University of the Philippines Diliman EEE118 1s2122
MODULE 12: Design Project
Introduction
After going through all the fundamental and case studies modules in EEE118, it’s now time to put
your comprehension of these lessons to the test with a more challenging, less procedural, design
problem.
Design problems will allow you more flexibility in formulating solutions at the expense of available
learning resources. Component datasheets will be your greatest ally in making informed
decisions about the design, aside from the design specifications that will be handed to you. You
can encapsulate all your learnings and supplement that with the available resources on the
internet to produce a sound computation of the needed components. Alternatively, you can
approach the problem with a more experimental mindset, conducting mini experiments with
smaller circuits before integrating the whole. We would not make any prescription on the method
of design as long as you achieve the design goals.
To make the EEE118 design problems more manageable in the remote setting, we would have to
follow the limitations imposed by our most restrictive software, Tinkercad. The available
components in Tinkercad, not to mention the simulation and visualization features, limit the
“practicality” of our would-be design. You should recognize that problems handed to you and
the solutions you will come up with will vary greatly once we consider real world problems not
captured by our software. Nonetheless, foregoing all these realistic design considerations, and
just focusing on the bare essentials is enough for the scope of this course. Once you accomplish
this design problem, you would have earned the very first skill needed by any electronic
designer, that is you can assess the problem and weigh-in various solutions/methods.
The design project consists of three mini design problems, each one progressively harder than
the one before. However, they all follow a consistent theme, and that is you would be measuring
the temperature of a liquid tank/s and would be making circuits that calculate/compare those
measurements. To make the problem less open-ended, you will be restricted to using limited
components and instruments. This is so that the difficulty of picking a component from the pool
of similar functioned components will no longer be a burden, which unfortunately is actually a
major part of design.
You will be prototyping mainly in Tinkercad, optionally you may use LTSpice. LTSpice may be
used to get more descriptive info on your design, such as generating graphs and other statistics,
and Tinkercad will be used to show the final working prototype that satisfies the design
specifications. You will document your design method in solving all the design problems, and
you will submit this as a report for your final deliverable.
Learning Outcomes
After completing this module, you should be able to:
1. extract basic information from component datasheets.
2. analyze application and characteristic curves/plots from datasheets.
3. design your own simple circuits following a design specification.
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University of the Philippines Diliman EEE118 1s2122
General Instructions
In the next few sections, the design problems will be discussed. Your main deliverable for the
design project is a report. Your report must contain (1) the decisions/computations you’ve made
to arrive at your final prototype in Tinkercad written as an essay, (2) any accompanying graphs
or tables that support your claims, and (3) a clear snapshot of your Tinkercad prototypes in
“simulated” condition. For the graphs and tables, we will not prescribe any values that will be
tested, as we expect you to use your engineering sense to define then defend the data you have
produced from your prototypes. On the formatting, you are free to decide on how your report
will look like, we only ask that you provide separate sections/chapters for each design problem.
The deadline for submission of this design project report is indicated in UVLe along with the file
naming instruction.
A wildcard specification will be laid out for specific problems, this is so that there is a forced
variance between specifications.
Word of warning: we will not tolerate cheating of any form. You are not allowed to copy/ borrow/
benchmark the designs of your fellow classmates and the other way around. Ultimately,
everything you write in your report should be of your own hard work and accomplishment. If you
are having trouble with the design challenge, ask for help via a private piazza post.
Design Challenge
You are a newly hired design engineer now working for a beer brewing company called
BestBeer. The company has asked you to design several temperature monitoring circuits for
their brewing plant following a wave of problems associated with unsatisfactory beer quality
due to malfunctioning equipment. For a quick introduction on the brewing process, watch the
“Beer Brewing Process” -3d Animation video in YouTube.
Design Problem 1
A BestBeer brewing plant must maintain the temperature of the mash tun between 45°C to 78°C.
Problems have risen because the newly acquired control system to maintain the temperature
between this range is calibrated to work with Fahrenheit (1mV/°F) whereas the sensor connected
to the mash tun itself outputs temperature in Celsius(10mV/°C). For the mean time, you have
been asked to connect a few components to the output of the TMP36, the temperature sensor
installed, so that the output directly reads to Fahrenheit temperatures. You should be able to
recreate Vo = 18mV @ -40°F and Vo = 315mV @ 257°F.
You are limited to use the following components and instruments for final prototype in Tinkercad:
Component Qty Reference Remarks
TMP36 1 datasheet
E12 Series Resistors Inf image No potentiometers.
741 OpAmp 1 datasheet Tinkercad OpAmp. Operate with single supply
5.5V Power Supply 1 Tinkercad Power Supply set to 5.5V
Multimeter 2 Tinkercad multimeter
After developing the prototype, you are asked to produce the output voltage vs temperature (in
Fahrenheit) graph of the system using Tinkercad by sweeping temperatures. In the same graph,
highlight the region under the curve wherein the temperature must be maintained between for
the mash tun. Aside from the graph show that you have achieved the 1mV/°F calibration by
computing the slope of the curve.
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University of the Philippines Diliman EEE118 1s2122
Notes for Design Problem 1:
• Assume no RFI Effects (This applies to all succeeding design problems)
• There is no TMP36 model in LTSpice. You may use a voltage source to model the output
of the TMP36. Take note of the output voltage range of the TMP36, and how that is
interpreted in Celsius.
• The loading effect on the Tinkercad TMP36 is very pronounced such that you will not be
able to recreate Figure 26 in the datasheet as is. HINT: use a voltage follower after the
TMP36 output.
• It is possible to operate the 741 OpAmp with a single supply.
• When simulating in LTSpice, the DC sweep simulation command may be useful to
generate the characteristic curve. Furthermore, it is not necessary to model the voltage
follower in LTSpice because the voltage source model is ideal, and therefore will exhibit
no loading effect.
• The graph being asked is similar to Figure 6 of the Typical Performance Characteristics
Charts in the TMP36 datasheet.
Design Problem 2
The company has now fixed the problem with the temperature scale by modifying the control
system to work with Celsius.
In the brewing process, hops are added to the liquid wort which is then boiled at around 80°C. A
problem was discovered in this part of the process when they noticed that they were boiling the
liquid wort well beyond 100°C which leads to a very bitter beer. This was because the
temperature sensor was placed in the spot where the temperature gradient of the tank is on the
cooler side, which leads the control system to undercompensate.
To address this, you have been asked to place two additional temperature sensors to the tank
and to instead use the average temperature of the three sensors as input to the controller. The
control system expects the average temperature to fall within the voltage range output of a
single TMP36 sensor, that is Vave = 750mV @ Tave = 25°C. For redundancy, you are also asked
to build a comparator circuit with a normally ON LED indicator that turns off when the average
temperature goes beyond Tx (w/ units °C).
Wildcard Specification (If your student number ___, Tx is ___ for you)
If your student number ends with Tx (°C)
0, 1, 2, or 3 80
4, 5, or 6 90
7, 8, or 9 100
You are limited to use the following components and instruments for final prototype in Tinkercad:
Component Qty Reference Remarks
TMP36 3 datasheet
E12 Series Resistors Inf image No potentiometers.
741 OpAmp 4 datasheet Tinkercad OpAmp. Operate with single supply
LM393 1 datasheet Tinkercad LM393. Single Supply.
LED 1 Tinkercad LED.
5.5V Power Supply 1 Tinkercad Power Supply set to 5.5V
Multimeter 4 Tinkercad multimeter
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University of the Philippines Diliman EEE118 1s2122
After building your prototype, showcase that your system is working by testing out various
combinations of temperature for each sensor to (1) prove that you can acquire the average
temperature and (2) turn off the LED when the average temperature goes beyond Tx.
Notes for Design Problem 2
1. LM393 datasheet provides an application note that will be useful for your design.
2. You may use voltage followers for each sensor output.
3. Think about how you can compare the average temperature to Tx. Hint: you need to
establish a voltage reference.
Design Problem 3
The head brewer has requested for a specific system to be developed that compares the
temperature of two fermenting tanks: 1 and 2. Normally, fermenting tanks operate at
temperatures between 5°C to 20°C depending on the type of beer.
The specifications are that there will be three LED indicators: A, B, and C that must triggered
depending on certain conditions of the tank temperatures.
1. LED A lights up when the temperature of tank 1 is {conditional 1} tank 2. It must be off
otherwise.
2. LED B lights up when temperature of tank 1 OR tank 2 is greater than {conditional 2}.
3. LED C lights up when the temperature difference absolute value between tanks 1 and 2
is greater than {conditional 3}.
You have been asked to design a circuit system that achieves these specifications for a
temperature operating range of -40°C to 125°C (the full spectrum of TMP36).
Wildcard Specification
If your student Conditional 1 Conditional 2 Conditional 3
number ends with
0, 1, 2, or 3 Greater than 40°C 10°C
4, 5, or 6 Equal to 50°C 30°C
7, 8, or 9 Less than 30°C 20°C
You are limited to use the following components and instruments for final prototype in Tinkercad:
Component Qty Reference Remarks
TMP36 2 datasheet
E12 Series Resistors Inf image No potentiometers.
741 OpAmp Inf datasheet Tinkercad OpAmp. Operate with Dual Supply
LM393 Inf datasheet Tinkercad LM393. Single Supply.
LED 3 Tinkercad LED.
Logic Gates (Any) Inf Tinkercad Logic Gates.
5.5V Power Supply 2 Tinkercad Power Supply set to 5.5V
Multimeter Inf Tinkercad multimeter
After building your prototype, showcase that your system has achieved the logical conditions on
the triggering of the LEDs through simple experiments. Document your experiments by clearly
measuring the relevant parameters using the Tinkercad multimeters and taking a clear snapshot
of your simulated circuit.
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University of the Philippines Diliman EEE118 1s2122
Notes for Design Problem 3.
1. You must operate your operational amplifiers with a dual supply of 5.5V and -5.5V, as
opposed to the first two problems which operate at a single supply.
2. You may forego voltage followers, but you have to account for the loading effects to the
TMP36. You may calibrate the voltages across the system according to your own levels.
3. A difference amplifier may be useful circuit to use for this problem.
4. If you used a difference amplifier, you have to scale the output voltage of the difference
amplifier to between 0V (or mV range) and 5.5V. This is so that they can be connected
to logic gates. Hint: use a voltage divider architecture to “pull up” and “scale” the voltage
output of the difference amplifier.
5. There are really many ways to go about this design, so we have removed the limitations
on the IC’s.
6. Feel free to be creative, remember as long as your design satisfies the specifications, no
matter how ridiculous it looks to us, you will pass.
