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Construction of the prototype
The prototype was constructed on veraboard due to time and financial restrictions, but it is envisaged that a field prototype will be constructed on a PCB board. The ESP microcontroller was placed on header pins, allowing it to be easily removed for code modifications, etc., without having to desolder the component each time. Header pins were also used for the installation of the sensors. The frequency and audio sensor are not shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Prototype circuit for the HV tower theft detection and monitoring tool
This prototype was designed to confirm that the methodology would work, i.e. that the attempted theft of steel members or the theft/degradation of the earth electrode can be successfully detected and communicated wirelessly to a monitoring centre. It is therefore much larger than the field prototype is envisaged to be. As can be seen in Figure 5, the size of the enclosure is dominated by the battery. Should a lithium ion battery or a dedicated solar voltage controller be used, it would result in a very significant size variance.
Figure 5: Final assembly of HV tower theft detection and monitoring tool
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