Work In Progess: Haptic Belt
Using Haptic Feedback to Provide Navigation for Visually Impaired People
Mechanical Assembly
The main challenge is the mounting of the vibration motors on the flexible PCB. Becuase the vibration motor is a constantly moving component, soldering the motor on the flexible pcb by any means will likely fail very quickly. My solution to this is to use a spring loaded contact connector to connect the motor to the PCB. However, the contact point between the motor and the spring contact will need to be held at a constant distance to maintain contact. So I designed a custom bracket to hold the motor and maintain its vertical distance to the board. I also designed the flexible PCB to be a rigid-flex PCB, meaning that there are four rigid sections within the flexible PCB that can support the stress of the motor contact point.
PCB Design
More infomration can be found in the following link.