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A month or so ago at the dump, I helped Michael harvest the optical sensor out of a skiing machine just as closing time descended upon us. As we got hustled away from the picking pile, he mentioned that he needed it to make a speed governor for a wood cutting and splitting machine. A few days later, Michael turned up at school to show me the breadboarded version of the circuit. He had all the basics in place, the code and mechanisms were working properly and predictably. Next step was to formalize the design and install it on the automatic log splitter.
Initially throttle position was held constant by holding the throttle body against a hard stop. Throttle position was selected for reasonable loaded performance and safe unloaded operation.See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np9l8YD36d8 for a video clip of the wood processor in fixed throttle mode. As expected, the engine tends to bog down during heavy loads.
Check out Michael's page on the project for more photos, videos and the Arduino code.
In the Maker Shed:
