element14 Community
element14 Community
    Register Log In
  • Site
  • Search
  • Log In Register
  • About Us
  • Community Hub
    Community Hub
    • What's New on element14
    • Feedback and Support
    • Benefits of Membership
    • Personal Blogs
    • Members Area
    • Achievement Levels
  • Learn
    Learn
    • Ask an Expert
    • eBooks
    • element14 presents
    • Learning Center
    • Tech Spotlight
    • STEM Academy
    • Webinars, Training and Events
    • Learning Groups
  • Technologies
    Technologies
    • 3D Printing
    • FPGA
    • Industrial Automation
    • Internet of Things
    • Power & Energy
    • Sensors
    • Technology Groups
  • Challenges & Projects
    Challenges & Projects
    • Design Challenges
    • element14 presents Projects
    • Project14
    • Arduino Projects
    • Raspberry Pi Projects
    • Project Groups
  • Products
    Products
    • Arduino
    • Avnet Boards Community
    • Dev Tools
    • Manufacturers
    • Multicomp Pro
    • Product Groups
    • Raspberry Pi
    • RoadTests & Reviews
  • Store
    Store
    • Visit Your Store
    • Choose another store...
      • Europe
      •  Austria (German)
      •  Belgium (Dutch, French)
      •  Bulgaria (Bulgarian)
      •  Czech Republic (Czech)
      •  Denmark (Danish)
      •  Estonia (Estonian)
      •  Finland (Finnish)
      •  France (French)
      •  Germany (German)
      •  Hungary (Hungarian)
      •  Ireland
      •  Israel
      •  Italy (Italian)
      •  Latvia (Latvian)
      •  
      •  Lithuania (Lithuanian)
      •  Netherlands (Dutch)
      •  Norway (Norwegian)
      •  Poland (Polish)
      •  Portugal (Portuguese)
      •  Romania (Romanian)
      •  Russia (Russian)
      •  Slovakia (Slovak)
      •  Slovenia (Slovenian)
      •  Spain (Spanish)
      •  Sweden (Swedish)
      •  Switzerland(German, French)
      •  Turkey (Turkish)
      •  United Kingdom
      • Asia Pacific
      •  Australia
      •  China
      •  Hong Kong
      •  India
      •  Korea (Korean)
      •  Malaysia
      •  New Zealand
      •  Philippines
      •  Singapore
      •  Taiwan
      •  Thailand (Thai)
      • Americas
      •  Brazil (Portuguese)
      •  Canada
      •  Mexico (Spanish)
      •  United States
      Can't find the country/region you're looking for? Visit our export site or find a local distributor.
  • Translate
  • Profile
  • Settings
Experimenting with Gesture Sensors
  • Challenges & Projects
  • Design Challenges
  • Experimenting with Gesture Sensors
  • More
  • Cancel
Experimenting with Gesture Sensors
Challenge Blog Blog #4: Building stand for MAX25405 EVKIT
  • Challenge Blog
  • Forum
  • Documents
  • Files
  • Members
  • Mentions
  • Sub-Groups
  • Tags
  • More
  • Cancel
  • New
Join Experimenting with Gesture Sensors to participate - click to join for free!
  • Share
  • More
  • Cancel
Group Actions
  • Group RSS
  • More
  • Cancel
Engagement
  • Author Author: misaz
  • Date Created: 20 Oct 2022 2:03 PM Date Created
  • Views 1369 views
  • Likes 11 likes
  • Comments 9 comments
  • MAX25405
  • maxim integrated
  • optical sensor
  • experimenting with gesture sensors
  • diy
  • MAX25405EVKIT
  • stand
  • merkur
Related
Recommended

Blog #4: Building stand for MAX25405 EVKIT

misaz
misaz
20 Oct 2022
Blog #4: Building stand for MAX25405 EVKIT

Hello Element14 community. I welcome you to my 4th blog post as part of Experimenting with Gesture Sensors Design Challenge. In this blog post I will show stand which I build for making robust and stable position for MAX25405 Gesture Sensor Evaluation Kit. In previous blog posts I described my first thoughts about MAX25405 Gesture Sensor and its evaluation Kit from HW side (blog #2) and SW side (blog #3). In first blog I described my plans as part of this design challenge.

I originally did not want to make stand. I supposed to let sensor board just on the desk and do gestures in horizontal plane above the sensor board but very soon after I start experimenting with the Kit, I realized that this is not very good idea. When working with sensor board just placed on the desk I frequently moved and rotated board occasionally which change direction of gestures and also touching any other device like multimeter to the board cause device movement which is unwanted movement of the tiny board.

For making stand Maxim offers prepared 3D model of recommended stand. You can download STL model from Maxim website and print them on 3D printer. You get plastics stands which you can use for attaching sensor board.

But I have no 3D printer, so I had to invent alternative stand. Last over three months I spend with developing my Duratool Cabinet Storage Box Upgrade project and because some parts of mechanical building set remaining on my desk, I get idea very quickly. I build stand using the same mechanical set. I used only few parts this time. To be exact – I used only 10 parts from mechanical building set, 16× M4x10 screws and nuts, 2× M3x10 screws, 4x M3*5 plastic standoffs, 4x M2 standoffs with ~3mm hole and 3mm screw (6 mm in total length). And of course, I used (one) MAX25405EVKIT. Without MAX25405EVKIT this stand does not make sense. Blush

The biggest issue was with “reduction” from M2 holes (which are used on MAX25405EVKIT) to M3.5 holes which are used on the mechanical building set parts. Because I have not any standoff with this parameters I did another DIY solution. Note that M2 screws fall through M3.5 holes, so I cannot attach board directly to the mechanical building set. I resolved this by pushing M2 standoff to the plastic M3 standoff. At one end I had M2 screw (which I mounted to the MAX25405 with another standoff used as nut) and at the opposite side I have standard M3 hole which I used for pointing to the build set part.

image

Comparing with 3D Printed Stand

While I did not realize this at beginning this stand has some benefits over plastic stand available to 3D print. At first, it is adjustable. I can easily change angle of the sensor. Just unscrew joins and select different point. The other benefit which I realize is that this stand is more robust because mechanical stand is heavier than plastic one. In opposition it has one disadvantage – it is from metal. As you can see there are PCBs near metal which may be sensitive to shorts when touched with metal part. This applies especially for my power regulator which has multiple pinheads directly exposed. So, I must pay attention to this.

Result

At the end it looked as follows:

image

Last words

And this is all from this mini-blog as part of my serie about MAX25405 Gesture Sensor. Thank you for reading this blog post. In next blog post I plan to describe how to use evaluation kit from programs using UART API. In fact all data what you have seen in previous blog post (Blog #3: Experimenting with MAX25405 EVKIT GUI Program) was transmitted between evaluation kit and my computer using UART API. Next time I will show how to access the UART API directly without PC program and how to possibly use it in own programs or devices. Like in any my any other blog post, I welcome any feedback. If you have any feedback or question, just ask in comments below.

Next blog: Blog #5: Experimenting with MAX25405EVKIT UART API

  • Sign in to reply
  • dougw
    dougw over 2 years ago

    The Meccano brings back great memories. I wish I still had some. It looks like a good application for it.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
  • misaz
    misaz over 2 years ago in reply to ntewinkel

    I like the idea but I will not do this because I frequently want to access pins of boards (for example UART, other MCU pins and so on) or for example check voltages by multimeter and so on. I will also connect other devices to the boards soon. So I think that paperboxes are not ideal solution and I will rather isiolate metal construction like DAB suggested.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
  • misaz
    misaz over 2 years ago in reply to ntewinkel

    Thank you for feedback.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
  • ntewinkel
    ntewinkel over 2 years ago

    Those meccano type constructor sets are awesome!

    I've built a couple of random stands for similar reasons too, but I think  yours is much better built than the things I made :D

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
  • ntewinkel
    ntewinkel over 2 years ago in reply to misaz

    If you want to get fancy (but not super fancy), you could make some little paper boxes for the boards. It's actually quite quick and easy:

    /challenges-projects/project14/merryboxesleds/b/blog/posts/merry-boxes---a-project-within-a-project

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • More
    • Cancel
>
element14 Community

element14 is the first online community specifically for engineers. Connect with your peers and get expert answers to your questions.

  • Members
  • Learn
  • Technologies
  • Challenges & Projects
  • Products
  • Store
  • About Us
  • Feedback & Support
  • FAQs
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Legal and Copyright Notices
  • Sitemap
  • Cookies

An Avnet Company © 2025 Premier Farnell Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Premier Farnell Ltd, registered in England and Wales (no 00876412), registered office: Farnell House, Forge Lane, Leeds LS12 2NE.

ICP 备案号 10220084.

Follow element14

  • X
  • Facebook
  • linkedin
  • YouTube