Now that Alvin has been deconstructed, we’ve started to work on maintenance for the parts that have been removed. The mock sphere has it’s wires arranged so it can be powered up. We started off with some current measurements for the power distribution centers. The boxes are going to be redesigned so it’s important to know how much current each component draws so that the new box can provide enough to power everything at the same time. After that I started building a wiring harness to attach the data bottles to the mock sphere. The wiring harness that connects them on the sub is currently undergoing testing so we need something else in the meantime. I spent a lot of time measuring out and cutting wire (each harness needs to be 4 feet long and has 11 connectors, that’s a lot of wire), some of the wires need to be twisted in order to cancel out interference. Then it’s following the circuit diagram to get each wire to the correct connector and look nice at the same time.
A view of the mock sphere’s wiring
One of the wiring harnesses