User:Mwnuk/myWork CoreControl

Week0 Activities

Write problem/project Goal

Research and develop a working core control system

My First Task

Research the core control system and prepare an introduction presentation for next week.

Week1 Activities

Summary of actual work over first weekend

Read through the tutorial for constructing a homebrew Core control on instructables as well as research from Standford Magazine and Avacore's website.

Week1 Narrative

Both of us were tasked with general research to familiarize ourselves with the core control technology in preparation for giving an introduction presentation to the class. The majority of my research was from Instructables which provides a tutorial for building a homebrew core control system. Additional research from Standford Magazine where the technolgy was origonally developed and from the commercial producers of the product Avacore's website

• Research of Core Control System
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  Heart Rate VS Time

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  Temp VS Time

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  6 Weeks of Presses

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  6 Weeks of Pull Ups

Avacore produced documentaries explaining the technologies.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

My Second Task

My second task is to test the vacuum pump and buy PVC pipes and couplings to start basic assembly of the glove.

Week2 Activities

Summary of actual work over second weekend

Over the second weekend I bought and tested the materials for creating a vacuum as well as some of the materials for assembling the glove.

Week2 Narrative

This weekend I spent time with the good people of home depot. First I decided to test the vacuum pump on an ordinary container to see if I could produce the 3 inches of mercury needed as per the specifications. This turned out to be fairly easy. I cut a crude hole in an empty creamer container and fit a tube covered with latex hose into it. The latex hose was to create a snug fit and allow an airtight seal. I covered the threads with silicone sealant to create an airtight seal there and presto, 5 inches of mercury.

• Creating a Vacuum in a Creamer Container
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  Sealing the Threads

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  Latex Hose Over a Tube

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  5 Inches of Mercury

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  Sealant on the hose

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  7 Inches of Mercury

While this was above the listed specifications I was interested in seeing what the greatest amount of vacuum I could produce would be. I added the silicone sealant around the hose to provide a greater seal. This allowed 7 inches of mercury and was sufficient to produce greater vacuum. The limiting factor was that at 7 inches of mercury the plastic container imploded breaking the seal. As a mater of reference aprox. 30 inches of mercury is 1 atm or aprox. 15 PSI. Later in the week I filed a ridge from the inside of the 4" to 3" PVC reducer because it was scraping my hand every time I put it in there. After that was done I assembled the glove. I had originally grabbed that box just to store everything in but after further consideration I thought that it would keep the entire thing together while in use as well. So i cut a hole for the wrist seal to go through.

• Filed Off a Ridge That was Scraping my Hand Then Assembled The Glove
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  Ridge Inside 3" x 4" Reducer

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  Ridge Filed off

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  Assembled Glove

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  Case

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  Seemed Like a Good Idea

My Third task

My tasking for the third weekend is to acquire the divers glove to create an airtight seal around the wrist.

Week3 Activities

Summary of actual work over third weekend

This past weekend I created the wrist seal component for the glove.

Week3 Narrative

I got the divers gloves in the mail at the end of last week. Obviously there are only two so I was a but nervous that I may not get it right, cutting it too close to the wrist or the gloves being too large to create a seal. I was pleased with the gloves overall and had been advertised to be airtight, they seemed tight so I figured there wouldn't be a problem. I cut the gloves as close to the fingers as I could to ensure enough room to attach them firmly to the 4" x 3" PVC reducer.

• Creating an Airtight Seal Around the Wrist
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  Scuba Divers Gloves

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  Wrist Strap

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  Cut Glove Just Below the Fingers

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  To Secure the Glove Piece to the PVC Reducer

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  Assembled Wrist Seal

Additionally I spent some time in home depot to check out what I might use to allow to the flow. The professor liked the ridged pipe idea and it just to happened that I was able to get my hands on a cheap water pump with a screw on attachment so I gave it a fair shake. As it turns out not only was the metal piping was ultimately going to be the best option for transferring heat anyways it was also the easiest to attach to the water pump because I could just screw it on so i went with that. Unfortunately I hadn't measure the length from the body to jug i was going to use for the water pump and I was willing to pay a few extra bucks to not have to make another trip (I have spent an ungodly amount of time in home depot over the past 6 weeks). So I ended up with more piping than I needed but thats fine.

• Creating the Cooling Pipe
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  Checking Size of Water Pump Attachment

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  The Piping

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  Preping the Rubber

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  Latex Around the Pipe

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  Pipe Through the Rubber

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  The Hole Shabang

My Fourth task

The last weekend on the project I still needed to get the pump set up in a jar to attach and create a vacuum in the actual glove.

Week4 Activities

Summary of actual work over fourth weekend

This weekend I finished up the vacuum tube / hand pump stuff, created the water pump jar and got everything all together.

Week4 Narrative

So upon inventory of what was left I realized there was still a bunch to do. I had at this point gotten the water pipes through the body of the glove and the wrist assembly on the PVC reducer. Remaining was to get the vacuum pump working on the glove and create the water pump jug apparatus. I set to work on the vacuum first because I assumed this was going to be the biggest problem. I realize that making a vacuum in a jar that can be sealed on all points is easy enough, but this was an attempt at creating a vacuum in a PVC pipe that you are able to stick your hand into. Probably not the easiest thing in the world. I cut the hole, put a small layer of latex over the tube and jammed it in there. At this point I had thought I might be good on that and went to work on the water pump situation. This was very easy as it turns out. The ridged pipe idea that was brought up worked very well with several levels of this project. It was cleaner for one thing which was the original intention (to keep from having a bunch of tubes everywhere). It worked well with the water pump we ended up with because it screwed in, as well as the thermal transfer which I obviously should had thought about before.

• Preparing the Vacuum Tubing
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  Complete body

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  Pipe through body

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  Vacuum tubes

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  Glove

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  Water Pump in jar

After creating the water pump jar it occurred to me to test out the vacuum. Unfortunately it was not creating even a single inch of mercury. So I went to work on sealing all of the seams with the silicone apoxy. I repeated the testing often after sealing each seam and I believe that the vast majority of the leak was coming from the band holding the wrist strap onto the PVC reducer and of course the wrist strap itself.

• Attempting to Seal the Leak
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  Silicone on vacuum tube

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  Silicone on rubber

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  Silicone on other end

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  Silicone on inside of glove

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  Silicone on outside of glove

After applying silicone to the inside of the wrist strap and the band where the wrist strap is connected to the PVC reducer the leak is much reduced to the point where 5 inches of mercury vacuum can be produced inside the core control unit with the persons hand inside. The silicone inside the wrist strap does however make it somewhat of a chore to get my hand in, but i have big meat hooks for hands. We now have a fully functional Core Control unit!

Fully Functional Core Control

Complete Team Page

Fill out the Team Form (should have already copied the form, created the team page, linked to it and started filling it out).