Student's corner

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Here you'll find Articles By the Students,for the Students..

First up we have an article by Tushar Hindlekar(B.E.Electronics),on how to effectively handle 5th sem elctrical workshop projects(he did all the three projects alone and won the second prize for them).

A Project insight

Fifth semester electronics projects are considered to be "heck! One more thing to be done this sem!" Although theory is the basic foundation of the projects, only theory is not enough, things sometimes behave differently in the "real world" . In real sense these projects develop a practical way of looking at things. This article will help the reader to develop a mindset to go about the projects. This doesn't only apply to fifth semester projects but any kind of electronics project in general

Selecting Projects:
Students have different approaches in selecting projects. The first is "I will select a simple project and complete it soon". The other is "I will select a complicated project and complete it, and then everyone will envy my project". Both the above approaches are wrong. Selection of the project must be done on the application rather than the simplicity. The project should be simple, a circuit can be made in 1000 ways to get the same output .Make sure you are building the simplest of the thousands. Get help from the internet. Do not trust online circuits, even if it says TESTED OK, it may eventually not work and you will end up debugging the whole circuit from the start. Take "ideas" from the internet; try designing your own circuit for the application. It's easier to debug your own creation. According to the rules one cannot make projects made by students from the last two year batches also on the internet most projects are similar. The cut copy paste approach can help, take 2 projects make something new out of the two.

Soldering:
It's better to practice soldering by making some circuits prior the projects, fourth semester vacation is a perfect time to do so. Electronic project kits are available in shops like vegakits and vishakits at Lamington road, Grant road. Quick tutorials on soldering can be found here: [http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/solder.htm]

Let's go about it:
The class is divided into groups of 3.All the group members must be from the same batch. Projects are supposed to be completed in college but you can do it at home. The projects are to be submitted around in last week of October or the first week of November. The college starts in July, so there are 4 months to complete 3 projects. One workshop practical of 2 hours is commenced every week for each batch. It seems large amount of time, but deadlines soon creep in because of the term work journals. So time management is important. Students are required to complete three projects an analog project, a digital and one based on microcontrollers or microprocessors. All students of a common batch are supposed to do a same analog project. The other two are to be decided by the students. All components are provided by the college. So the students are expected to give a list of all components to the teacher. The components may take a week to arrive, this adds to the delay in making the project, so decide your projects soon.

The projects

Analog based
As I said earlier the analog project will be same for the batch members, it will be selected by the teacher. It is best to complete the analogue project in maximum 3 weeks. Simultaneously keep searching for ideas for the digital and the analog projects.
Digital based
There are many sources to find ideas and circuits. The internet is the biggest source. There are books and magazines in the college library which can help. Electronics for you and elektor have digital circuits in abundance. Make sure to choose a circuit which can be used in real world, avoid "electronic dice", "electronic cricket game". Avoid plagiarism, adopt ideas rather than circuit diagrams, and even if you get ready circuit diagrams try to simplify them. Some of the sites from where you can refer for circuits are [ http://electronics-lab.com/] [http://web-ee.com/schematics/] The internet is full of such sites providing schematics and working. One word of caution: understand the circuit before finalizing it. Check if "it will actually work".
Microprocessor/controller based
These projects are simple and easy to construct and debug. Although the university syllabus covers only Intel microprocessors and controllers, do not restrict yourself to those. There are many other families like Atmel's AVRs and Microchip's PIC. AVR microcontrollers are much easy to program at home, since they don't need a fully fledged programmer circuit to program. Refer to the internet to get ideas.The library has many resources, magazines like electronics for you; elector and circuit cellar publish some microcontroller projects. You can refer to the websites of these magazines to get more circuits.

Detailed notes
If your project is based on 8085/86 microprocessor, the college provides an 8085/86 kit to interface your circuit.

Intel microcontrollers
The college doesn't have a programmer for original Intel controllers so order Atmel's 89xx instead of 80xx .The college provides programmer for Atmel's 89xx (8951, 8952) which are equivalents of Intel's 80xx series, so better go for them. If you are not comfortable with programming in assembly language, you can use a C compiler like keil [http://www.keil.com/] to program your ICs.Projects for 89xx can be found at [http://www.8051projects.net/]

AVR microcontrollers

Atmel's AVR range of microcontrollers is the simplest to program and use. They provide lots of features over the Intel's microcontrollers. No programmer is needed for programming and thus can be easily programmed at home. To make and the programmer visit this site [http://www.bsdhome.com/avrdude/] Many tutorials are available on the internet for avrs. A popular tool for programming in C for AVRs is CodevisionAVR, you can download it from [http://www.codevision.be/].A popular site for AVR projects it [http://www.avrfreaks.net]. The circuit cellar magazine available in the library also has a variety of projects based on AVRs and PICs. A word of caution: Do not download codes from the internet, some may work, some may not. It is better to write your own code rather than "understand and debug" someone else's. A list of projects by the students of the previous years is available on the IEEE CRCE site. This is all about the projects; seniors are there if further help is needed.

Tushar Hindlekar (BE Electronics)
(tusharhindlekar3[at]gmail[dot]com)