Week 4

Week 4:

It was easy to settle in while coming in on my fourth week on Monday. I was able to figure out the entire PWM mechanic on Monday and I got my LED to blink at half brightness with a half duty cycle. Electronics control the brightness of LEDs using a duty cycle, which is an instance where the voltage is turned on and off at very fast frequencies. This is even faster than the human eye can see. So if a LED is turned on and off very fast, but is on for half the time, the observer will only see the average of this period, which would be a LED on at half brightness. This allows me to control the heater's voltage directly with a pin associated on the board itself. This is in fact the end goal itself. Today, Friday, I have set up the thermistor on the board along with an LED to show that a change in heat in the thermistor can show a change in the brightness of the LED. That will be my goal for next week. And finally, after that is finished I can actually start implementing my control loop into the printer head itself.

-3/3/17