can not afford.Roman suggested us to look for a second hand temperature sensors. Or we can buy a cheap non-contact infrared temperature sensor for our project.The infrared temperature sensor is cheap, the price is around NZD 15 to NZD 30 on the Ebay.The problem is that how can we get the signal from this sensor.