Electronic Prony Brake

Description

Parameterizing consumer level motors is an important component of mechanical development to validate the given information on the equipment. To do so, I designed and developed multiple functional 3D-Printed Prony Brakes to mechanically test the concepts of dynamic torque, speed, and power. To find torque, a brake was clamped onto the shaft of an inset motor so it could torque into an installed load cell. Moreso, I built an electronic subsystem consisting of a photo interrupter, Arduino microcontroller, and signal amplifier to control the motor as well as find the RPM of the motor. Using simple calculations, the power was then outputted and logged to confirm the validity of the providers’ specifications.