GE401- Innovative Product Design & Development I

Product Specification Document

11/24/2011

VFood
Team 2 Seydi Afin nl Emirhan Akdemir Cansu Acar Melodi Trkili Onur entre Engin yidoan

Version: 1.0

Table of Contents
Introduction Physical Specifications Power Specifications ............................................................................................ 2 ............................................................................................ 2 ............................................................................................ 2

User Interface Specifications ............................................................................................ 4 Functions of the Product Conclusion References ............................................................................................ 6 ............................................................................................ 8 ............................................................................................ 9

Introduction
Product specification report aims to explain specifications of MacQuick on engineering base. Apart from requirement report, an engineer will be able to design and test product by using this document. Firstly, physical specifications (weights, heights etc.) and power specifications will be defined. Power specifications consists of power driven by different components, voltage-current limits, power supply voltage and UPS. Then, user interface specifications are explained to make design implementation easy. Finally, functions of product are specified in measurable statements.

Physical Specifications
Table 1: Basic Physical Specifications of the Product
Height: Width: Depth: Weight: 1800 mm 800 mm 800 mm 250 Kg

The case of the MacQuick is steel and there is a padlock for prevention any breaking in.

Power Specifications
Arduino Uno Arduino is used as the microcontroller of the system. The input voltage of the Arduino is equal to 7-12 Volts. Input voltage limits are 6-20V. DC current for each I/O pins is 40 mA and total DC current is 0.56 amperes.

Stepper Motors There are six stepper motors in the internal structure of the product. These step motors has 1.8 step degree (200steps/rev). Step motors operates with 12V and each of the stepper motor draws 0.33 amperes. As stated in previous reports, the stepper motor which is used to pour the macaroni into the plastic bowl operates before the other five stepper motors which are used to pour the ingredients into the bowl. Therefore, at most five stepper motors can operate simultaneously. Hence, the maximum current that that the structure consists of stepper motors can draw maximum 1.65 amperes. Torque of a single motor is 2.3 kg.cm.

Motor Drivers In MacQuick, A3967 motor drivers will use to drive the stepper motors. The load supply voltage is between 7V-30V and output current 0.75 amperes. Output ampere level is enough to feed motors. There will be six drivers for each stepper motor. Logic supply voltage (Vcc) is between 0-7V.

Bill Validator Bill validator is responsible for money exchanging and it will operates between 12 - 24V dc voltage. Voltage limits are 10-42.5V. In normal operation current drawn is 0.1-0.2 amperes.

Gas Compressor Compressor consumes 400W during the cooling process and 50W during the standby. It also operates with 220V / 50-60 Hz.

UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) will be used to supply the system if any power cut situation happens. Also it will prevent the system from the harmonics which means transient ripples that may occur in the input current. In brief, UPS enables system to maintain its durability. Input voltage of the UPS will be 220V / 50-60Hz. It will have 385 VoltAmps.

User Interface Specifications

This section includes all user interface components specifications. There are 5 different of user interface component in MacQuick:

Bill Validator The first interface component that is used by user to give an input to machine is bill validator. G13.mft is used as bill validator.

Figure 1: Bill Validator

LCD Display LCD display is main interface component that is used to show messages to users. It needs to be standard LCD display that can be used with micro-controller easily. Total credit of the customer, problem messages, informing messages such as the the message shown when the macaroni is ready, are shown through LCD screen.

Figure 2: LCD

Keypad Keypad is another main interface component that is used to take inputs from users. It simply consists of several number of hard buttons. Customer chooses then ingredient by pressing the related button on keypad. If an ingredient button pressed inadvertently by a customer, this can be easily compensated by pressing the Clear button. After the ingredients are chosen, the customer presses the Give me my Macaroni button and the process of preparing the macaroni starts.

Figure 3: Keypad

LEDs LEDs are placed to show current status of all ingredient stocks including macaroni stock. All these LED need to be labeled accordingly. Also all these lights needs to have two different colors to show two different status: "Run out of ingredient", "OK"

Figure 4: LEDs

Output Slot Main output interface of MacQuick is this output slot. It is the place that MacQuick fills the bowl that is placed. In order to avoid unwanted situations, this slot has a sensor that monitors the bowl before the macaroni filling process's beginning. It needs to be big enough for bowl. Also it has a grate that is placed at the bottom of this component. User puts the bowl to this slot and wait for the machine to complete the macaroni making process and takes the bowl with a macaroni from there.

Bowl Slot This slot simply has bowls on it and the only thing user should do is taking bowl on it.

Functions of the Product

MacQuick is a vending machine to vend a bowl of cold macaroni with chosen ingredients in it. Since it is a vending machine, its serving time must be as short as possible. The vending process has 3 steps.

Step 1: Money Payment This step consists of the process of the customer pays the money for the macaroni. Initially, the bill validator waits for a customer to come and pay. After the money is paid, step 1 comes to an end. After the money is received as input it takes 2.5 second to count the money and send the money is received signal to the Arduino Uno.

Step 2: Customer Choices for Ingredients After the money is received, user chooses which ingredients s/he wants in the macaroni via keypad. The user can add 5 ingredients at maximum. The chosen ingredients are stored in the memory of Arduino. So this process does not take extra time after the user does the ingredient choices.

Step 3: Macaroni and Ingredient Drop Step 3 is the step where the macaroni and the ingredients are dropped into the bowl respectively. This is the step that determines the vending time because during this process the customer waits. Since, MacQuick aims to deliver the macaroni as soon as possible, this preparation process must be designed wisely to minimize the time of preparation and delivering the macaroni. Engineers of VFood determined the time of preparation of the macaroni with ingredients 20 seconds at maximum. In the preparation process, the macaroni will be dropped firstly. Then the ingredients will follow respectively, one by one. Therefore, if the user wants less number of ingredients, the preparation process will be completed.

The macaroni and ingredient dropping process will be achieved with mechanical components called helical mixers as seen below. Helical mixers are basically mixers but they are also useful tools for pushing fluid or moving materials such as macaroni, corn, peas etc. for a specific distance. The principle behind this, when this helical mixer makes one complete turn, the material inside it move through the cylinder for the length of the corridor inside the mixer. These mixers are controlled with stepper motors. Stepper motors are electric motors that are designed to turn a specific angle. This system enables us to determine the amount of the ingredients and the macaroni to be dropped into the bowl. This is the main reason why engineers of VFood chose helical mixers and stepper motors in the system.

Figure 5: Helical Mixers

Conclusion
In product specification report, we explained physical, electrical specifications and interface designs of our products by considering engineering point of view. In electrical specifications, we mainly decided on stepper motors whose torque is enough to turn the helical mixers, and motor drivers to supply enough current to the stepper motors. The power specifications of other components are explained in terms of voltage ranges, power-current driven and battery option (only for UPS). Interfaces specifications are designed to help engineers increase their understanding about product. Since MacQuick is a vending machine and it is expected to deliver food as fast as possible, the most significant constraint is the delivering time. It is determined as 20 seconds at maximum and the internal mechanical structure and software design is done to meet this constraint. Hence, we finally explained the functions of our product in measurable levels.

References
1. Arduino Uno. Arduino. http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/arduinoBoardUno
2. EasyDriver Stepper Motor Driver. Robitshop. http://www.robitshop.com/EasyDriver-StepperMotor-Driver,PR-353.html 3. OPTI-UPS. Tigerdirect. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/itemdetails.asp?EdpNo=4505145&SRCCODE=LINKSHARE&cm_mmc_o=-ddCjC1bELltzywCjCd2CjCdwwp&AffiliateID=jXot6eVeYJg-.fIlxElj_JMDZM4ipP53TA

4. Step Motor-Kablolu. Robitshop. http://www.robitshop.com/Step-Motor-Kablolu,PR-44.html