New sensor circuits arrived

Yesterday the new sensor board (left), node (top) and gateway (right) PCB arrived from ITEAD. We also completed the final assembly of our new miniature ultrasound pulser. Despite its size, that tiny guy in the middle is capable to generate 2W continuous pulses.

First dummy sensor cut

Great news! This afternoon we successfully laser cut our first dummy sensor from the piezo film. Although we had to custom build a pulse width modulator to set the right laser power and find the right focal distance, we managed to obtain a clean, thin cut without overheating the piezoelectric material.

Laser head online

The work for having a functional laser head was shorter than we expected. Now our CNC is ready for engraving sensors out of the piezo material we bought from UK. In the above video, three short laser test pulses.

Up and running

Our new CNC machine is now up and running. Electronic assembly was quite easy even if we had to rework the disposition of the PCBs in order to get better manintenance access. Next step will be gcode testing.

CNC assembly completed

The mechanical assembly of our new CNC is finally completed. Now we'll move to the electronic circuits and finally to the laser engraving head. With a work area of 381x330x94mm there's going to be more than enough space to create new sensor!

Welcome to Edison!

Finally they arrived! This is just one of the two @intel #edison modules we bought as part of the Clean Launch Pad prize. We're planning to use them in combination with the already build gateways to achieve wireless access to the sensor network.

Network debugging

After a significant network gateway update, we finally entered the final stages of the sensor network debugging. Even if still under tuning, we managed to achieve 500ksps data rate and 120° of acoustic scanning aperture. With dimensions of 20x24mm, our sensor node is the smallest digital oscilloscope in the world, beating even the famous Xprotolab (link).