UV-C Mail Cleaner

For this project, I designed and built a prototype of a mail cleaner that cleans potentially infected mail using UV-C light. Two bulbs, one on top and one on bottom, clean the mail as it passes through at a rate controllable by the user. This allows the user to select the level of cleanliness vs the speed that the mail is processed.

Two stepper motors control two different sets of flexible wheels that can grab onto mail to pull it through at a consistent rate. The wheels are flexible to allow packages up to 0.5" thickness to be cleaned. The whole system is run off of an arduino nano, and utilizes makeblock stepper motor controllers to control the wheels. The bulbs are controlled through ballasts that are connected to the arduino.

The documentation for this project goes much more in depth on the UV-C components of the project, including testing and calculations that prove its effectiveness at removing COVID from surfaces.