Last week when I started to solder all the components together I realized I was short 1 MOSFET. I ordered 2 more and a cable I had also forgotten for the active IR sensor. It was supposed to show up on Tuesday, but once again in the last 2 weeks the USPS managed to lose my package in transit. (They also lost yet another package, so out of 6 packages, I've lost 3 for at least 2 days, one is still MIA after a week) In any case the MOSFETs showed up and it was time to add them to the shield. I definitely show my inexperience soldering components to a pcb here with my bleh solder joints, but overall, it worked.
Now back to the box. The last case modification I needed to make was to add the USB port. I took quite some time to find a cable that would work the way I wanted. I ended up getting a mini-usb to usb and then a usb to a panel mount usb. I ran the 18" of cables around the bottom of the box to keep them out of the way.
I then started to work from right to left on wiring the box. In this case I wanted to get all the power supply wiring done. I'm using a busbar that is rated for 100A, which is about 96A more than this entire system is likely to take at peak usage. That said, it does make it pretty to hook stuff up.
So here at this point all the power supply wiring is done. I learned a better way to crimp the power connectors about halfway through so the plastic didn't get mangled. So some of them look terribad and the good ones are hidden by the controller. Ah well. The power cables for the controller are really larger than they need to be, but I really didn't have any smaller white or red wires to use. it isn't terrible, just excessive. The controller maxes out at around 400ma. The white cable is 16ga and could carry 20x that over that short distance.
Finally it was time to start wiring up all the inputs. I realized that I only needed 5 input keystones, so you'll note the missing one below. I'm spray painting a blank black to fill it in so it there isn't a random hole in the box.
I updated the schematics to reflect that I removed one of the ports and also named all the wires for the controller with the colors of the wires. This way I can use it to do any diagnosis. I also tested each of the ports with the breadboard. I found I had a couple things miss-wired on the mux, but overall most of it was right out of the starting gate.
I also tested the box under full load for the stairs for 1 hour and under a load with PWM at 3% for an hour. I felt no discernible heat changes via the powersupply or MOSFET controlling that line, so hopefully it won't be any problem.
The next step is now to start working on modifying the stair rails and also to build the little boxes to house the sensors. Of course I've tried not to make things look terrible with the box so far, the stair rails need to take a great deal more care in the modifications as they will be visible to people (whereas the box is going to be in a closet and rarely seen).
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