Tag: Cotonou

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Adding a shock absorber to the system

Tuesday the 8th of October 2019

Reporter: Médard Honfo

Pictures: Katrijn Baetens

Today we kept improving the system, we noticed the data gaps originated from small shocks that the batterie containers were not able to absorb, hence we searched for different methods to add a shock absorber to the system. The pictures show some of the ideas we had, in the end we kept it simple and just added some padding to the box. In the evening we put the box back to the port for a second test.

Investigating different methods for a shock absorber

 

 

 

 

 

 

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First data gave insights in how to improve the sensor

Monday 7th of October 2019

Report and figure: Sylvain Amoussou

Pictures: www.lastminuteengineers.com

We analyzed the data of the first prototype. The prototype has been activated at 5 pm on Friday, October 2019 as Wilfried described in the last report.
The figure shows the temperature measured by the prototype from 5 pm local time on Friday. The figure1 (a) shows that the temperature is almost constant from 5 pm to around 7 pm, the temperature decreases and oscillates overnight. The figure 1 (b) show the temperature from 12 am to 8am UTM time. The temperature still oscillated from 12 am to 5 am UTM. But after that, the temperature is almost constan, the oscillations started  when the sun went down and stopped when it went under.

Data gathered with the prototype during 3 October (a) and 4 October (b)at the port of Cotonou.

Today we also further improved our model:

  • The prototype has stopped for during the night, luckily it started back independently.
  • We verified the voltage on the batteries. We noticed that the remaining voltage was 6,28 V which is half of the 12V of the fully charged battery pack. We still need to further investigate if this is acceptable.
  • In the future we would like to use a gsm module in stead of a gps module, this will allow to transfer data without having to open the box. We found a solution to charge the lithion/ion battery that charges this module.
Electronic scheme from https://lastminuteengineers.com, a very helpfull site for developing arduino projects