Last Minute Problem Encountered with Turntable

I have encountered a last minute problem with the turntable. I have been running the turntable it has been working fine and responding to the instructions given. However, there is a slight jittering problem where the turntable would get stuck in its place and jitter from side to side but in the same spot.

After running this a few times, I started to notice a pattern in the jittering. At first, I tested the turntable with no weight on it, and it runs smoothly. Following instructions without any problem or jittering.

Here is a video footage of the above statement:

Here is a video footage of the turntable jittering, then working smoothly and then ending with jittering:

I have managed to track down the cause of the jittering. The problem is in one of the relays that are on my stripboard. The jittering is due to the magnetic switching of the relays.

I am now planning to use an IC which is a Stepping Motor Controller Driver to compensate this problem. The IC has no magnetic components therefore this problem will not occur again.

I have purchased the IC from eBay today and will have this problem solved by end of this week.

Wall Development Idea

As the colour painting idea didn't work as well as I wanted it too, I now have to come up with another way to add detail.

Here is a cutout of grass which I will be using as an experiment:

Using a black marker pen, I started to draw lines to add detail to the grass:

By looking at the above photograph, I have managed to achieve the detail effect I was after. However, I'm not sure whether it would look good all around the room.

Here is another detail cutout experiment I did but of a miniature tree:

Rather than having just the tree as a solid cutout, I decided to cut into the tree to make the details. However, this I'm not sure whether this works as well as the first experiment.

Combination Idea:

With this experiment, I used a combination of both detail cutouts and the black marker details.

Now I have to decide which would look better for the whole walls.

Further Research

I have done further research into the urban artist Swoon, who is an influence for the wallpaper cutouts I have done for each season. Since the colour painting was a disaster, I researched further to see what the possibilities are for the cutouts.

There are two ways in which I can adapt a style to my cutouts:

1) Urban Artist Swoon technique:

The above image is a paper cutout combined with additional paper with colour and detail. The cutout appears to be a large orb of light emanating from a young woman. The girl's eyes are innocent and tender, nervous and unsure, looking up from her traditional quincinera attire symbolising her recent initiation into womanhood and an age of coming.

(information researched from google)

Here is a close up of the detailed area:

As I have large cutouts, I can use this technique and add detail and colour to some of the areas. Rather than doing the whole wall, just having a section on each wall will add a focus point to the walls and I would not need to add colour to the rest.

2) Slash - Pencil Under the Knife:

Slash is an exhibition to artists who do more than put pencil to paper. The show displayed at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York features a range of new work by using paper.

These two are the most that appeal to my project.

The one of the right is by Andreas Kock's site-specific explosion of black paper, 2009 and the one of the left is Eddy by Mia Pearlman, 2008.

With this technique I can layer more cutouts and add them to the ones already on the walls and create a 3D effect.

Projector Test

This is a photograph that shows how the projection would look at the location:

The projector was placed in the middle of room and that photograph shows the maximum size of the projecting.

This means that I cannot animate anywhere else around the projector. But as I have built a turntable myself, I am able to project from left to right so the only areas I will not be able to project are the top and bottom. So when I add detail to the cutouts, I can focus more on these areas.

Special Study: Stage one almost complete

The first stage of my special study is almost complete. The hand-built turntable is almost complete. Today we were going to test the weight capacity of this turntable.

But before we were going to test the weight capacity, we ran into a problem. The problem we encountered was that the stepping motor would miss a step which stopped it from rotating smoothly. The stepping motor is programmed to rotate in 4 steps. However because it was missing a step it was not working successfully.

This is a close up photograph of the board that is used to tell the stepping motor how to rotate via steps and what speed.

I have 4 of these blue chips attached to the board, each one represents a step. As I have 4 of these, my stepping motor rotates in 4 steps. However, something was going wrong in order for the stepping motor to miss a step.

On Thursday we spent an hour trying to find out the cause of the this problem, however we were unsuccessful. We then spent another 2 hours on it today and finally managed to figure out the problem. The first problem we figured out was in a line of the board that connected to the stepping motor and to the Arduino and the second problem was in the a couple of wires that were on the board itself.

Before we figured out the problem, we double checked all the wires on the board to see if they were placed in the right place. We also thought that one of the magnets in the stepping motor may have failed to work, and since there is no way to test that, we used another stepping motor but we were having the same problem.

To solve the problem, we replaced the wires that weren't working and we used a different line on the board. As everything was running successfully before, I thought we may encounter this problem again if any of the other wires fail to work later during the progress of the project. However, once we have this working successfully with the weight capacity we would solder the board so this wouldn't happen again.

Once the problem was solved, we tested the weight capacity. Here is a video footage of the turntable holding two Apple laptops that weigh approximately 6.5kg which is more that I will be using. We set the speed of the rotation quite slow in order to make sure that each step was being used.

As you can see from the video footage that it is rotating successfully with the weight of the two Apple laptops. At first, the turntable would stop and jitter in place particular place but that was due to the ball-bearings that were placed randomly. Once I placed the ball-bearings in a track this issue was solved.

We next increased the speed of the rotation slightly. Here is the video footage showing the turntable running smoothly and to a standard speed rate.

As you can see that this hand-built turntable is running smoothly with the weight of 2 Apple laptops. Therefore, it will be able to hold the weight of the projector, which weighs approximately 3.5kg.

The final step for this construction process is to solder all the wires to the board and to built a box for the turntable to sit in and to protect the board and wires so it is portable.

The next stage of my special study is the coding. Via coding in the Arduino program, I will tell the turntable when to rotate, how much degrees to rotate and when to stop, etc. I will also be required to code in Flash because the animations will be created in this software.

Solving issue: Rotating Projector

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been trying to solve the issue about how to rotate the projector. These are the results so far for the 4 ways previously mentioned.

1> Using a turntable motor:

I spent a good few days looking for the complete turntable motor or something similar, however I had no luck. I did come across record-players and deck turntables, however these were from £200 - £400. It would be cheaper if I just built one therefore this way is discontinued.

2> Using a stepping motor and build the platform:

With help from my tutor, I have managed to get hold of a stepping motor. The next challenge for this is to build a platforms that would rotate via the stepping motor. This way is still in progress.

3> Using a windwiper motor and build the platforms:

I went to a few places in search for a windwiper motor. However, I was unable to get hold of one therefore the way is discontinued.

4> Build the whole thing myself, using a drill as a motor:

This way is still in use at the moment. If the stepping motor does not allow the platform to rotate, I will use the idea of using a drill as a motor in order to solve this issue.

From the above list, ways 2 & 4 are still in process and therefore I have a good chance in order to solve this issue.

No electricity in the house

I will need to use a projector and lighting in order to complete my project. However, there is no electricity in the house and no live feed wires in order to make a junction box.

To solve this issue, I will be using a petrol based generator that will allow me to use the projector and lighting.

Issue Solved

Preparing for any problems or issues

In order for my project to run smoothly I searched for any problems or issues that I may encounter.

When thinking through the technique side of my project the main issue I will encounter will be how to rotate the projector when told to do so.

There are 4 ways in which I could do this:
1> Using a turntable motor
2> Using a stepping motor and build the platforms
3> Using a windwiper motor and building the platforms
4> To build the whole thing myself, using a drill as the motor.

My first aim is to find a cheap turntable motor that could hold the weight of the projector which is approximately 4kg.

This will be the Special Study of my final piece.