The results of the project
were quite successful. We managed to build a Postage Meter that can be
automatically fed and accepts multiple envelops at the same time. Not being a mechanical
engineer or an architect, we did a very good job in building the box and
setting the wheels such a way to be capable of moving the paper along. In
addition to code writing and great deal of wiring and circuit design, we did a
non-imaginable amount of mechanical design dealing with sufficient forces and
how the paper would mechanically move and how to bring the possibility of
jamming to minimum.
The rotation of different
wheels and the stamping were fully synchronized with each other and according
to the size of the envelop set by the user and the stepper motors rotated a
certain pre-set number of turns according to the size of the envelop to make
sure that the envelop be stamped at the right place.
Use-interface is done by a
keypad and an LCD and the user is able to set the size of envelop and number of
envelops to be stamped in this way. Also the user has the ability to start or
stop the process any time, in case of jamming.