RUNNING HEAD: HEATING SCUBA DIVERS UNDERWATER 1

Resistive Heating Underwater

Progress Report 3

Noah Egan, Alen Jomon, Shahid Khan

Governor’s School at Innovation Park

Dr. Psaker

January 10th, 2019

Resistive Heating Underwater

Objectives: As of January 10th, 2019, we have submitted a supply order form for the

following parts:

 Panasonic Sanyo Li-ion 3.7V 3500mAh 10A Rechargeable Flat Top Battery, (4 Pcs)

 Smart Rechargeable Battery Charger

 3 Pack Copper Foil Tape with Double-Sided Conductive Adhesive

The objective we completed in the past two weeks was to finalize the design of our heater

and to build an initial circuit. The circuit is explained in the materials and methods section. We

built the initial circuit with a short piece of carbon fiber tape and a weak power supply (9V

battery) because the more powerful batteries we need have not been delivered yet. The purpose

of this circuit is to make sure our electrical design functions properly. Through further research,

we have finalized our design for the heater. We have now chosen our heating element, carbon

fiber tape, which has already been delivered to us, and we have begun testing. We chose this

over nichrome or copper wire because it produces more heat with lower power usage, and it has

a large surface area compared to wire which makes it heat up the body better. We have ordered

all of the necessary parts for this design and are starting to build the actual heater. The goal we

completed for this progress report was to create an initial circuit design for our heater using an

Arduino Uno, breadboard, and the electrical parts we needed like a temperature sensor and

transistor.

In the upcoming weeks, we plan to set up our power supply using the Li-ion batteries we

ordered and begin testing how well the carbon fiber heats up using our batteries. We will also

research and design waterproof casing designs, to see what we need to use to contain our

batteries and electronic parts.

Materials and Methods

Materials:

 Arduino Uno and Arduino programming IDE

 Breadboard

 DS18B20 Temperature Sensor

 STMicroelectronics BUTW92 Transistor

 Potentiometer

 9V battery with battery jack

 30 centimeters of carbon heater tape

 Scotch tape

 Jumper wires

 4.7 kΩ resistor

Procedure:

1. The first step was to set up the temperature sensor. We placed the three wires running

from the temperature sensor onto three rows of the breadboard. We connected the ground

wire to ground and connected the red wire to the 5V output of the Arduino through a 4.7

kΩ resistor. We connected the yellow output wire to pin two on the Arduino.

2. Next, we set up the carbon fiber tape. We cut a 30 cm piece, because we do not have our

main power supply yet, so we are testing a smaller piece that will heat up faster with the

9V battery. Two wires were taped to each end, to secure a connection.

3. Next, we set up the transistor and potentiometer. The base pin of the transistor was

connected to pin 9 on the Arduino, the emitter pin was connected to one end of the

carbon tape, and the collector pin was connected to ground. The other end of the carbon
HEATING SCUBA DIVERS UNDERWATER 4

fiber tape was connected to the 9V battery. 5V and ground were connected to two pins of

the potentiometer, and the output pin was connected to Arduino pin A0.

4. We secured a 9V battery jack to the 9V battery and connected it to a set of power

channels on the breadboard and we connected 5V and ground from the Arduino to the

other set of power channels.

Figure 1. This is the setup of the initial circuit. The carbon fiber tape is connected to two wires,

the potentiometer is connected to an input pin, and the base of the transistor is connected to an

output pin. The output wire of the temperature sensor is connected to an input pin on the

Arduino.

5. We then wrote the code for the Arduino. We downloaded libraries for the temperature

sensor and set it up. We set up the digital input and output pins and started serial

communication between the Arduino and computer. We made the temperature sensor

output its value to the computer, and made the Arduino turn on and off the transistor with

a duty cycle given by the potentiometer reading. This is not how the final design will
HEATING SCUBA DIVERS UNDERWATER 5

work, the temperature sensor will get a reading from the heat of the carbon tape and the

Arduino will toggle the output to the transistor based on that. The desired temperature

will be given by the potentiometer. However, we did not do this in our initial circuit due

to the power supply being too weak, so the temperature sensor would not have been able

to get good readings from the heat of the tape.

Figure 2. This is the start of the program for the Arduino. We included the OneWire and

DallasTemperature libraries for the temperature sensor. This program takes in serial data from

the potentiometer and the temperature sensor. It toggles a transistor according to the duty cycle

given by the potentiometer.

6. We tested the temperature sensor by submerging it in a glass of ice and warming it up

with our hands. Then, we recorded the readings from the serial communication.
HEATING SCUBA DIVERS UNDERWATER 6

Data

Based on the values given by the serial communication between the Arduino and

computer, we found that the readings from the temperature sensor were accurate, and the

potentiometer performed as functioned. The temperature sensor also performed accurately over a

range of temperatures (Figure 3). The 9V battery was found to produce a temperature increase in

the tape, but only over a small area (at the connections with the tape). Therefore, the temperature

sensor could not read it because the sensor is too big. To overcome this inconvenience of a small

area being covered for the connection on the to the carbon fiber heater tape, we will be ordering

silver glue which will encompass the connection area of the carbon fiber heater tape, transmitting

current allowing for the whole fiber to heat up, not only one area. Also, the large temperature

sensor will not be a problem once we set up our power supply and are able to use more tape to

heat up which will give a larger surface area for the temperature sensor to take readings from.

Figure 3. The left column for each picture is the readings from the temperature sensor in Celsius.

The left picture is the readings when the sensor was in icy water, and the right picture is the

temperature sensor at room temperature.

References

Lopatin, V. (n.d.). Carbon tape. Retrieved from https://www.carbonheater.us/

Stubbing, J. (2018, November 24). AUS-e-TUTE : Chemistry Teaching and Learning Resources.

Retrieved November 27, 2018, from http://ausetute.com.au/