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Week of September 1 - September 7 In this week the team was chosen. The team members are Mordejai Burstein, TC Meyer, and Daniel Hails. We contacted our Mentor, Dennis Derfiny, for the first time. During this week, we decided what the approach would be for the project. The approach agreed upon was to design, build, and test two DC-DC 24V/-48V converters in order to do a comparison of their performance, durability, and efficiency. One prototype would have environmentally friendly components, and the second would be built with regular components. Week of September 8 - September 14 During this week, the first website was set up with the initial problem statement, which now has become the Mission Statement and Background. A thorough research about lead was done and it was uploaded on to the website. We contacted our mentor and decided that a timeline needed to be created in order to have a more organized approach to the project. A preliminary calendar was created, which now has evolved into the current Timeline that is posted on the website. Research about DC-DC converters was done. We received a specification sheet from Motorola in order for us to study it and know the requirements for the power converters we were to design, build, and test. Week of September 15 - September 21 During this week, the website was redesigned to become the current website. We decided to post the Objectives for the project, and uploaded the biographies and pictures of the Team members. Schematics of the DC-DC converters were researched and studied for our upcoming simulation work. Research about what tantalum capacitors was done and a presentation was made. We contacted our mentor and discussed our current progress. The applications of the DC-DC converters that we are building was discussed. After the discussion, we found that the converter that we where creating is used to power cellular basestations. We asked Dennis to send us his biography and picture. He sent us an example of the type of timeline we should use in order to make the current one more concise. Week of September 22 - September 28 During this week, we posted the latest Timeline. The website was updated. Information about the cellular basestations that Motorola manufactures was received from Dennis, our mentor. A presentation about these base stations was made in class and posted on the website. We designed our first boost converter using CAD software, and began running simulations of the drawn circuit. We communicated with our mentor was again during our weekely meeting. We also spoke to Matt Norton, another one of our mentors, for the first time. He was brought up to date on the progress of the project. Week of September 29 - October 5 The website was updated. A first working simulation was achieved and can be appreciated in the Project section of this website. The first program review for the project was done with the mentor. The mentor was pleased with the progress and work that have been accomplished to date. One of the next steps established is to continue work on the circuit design. Changes need to be made on our initial converter schematic since the specifications given by Motorola require that the power converter have an inverting, as well as a boost, topology. The voltage must be converted from 24V to -48V. We started on a hand analysis of the current boost topology. Week October 6 - October 12 The web site was updated. We posted the laboratory notebook on the web site. We had a meeting with a Duke professor, Dr.George, to get a better understanding of inverting power converters in order to have our schematic comply with the given specs. We met with our mentor. He told us that we should start looking into what testing needs to be performed once we build our two prototypes. We did research on DC/DC converter performance analysis. We continued work on the circuit analysis equations to find the values needed for the electronic components in our improved schematic. In general, these equations will provide us with a better understanding of our converter. Week of October 13 - October 19 The website was again updated. The new and improved timeline was posted. A testing approach for the prototype was suggested, and can be appreciated in the Project section of this website. Also, a clear project approach was posted and is outlined in the Project page as well. The prototype is now in the process of being built. The new proposed schematic and simulation results are available for viewing in the Project section of the website. We met with Dr. George to ask him questions about our theoretical analysis equations we are doing by hand. We talked about our progress with both of our mentors once again during our weekly telephone conference. Week of October 20 - October 26 The website was updated. This week, we mainly focused on fixing the integrator of our model that does not work properly, building the current design model that we have, and finishing the hand analysis. Also, a little more research was done about the testing procedure. We talked with our mentor, and he was happy with our progress. Since we have encountered problems with the simulations of the new design, we decided to work on the testing at the same time so that we do not fall behind in the timeline. Week of October 27 - November 2 The website was updated. We are still working on fixing the integrator, and we are testing a way of doing it by replacing the 555 timer and the integrator with a Voltage Controlled Oscillator. We also worked on the testing side and the prototype side. We posted more details on the testing that is going to be performed on the prototype, and we also continued building our prototype. We also posted pictures of the prototype that can be appreciated in the prototype section of this website. We also labored more on the theoretical equations of the old prototype, and hope that by next week the whole analysis will be posted. Week of November 3 - November 9 The website was updated. We got a new simulation which is now posted in the simulation section of the website. We also finished the hand analysis to solve for the values of the inductors and capacitors of the circuit and it can be appreciated in the analysis section of the web-site. You can also appreciated the latest pictures of the prototype. We also started looking for certains part of the circuit that we could not find on the internet in order to buy them. We obtained a power resistor which we can use to simulate our load in the lab for testing. We talked with are mentor and he was very pleased with our performance. Week of November 10 - November 16 The web site was updated. We are working on a final simulation because the one we had did not work as expected. We are also performing a hand analysis of the circuit to solve for the Vout (the prior analysis was made to find the values of inductance and capacitance needed). We built a new prototype, but it is not finished because we are waiting to get our final simulation working. We are also building our inductors. We meet with our mentor. However, since we have fallen behind schedule, we are expecting to have a review this Wednesday instead of last week. Weeks of November 17 - November 30 The web site was updated. The final simulation was finished and can be appreciated in the simulation section of the web site. We also finished the hand analysis to better understand the way that Vout behaves through out the simulation. This can be appreciated in the analysis section of this web site. We finished building our inductor. A picture of it, an explanation of how it was built, and equations used to build it can be appreciated in the prototype section of the web site. We talked with our mentor once again. He was happy with our performance, but he was concerned that we had not finished building the prototype. He also requested for us to start working on the outline of the final written report for the project. Week of December 1 - December 7 The prototype has been worked on and finished. We built the high current paths and connected the power components on a PCB. The feedback control section of the circuit was assembled on a bread board. The two blocks were brought together and tested in the lab. Finishing touches were done on the web site. |
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