15

CHAPTER 3
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION

3.1. Block Diagram of the proposed model

The commercial voltage (230V, AC) is step down through 12V step down
transformer and then converted to DC by bridge rectifier. To obtain pure and fixed
DC, voltage regulator is used. The program is uploaded in the kit and it will sense the
variation of voltage in cables by analog pin when short circuit fault occurs. Switches
are used for manual fault creation. If any of switch is closed, it means short circuit
fault is occurred. Then, Arduino digital pin will check which phase is in fault
condition and it will send the location of to LCD display as written in the program
after checking and sensing the voltage drop.

Regulator LCD Relay Relays

driver

Rectifier

Arduino Cables
UNO
Step-down

Transfor
Programming
Switches
AC
supply

Figure 3.1. Block Diagram of Cable Fault Location Detector

3.2. Hardware components

The list of the hardware components is
1. Power supply circuit
2. Arduino UNO
3. LCD
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4. 12V 5pin relays

5. Relay driver
6. Resistors
7. Switches

3.2.1. Power supply circuit

The circuit is designed to convert 230V AC to 5V DC. Here, 230V to 12V
step-down transformer is used to connect with bridge rectifier. The output of bridge
rectifier cannot produce pure DC. Therefore, capacitor is used to filter DC voltage
that is produced by rectifier. Regulator is used to get fixed DC output voltage. In this
project, LM7805 is used to obtain pure 5V DC supply for LCD and Arduino.

Regulator

Rectifier

Step-
down

AC
supply

3.2. Block Diagram of Power Supply

3.2.2. Arduino UNO

It is a powerful single board computer, an open source hardware platform
allowing creating interactive electronic objects. It consists of Arduino board, set of
various analog and digital I/O pins, serial communication interfaces, including USB
on some models, for loading programs from personal computers. Its platform provides
an integrated development environment (IDE) based on the processing project, which
includes support for C, C++ and Java programming languages. This method features
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an Atmega 328 operating at 5 v with 2 kb RAM, 32 kb of flash memory for storing

programs and 1 kb of EEPROM for storing parameters. The clock speed is 16 MHz
which translates to executing about of 300,000 lines of C source code per second.
Program was written if any fault occurs in the cable, immediately will show the exact
location of fault.

Figure 3.3. Arduino UNO

Pin Configuration
Every Arduino board needs a way to be connected to a power source. The
Arduino UNO can be powered from a USB cable coming from our computer or a wall
power supplies. It’s not allowed to use a power supply greater than 20 Volts as we
will overpower and thereby destroy the Arduino. The recommended voltage for most
Arduino models is between 6 and 12 Volts. The pins on the Arduino are the places
where it will connect wires to construct a circuit probably in conjunction with a
breadboard and some wire. The Arduino has several different kinds of pins, each of
which is labeled on the board and used for different functions.
GND: Short for „Ground‟. There are several GND pins on the Arduino, any of which
can be used to ground your circuit.
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Analog: The area of pins under the “Analog in” label (A0 through A5 on the UNO) is
Analog in pins. These pins can read the signal from an analog sensor (like a
temperature sensor) and convert it into a digital value that we can read.
Digital: Across from the analog pins are the digital pins (0 through 13 on the UNO).
These pins can be used for both digital input (like telling if a button is pushed) and
digital output (like powering an LED).
PWM: The digital pins (3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11 on the UNO). These pins act as normal
digital pins, but it can also be used for something called Pulse-Width Modulation
(PWM).
AREF (Stands for Analog Reference): Most of the time you can leave this pin alone.
It is sometimes used to set an external reference voltage (between 0 and 5 Volts) as
the upper limit for the analog input pins.

3.2.3. Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)

An LCD is an electronic display module which uses liquid crystal to produce a
visible image. A liquid crystal display or LCD draws its definition from its name
itself. It is combination of two states of matter, the solid and the liquid. Liquid crystal
displays are super-thin technology display screen that are generally used in laptop
computer screen, TVs, cell phones and portable video games. Liquid crystal display is
composed of several layers which include two polarized panel filters and electrodes.
LCD technology is used for displaying the image in notebook or some other
electronic devices like mini computers. Light is projected from a lens on a layer of
liquid crystal. This combination of colored light with the grayscale image of the
crystal (formed as electric current flows through the crystal) forms the colored image.
This image is then displayed on the screen.
An LCD is either made up of an active matrix display grid or a passive display
grid. Most of the Smartphone ‘s with LCD display technology uses active matrix
display, but some of the older displays still make use of the passive display grid
designs. Most of the electronic devices mainly depend on liquid crystal display
technology for their display. The liquid has a unique advantage of having low power
consumption than the LED or cathode ray tube. Most of the LCD Displays available
in the market are 16X2 (That means, the LCD displays are capable of displaying 2
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lines each having 16 Characters a), 20X4 LCD Displays (4 lines, 20 characters). It has
14 pins.

Figure 3.4. Liquid Crystal Display Module

3.2.4. Relay
A relay is electromechanical switch which is used in industrial application to
provide isolation between high voltage and low voltage circuits. These two circuits
have different voltage rating. One might be a low voltage side and other high voltage
side. Electrical mechanical relay has three main components coil, spring and contact.
When coil is energized, internal spring of electro mechanical relay attract or pulls
contact towards other point and complete the circuit. An electromechanical relay can
be either normally open or normally closed. In our project, normally open electro
mechanical relay is used. A voltage is required to energize the coil, vary from relay to
relay. Voltage may vary from 5 volts to 50 volts and current may vary from 10mA to
20mA. The relays also have minimum voltage rating. Its means below the voltage
rating, relay will not operate. One can check minimum operating voltage of relay in
its data sheet. But current requirements are not specified in date sheets. Coil resistance
is usually provided in data sheet of relay which can be used to find current
requirement of relay using Ohm’s law formula V= IR. Relays are used in a wide
variety of applications like electric power systems, home appliances, automobiles,
industrial equipment, digital computers, etc.
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Figure 3.5. 12 V 5 Pin Relay

3.2.5. Relay Driver
Relays are used mostly interfaced with microcontrollers and digital systems.
But microcontroller usually cannot provide enough current to drive relays.
Microcontrollers pins usually provide maximum current of 1-2 mA per pin which is
not enough to operate relay. The circuits which are used to derive relays are called
relay driver circuits. Therefore, relay driver circuits using ULN2003 is used to drive
relays.
It is a monolithic high voltage and high current Darlington transistor arrays. It
consists of seven NPN Darlington pairs that feature high voltage outputs with
common cathode clamp for switching inductive loads. It has high current carrying
capability of about 500mA. We need to use relays to control AC loads or high voltage
loads. Relays are used to provide isolation between microcontroller’s circuits and high
voltage operating loads. Microcontrollers are only used to provide on/off signals to
relays. Microcontrollers don’t have enough current sourcing ability to derive relays.
Therefore, relay driver circuits IC is used to derive relays properly.

Figure 3.6. Relay Driver

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3.2.6. Resistors
The resistor is a passive electrical component that creates resistance the flow
of electric current in the electronic circuit. In a direct-current (DC) circuit, the current
through a resistor is inversely proportional to its resistance, and directly proportional
to the voltage across it. In alternating-current (AC) circuits, this rule also applies as
long as the resistor does not contain inductance or capacitance. Resistors are used for
many purposes, for example limiting electric current, voltage division and adjusting
signal levels etc. Resistance value based on the color code can be read from left to
right and silver or gold color usually exists at the right end.

Figure 3.7. Resistors

3.2.7. Switches
It is a mechanical switch that is used to control the flow of current in a circuit
by sliding the slider from the OFF (open) position to the ON (close) position known
as a slide switch. This switch simply controls the current within a circuit without
cutting a wire manually. These switches will stay in one position until changed into
another position manually. The construction of the slide switch can be done by using
metal slides that contact the plane metal elements on the switch. When the slider in
the switch is moved then metal slide contacts will slide from one set of metal contacts
to the other for activating the switch. This switch includes three terminals like one
common pin & remaining two pins which compete for connection toward the
common.

Figure 3.8. SPST Slide Switch

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3.3. Calculation of short circuit voltage

At 4km, 1kΩ 1kΩ 1kΩ 1kΩ
R

1kΩ

Vdrop
5V dc
1kΩ 1kΩ 1kΩ 1kΩ
G

Supply voltage, Vs = 5 V
Vdrop = ?
By voltage division rule or Kirchhoff’s voltage law,
3
8 ×10
Vdrop = 5 x 3
9 ×10
= 4.44 V
4.44
By converting the analog voltage 4.44 V to digital value = ×1023
5
= 908.42
Due to some tolerance, set maximum and minimum limit of voltage at 4 km;
890≥ V drop ≤920
At 3km,
1kΩ 1kΩ 1kΩ

1kΩ

Vdrop

5V dc
1kΩ 1kΩ 1kΩ

Supply voltage, Vs = 5 V
Vdrop = ?
By voltage division rule or Kirchhoff’s voltage law,
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3
6 ×10
Vdrop =5x 3
7 ×10
= 4.28V
4.28
By converting the analog voltage 4.28V to digital value = × 1023
5
=875.68
Due to some tolerance, set maximum and minimum limit of voltage at 3km;
850≥ V drop ≤890
At 2km,

1kΩ 1kΩ

1kΩ

Vdrop
5V dc
1kΩ 1kΩ

Supply voltage, Vs = 5 V
Vdrop = ?
By voltage division rule or Kirchhoff’s voltage law,
3
4 × 10
Vdrop = 5 x 3
5 ×10
= 4V
4
By converting the analog voltage 4.00V to digital value = ×1023
5
=818.4
Due to some tolerance, set maximum and minimum limit of voltage at 2km;

750≥ V drop ≤850

At 1km,
1kΩ

1kΩ

Vdrop
5V dc
1kΩ
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Supply voltage, Vs = 5 V
Vdrop = ?
By voltage division rule or Kirchhoff’s voltage law,
3
2× 10
Vdrop = 5 x 3
3× 10
= 3.33 V
3.33
By converting the analog voltage 3.33V to digital value = ×1023
5
=681.31
Due to some tolerance, set maximum and minimum limit of voltage at 1km;
600≥ V drop ≤750

3.4. Software
There are two types of software used in this project. they are Arduino IDE
software for writing and uploading the program and the other one proteus simulation
software that can design simulate numerous kinds of electronics devices.

3.4.1. Proteus version 8

Proteus 8 is best simulation software for various designs with microcontroller.
It is mainly popular because of availability of almost all microcontrollers in it. So, it is
a handy tool to test programs and embedded designs for electronics hobbyist. After
simulating the circuit in Proteus 8 Software, it is easy to directly make design with it.
So, it could be an all in one package for students and hobbyists. In addition, it also has
various libraries for microcontrollers and sensors and we can download everything we
want. But, it will need hex.file of verified program in simulation with Arduino.

3.4.2. Arduino Software

It is designed to introduce programming to artists and other newcomers
unfamiliar with software development. It includes a code editor with features such as
syntax highlighting, brace matching, and automatic indentation, and is also capable of
compiling and uploading programs to the board with a single click. The Arduino IDE
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comes with a C / C++ library called “Wiring” which makes many common
input/output operations much easier. Arduino programs are written in C/C++,
although users only need to define two functions in order to make a run able program:
setup () – a function run once at the start of a program which can be used for
initializing settings and loop () – a function called repeatedly until the board is
powered off. Since the IDE is pin oriented, we can quickly achieve our desired logic
and build a working mode.