VI. Electronics, Programming and Control

The controls of this project were significantly simpler than the mechanical design and fabrication. Like most other class projects, an Arduino was paired with a Dual MC33926 motor driver and a 100RPM Pololu motor with encoder feedback, powered by a 12V supply. Additionally, a rocker switch was added in series with the power supply to turn the robot on and off, and a toggle switch changed motor direction in software. This setup is pictured right. In the future, this setup will be enclosed in a compact control box, and a battery will likely be substituted for the power supply to make the system more portable. Limit switches should eventually be added to ensure the indexing carriage doesn't interfere with the knife.

The code for the project was fairly straightforward as well. A library from Pololu was used to control the motor speed and direction, and an encoder library was repurposed from a previous project to process motor position. If the encoder value didn't change after a set amount of time, the motor would briefly be set to a higher power. This precaution was set in place to cut through harder vegetables without the danger imposed by full power. The encoder library and control code can be downloaded from the links to the right. Both codes are free to use for future projects in this class.