Final Assembly and Testing

[jtemple967]

Today we got the last parts for our device and did the initial assembly. We ordered the K-LD7s right before they became depreciated so we went ahead and built ours with those radars. I will be curious how much the new radars improve the data, would be willing to upgrade if it's significant. Here's some observations from our build:

• The walls of the monitor housing is, IMO, too thin. They began to separate quickly after printing. So I re-did the monitor housing adding thicker walls.
• The monitor housing had small tubes for standoffs to mount the monitor plate. These were too flimsy and we broke one almost immediately. My updated monitor housing has the standoff as corner braces in full contact with the outer walls (sorry, no picture of that but I did post the model in another discussion thread with the thicker walls and better standoffs).
• When I redid the monitor housing I did not include a hole in the bottom to pass through the various wires and re-discovered how much of a pain it is to drill into a 3d printed object. So...my plan is to add a hole to my updated monitor housing and post on this site
• Instead of a having to attach additional standoffs to for the monitor housing back plate, I just made it bigger with the intention to screw it directly to the back of the monitor housing
• I was unable to git the USB TTY device into the USB port on the PI and have that fit into the monitor housing. The plug/cable was too long. I got 2 180 degree adapters and plugged the USB TTY adapters into those adapters.
• The sensor housing does not have a place to pass through the power cord for the Pi. I am going to add some holes on the bottom side of the sensor housing to either allow the power cord to be passed through or add an external panel jack where you just plug it into the side (I found one on Adafruit that I will link here eventually)
• I found it too difficult to wrench in the M2.5 bolts that hold the radar modules since they did not have the threads pre-made into the model. I'm planning on making the holes for the radars threaded on the sensor housing for easier assembly.
• The groove for the sound sensor is not large enough for the sensor to fit snugly and not come out. I'm going to add some new material to the sensor housing so the sensor can be screwed into the housing so it won't fall out
• I struggled trying to get the K-LD7s into the brackets as designed. I re-designed the brackets so there are 2 plates, one that bolts into the sensor housing that the K-LD7 is recessed into and another that goes on top of the first plate. These 2 plates basically sandwich the K-LD7s so they do not come out and allows a small amount of movement (IOW, the K-LD7 are not pinched or are in danger of warping in the housing. I will make those new models available here for those that are still using the K-LD7.