The Dummy is Done!

Today three of us gathered at EE Lab do discuss about the project and had a look on Han Yang's marvelous dummy. It was finally done and we showed it to Mushtak for his comment. He told us that is some changes we can do to make it better. So, we went back to EE Lab and discuss about the modification of the dummy and the idea to fix it with the external circuit. After doing some soldering, Han Yang took back the dummy home for modification and try to make another box for the microphone. Friday we three shall meet again to finalize our dummy and the microphone and hopefully we don't have to deal with the dummy stuff then and can just focus on the paperworks...

The Dummy connected to the microphone

The Dummy Design

On this tuesday Charng Yang brought a whole roll of aluminium sheet to our class. As the size is far too big, we decided to share it with other groups. I had build a dummy with cardboard on Monday but we decided not to use it as it is not hard enough and not suitable for making a nice looking model out of it. So, we are now using the aluminium sheet to make the whole parts of our dummy and Han Yang is working on it. We shall meet each other angain in Study Week to finish our dummy design.

IC Testing and Circuit Construction

On the 9th of February, our first IC testing was held in the EE lab at about 10am. I hoped that we could finish it in 1 time and did not waste too much time on it. As we were using a kit, we did not have to spend all the time designing our own circuit and we just had to fix the parts onto a designed circuit board according to the position stated clearly on it. Within an hour, all the parts were soldered nicely onto the circuit board. We actually quite scared that the circuit did not work as if it did so, then we had absolute no idea of watz went wrong as we fixed it exactly onto the position that it asked us to. Then for the 1st test, we have failed to produce any sound from the speaker as we spoke through the mic. At that momoent, we were left stunned. After a few minutes, I tried to turn the volume control around, it started to work!! Three of us there were very excited and kept on testing the microphone like we never saw something like it before. Ken Seong's group, just beside us testing their IC too, were also quite interested with our outcome and tried it too. The following photos were taken during the time we were in the lab:

Han Yang, Charng Yang and I busy soldering the parts

Circuit board which is half completed

Completed Project

Han Yang and I testing the microphone

Completion of Design Proposal

The following design proposal had been finalized on the 8th of Feb in The Web and subsequently submitted for approval to the client. Duties in completing the design proposal was devided and assigned to members of the company on the 7th of Febraury. Below shows the summited design proposal. You may click on them in order to enlarge the firgures.

Design Proposal

The following figures are the enlarged samples of the circuit design and the design of the IC model within the design proposal:

Circuit Design

Design of IC model

Anatomy

This is the picture I took from Han Yang's blog. He explained to me that it is quite complicated inside an IC, isn't it?



I agree with what he said but I think we can still show the important parts that outsiders can understand what's inside an IC or show a small part of it only. We will try our best we can..

The Project

We are going to do a circuit that will amplify the sound spoken through a mic. The following diagram shows what will the project probably look like:

Hope we can do it successfully!! ^^

The Second Trip to Pasar Road

Today I went to Jalan Pasar for the second time, along with 2 of my groupmates. 2 other classmates, Lucerne and Chun Yap, also following us as they wanted to buy some stuff there too. This time, Han Yang be the driver and fetch all us there. We went there soon after our class ended. After a journey for more than half an hour, we finally reached Jalan Pasar. We found a parking place soon then we started our search for our IC.

After looking in several shops, we went into an electronic shop where the things we needed were available. The shop got the whole set of equipment we need to set up the circuit. We have bought an amplifying IC, a mic, a few resistors and capacitors, a small speaker, a volume control and a 9V Panasonic battery. We all also took a picture there inside the shop as Mushtak told us to do so. ^^ Smooth trip there.

Han Yang & Me in the electronic shop

Charng Yang & Han Yang

Chun Yap & Lucerne

Soon after we have bought all the things we needed at the shop, we also asked the shopkeeper for the anatomy of the IC. They told us that they had no idea about it and they told me that the supplier gets the IC from numerous electronic companies. They also mentioned that the factories are located at China and Thailand!

With shock, we decided to go to another electronic shop that I went before last saturday as I knew that the worker there were quite helpful. Anyway, the result was still the same. They told us that their suppliers are from Singapore and their factories are also located at China and Japan.

After that, we decided to give up the anatomy 1st. We knew that we needed to finish the design proposal first as we are now beyond the deadline already. So, we ended our search after an hour and took a picture with the "JALAN PASAR" signboard (T.T... who's the 1 gave such idea.. ). I think that we can hand in our proposal tomorrow and hopefully we are able to find the anatomy as soon as possible. ^^

What I have Understood

After I have read through the electronic book titled "Simplified IC Design", I now know the main idea about how IC does the amplifying job.

An IC can contains millions of transistor. As we all know transistor has amplifying uses with specific connections, such as common-emitter. With small value of input, transistor will help us to gain larger value of output. So if we connect numerous of transistor, the ampliflying factor will be much more larger until it can be used in many amplifying purposes. If the amplifying factor of an transistor is 10 and we have 4 transistors in a single circuit, then it can amplify 10X10X10X10=10000 times.

That's what I have understood after reading that book. I think that the designs of the IC inside are quite complicated so I left it.

The First Trip To Jalan Pasar

Last Saturday I went to Jalan Pasar, along with Charng Yang, to buy the stuff of our projects but we ended up with only 2 resistors, an IC op-amp(for amplifying purposes) , a couple of LED and a normal circiut board.

We have gone to about 6 electronic shops but only 2 of them selling IC and the devices we needed. The other 4 shops just selling car accessories such as audio devices. Maybe because of Chinese New Year, those shops were full of customers and we could only manage to get only a few things that I mentioned earlier. All the shopkeepers seemed like did not want to help us much as they were so busy with their customers. Furthermore, both of us were quite new to those electonic stuff. They kept on asking us about the model no. of the IC and the devices we wanted to buy and we 2 had no idea about it. That shopkeeper said he just could get us the parts if only we gave him the models numbers. So we left the counter with disappointment. When we came back wanted to ask for the internal diagram of an IC, he was dealing with another customer already and 4 more were queueing back there. So without wasting time, we decided to leave the shop.

After that, Charng Yang took a taxi and went back home. While waiting for my father to fetch me, I walked down a street and went in another electronic shop. I had bought an project board there but still the shopkeeper there also had no idea about whatz inside an IC. It is all we had done down there at Jalan Pasar.. absolute failure.. we decided to visit it again tomorrow as we had the clear idea about what we should do after Mushtak had another lecture about the project today. Hopefully there won't be many people and we will get something useful there.

The Project Planning Chart (PPC)

Last Updated: 23 Feb 2006