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Manufacturing 3 - Base C, Assembly
Electronics and Assembly Plan:
This diagram shows the remaining processes which I needed to complete to finish the product. This includes the electronics part of the base (C) and the final assembly. This section will be shorter due to less processes in total being left until the product is finished. Following this post I will post one of the final product and reflections.
I will use the same format as the previous manufacturing posts and give a clear reference to each point shown in the diagram.
Manufacturing Diary - Base - Electronics (C):
C2 - Draw electronics diagram:
This diagram shows the circuit used within the box, I attempted to help the reader visualise the circuit by adding a box with mitre joints, representing the base of the product.
The diagram shows 5 main components, the LED, motor, power source and 2 switches. In order to allow the user to toggle the rotation of the lamp while keeping the light on i made a parallel circuit, meaning the second switch on the back can turn rotation on and off but cannot rotate the lamp when the LED strip is not emitting light.
The top of the diagram as presented in this post indicated the front of the lamp.
C3 - Join wires for parallel circuit
In order to form the parallel circuit mentioned in C2 (above) I had to solder wires together, this process has to be done quite precisely in order to form a connection that will hold well without any fault.
Using a soldering iron, solder and flux I joined the wires to the best of my ability, only stripping small sections of the plastic off the wires was essential to form a circuit without interference.
The image to the left shows the joined wires with the black coating.
C4 - Wire switches and power through respective holes :
The switches and power wires i used for the lamp are wider on the outside than the inside, due to the USB plug and switch fasteners.
I stripped the ends of these parts and fed them in from the outside of the box through their holes before soldering them into the circuit on the inside.
An example of this is shown by one of the switches in this image to the left.
C5 - Solder sections together:
To finally finish the circuit I had to join all of the components together through soldering inside the box.
The image on the left shows the completed circuit before cleaning up and managing the wires through fastening them (C6)
C6 - Manage wires with zipties and brackets:
Using zipties and brackets with adhesive on the back I was able to hold the wires to the edge of the box, then cut the zipties short to make it look cleaner.
The image at the left shows one of the brackets and zipties I used and the right image shows the final circuit after cleaning it up.
Manufacturing Diary - Assembly :
1 - Clean and oil base top to allow better rotation:
Having used 12 neodymium magnets, which are extremely strong. There was a lot of friction as the attraction was a big force between the. To remedy and jitter during rotation from this friction I wiped the top piece of the base which separates the magnets down to remove any dust and applied oil between the shade and the top and between the rotation plate and the top on the inside of the base. This lubricated the surface to allow for a much smoother rotation.
2 - Place shade over light strip:
The light strip is held up by a clear acrylic tube through which sits on top of the bearing hub. Placing the shade over this carefully is important as I didn't want to impact the acrylic by mistake, which could cause a crack or break in the tube.
3 - Allow magnets to pull shade into place:
The magnets in the shade and rotation plate pull and fix the shade into place with ease due to their strength. This means that no adhesive or mechanical fixing is needed to hold the shade at the center of the lamp.
The image to the right shows the shade attached to the lamp base using the magnets as a fixing.
The next post on the blog will display and present the final product.
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