Testing¶

Written by Grace Lo & Rachel Yan

We conducted an extended test of the electrical system untethered. This means that the Raspberry Pi Pico and the motor were connected to a portable battery and left to run until the battery ran out. It is important to note that the portable battery had been used for small-scale testing beforehand so it was not at its full capcity. In addition, the battery was tested on many short cycles, so presumably, longer cycle times can drain more battery than the current power per cycle estimate. The testing cycle followed a sequence of:

  1. Open chamber (~1 min)
  2. Wait (0.5 min)
  3. Close chamber (~1 min)
  4. Wait (0.5 min)
  5. Sensor reads every 10 sec (1 min total)
  6. Repeat
Test Setup

All systems performed as expected. Highlights include:

  • 33:48:03 elapsed time
  • 2,945 data points
  • 1 dropped data point (row 1103, 12 hrs 37 min and 26 sec in)
  • 491 cycles

The data was logged in a .csv file that was converted to a .xlsx file for advanced graphing purposes.

Test Results