Previous Post - Wireless Power Solution for Flashing Light 2 - Assembly and switch on
Hi All,
I am sorry for those that have waited for the final blog post, although may not be the last may be for this design challenge.I completed my last exam today for this semester and officially on holidays (yeah Right 
) No time to put a video together, producing a video would take to much time.
Now that I could take my mind of studies to complete the final testing of the design to ensure everything is working. The good news is that it is, and greatly trundling away on my work bench, although my wife does not have her flashing light while it is on the bench but I will listen to the doorbell in the meantime.
The first image was to test the system before putting it all together as a unit., Like the previous post all worked well without any problems so far (touch wood).
After which I took my wife's flashing light that is operating and assembled it together (see image below) and test it operationally. Overall it is working beautifully but there is still more work to do.
- Some terminal are way to small.
- Relocating some terminal as the base does not sit neatly together.
- More tests to ensure i get full stability in the output voltage, if any!
What will happen now:
I found 2 things while working on this project, The first is to make our life as comfortable as possible. My wife's disability is an isolating one and misses out a lot which can leave tension in her life. I have gone through a day or two simulating what it is like for her but nothing can come close, wearing the highest noise reduction ear plugs (only 35db) I could find could not come close to lower the noise level down -110db in both ears.
This has then inspired me to work for better solutions in relation to making Deaf people as independent as possible, the Wireless Flashing Light solution for charging has made that just a little better.
The second thing that has happened is how I want to justify the remaining days in the workforce, and that is to design things, not just for Deaf, but along with other disabilities as they miss out so much independence in their life from the disability that in my wife's case is of no fault of hers. Just born that way.
I will also looking at general design work, in my hobbies and any future inspiring work that I can do. This includes my passion in Astronomy especially Radio Astronomy. I had tried to do a Double Degree in Physics and Electronic Engineering but it was too challenging and the course structure was not the best but still has not stopped me from striving to understand and design something that will make life not only for me but for my children, hopefully to see someone travel beyond this solar system.
So I will continue with this project but i will be contacting the company that makes them and offer to continue to complete the design further.
Personal Summary:
One of the things that we learn at university in the first year is self evaluation. I have learn't a lot in this challenge and hope to take up some more in the future. I realised the challenge had taken up sometime and taken away only a small portion of my attention away from my studies, I was fortunate though that this was a project that I was already investigating before this opportunity arose so challenge was worth it. The only thing that took me away mostly was the circuit design, there is still more to do in this, including changing some PCB terminal point neaten up a few things but this is only version 1.0 and this in itself showed me that design work is well within my possibilities and not afraid of a challenge here and there.
I though know that I will not take on just any challenge that I feel may not be completed in time and not affect my other work and studies.
What I learnt the most is generally all aspect of design work, I made a few mistakes and learn't a LOT from it, I was though able to take my background in electromagnetics in the service industry and learn a little more in an ever growing area of wireless power. I can now go to my other course next semester Electromagnetic and Electromechanical Principles with a wealth of knowledge.
Finally I learnt to organise myself, I have a new prototype workbench, and found a way of keeping more than 1 project on my bench without packing it away to work on another, all this in a very small room that I work in. I need some new test gear but fiances prevent me from doing that yet.
Thanks
Finally I would like to say thanks to Element14 for the chance to do this design challenge, Wurth Electronics for the evaluation kit that has inspired me to consider more, possibly open source projects in the future and Texas Instrument who made some of the online tools and the products that really made this come together nicely.
Good luck to all other challengers,
Malcolm Whinfield
