After rushing and stressing during the last days I finally succeeded to deliver all required submissions for this RoadTest +.
In this post I like to wrap up the whole project.
First of all I would like to thank the sponsors Texas instruments, Würth Elektronik and element14 for providing all this very interesting electronics, and giving us the opportunity to build and share our project ideas.
The application I proposed is a machine vision LED lighting controller, in which high power white LEDs can be pulsed and synchronized with a machine vision camera.
After receiving the kit I did an unboxing, which you can read about in the first post. ( TI and Würth Elektronik LED RoadTest+ application and un-boxing - Blog 1 - Nov 10)
In the second post I described some software issues and explained my choice for using Energia from the CCS Cloud.
Although the BLE kit is not part of my project, I couldn't resist to play with it. since the TI app on IOS doesn't work, I pointed to a IOS app which can be used to control the BLE Lights. LED Road Test - Software issues - Blog 2 - Nov 26
Then I switched to the hardware, and search for a solution for mounting the LEDs. With the help of tomaja I found nice PCBs on eBay, which I immediately ordered. LED Road Test - LED PCB issues - Blog 3 - Dec 5
The fourth post again was on hardware, in this post I described the timing needed to control the trigger input/output and the LED flash, needed for my project. LED Road Test - Some words on timing - Blog 4 - Dec 15
In the fifth post I switched back to software, in order to make a simple user interface for the MSP430 kit, for controlling al parameters which I described in the fourth post. LED Road Test - Launchpad user interface - Blog 5 - Dec 19
Here is a screen recording of the result:
In the sixth post the LED PCB's from eBay were arrived, so I described how to solder the LEDs to them.
Furthermore I did some additional tests and looked at the Forward Voltage versus Forward Current relation.
LED Road Test - Solder the LEDs - Blog 6 - Dec 28
Three days ago I was startled by the message that the deadline of this RoadTest+ was approaching very quick.
This was more or less a surprise, for one or another reason I had the date of Januari 30 in my mind.
I started to work hard in order to finish my project as much as possible. In post seven I described my plan on how to build the controller using the MSP430 Launchpad and the TI Led driver on an eurocard sized PCB, together with the opto isolators and terminal blocks for connecting the external signals. LED Road Test - Deadline approaching - Blog 7 - Jan 15
Post eight is about the making of a quick and dirty ring light. When pushing the LEDs to their maximum rating, the PCB's needs to be cooled considerable, so therefore I made a 2mm thick aluminium ring on which I mounted eight LED's. I doubt this will be enough for steady state use, but when using the LEDs in pulsed mode as in this application it will be definitely enough. If I had enough time I would measure the temperature at several duty cycle settings. LED Road Test - Making a ring light - Blog 8 - Jan 16
Post nine again is on software. In this post I implemented the timing as described in post 4 into code, using the delayMicroseconds() function and hardware interrupts. LED Road Test - Timing software - Blog 9 - Jan 18
This concludes my road test wrap-up and my road test. It was most interesting, fun and educational. I will keep you informed when I add some additional stuff to the project. Thanks for your interrest, also thanks to all people who responded to my posts for their valuable comments.
