*At the end of week 1, the motor with the coupling was able to move the blinds up or down in 30 degrees (in 10 degree increments), however all the excess blinds needed to be removed to reduce the stress on the motor. A fixture also needed to be created in to hold and keep the motor in place.
This is the blinds now, with the excess 20 blinds removed.
This is the wooden fixture made to hold the motor in place and keep it from rotating. It still needs to be resized so that the right side of the motor can also be screwed into the fixture for additional stability (in its current state, it gets the job done).
*After testing everything together, the motor would still only rotate 30 degrees and not the intended 180 degrees. The cause for this, is either the motor needs more torque, or that the coupling itself is slipping and a better one needs to be used.
The dimensions for this coupling was nearly perfect, however it was slightly too small on the rod's end. A drill bit was used to open up coupling for a perfect fit. Upon further testing, the coupling slipping was not the issue.
Since the outer rod of the blinds needs much less torque to rotate compared to the housing rod, which lacks a gear mechanism, we tested whether the motor's torque was the problem. We connected the motor and coupling to the rod, and as demonstrated in the video, everything functioned properly with the reduced torque requirement.
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