Micro-Morlock design thread - Now called the DNA board

[Nobody]

you could like Doc said, use some rubber backing or some thick padded tape.

the trick is, if you are going to have this as a universal board, i know i'm going to stuff this in a frame with a battery, the harness and most of the noid. having an additional pad in the frame will make this awfully cramped. also, if you are going to put an OLED and program this through the trigger, then why is this other interface needed for?

and finally, sorry if this is has been mentioned, what size header and pins are you planning to use for this? the Molex 3mm pins?

[Simon]

Curt, I copied your post into the thread. I still enjoy Doc's boards but hate how things seem to get lost from the conversation when they go down the page. This was all of the information is captured for all time and easy to refer to in the thread.

My thoughts.

I hate 4-40 threads. PITA to machine into parts I'd prefer 6-32 or even better 8-32 but that may be an issue for some of the other goals for this board.

For installation... I would actually say just make the board as small as possible, even if that means removing the screws hole altogether. Someone can always mount a board into a shaped space and then use screws at the side of the board, and the head of the screws overlapping the board to hold it down. Or they can make a larger backing plate and stick the board down with that.

More I think about it, the smaller makes more sense to me. People will find ways to mount it that suit their needs. A small lip around the buttons for it to butt up against an opening would be good though. 1-2mm is more than enough. Anything you do other than make it as small as possible will likely just limit the options of how it can be mounted...

[Curt]

well I can compromise, I want to keep the holes but I'll make sure there is gobs of trace clearance around them so they can be drilled out to 6- or 8- if need be. The only complication comes from the wires, but I can figure something out there too, in fact I already have it solved in my head

[Simon]

Sounds good.

[neftaly]

I haven't been keeping up with this thread, so I'm probably mentioning something that has already been covered, but it would be nice to be able to run a DC brush motor directly from the board. That way a hopper wouldn't need its own sensors, board, batteries etc and there would be no need to compensate for a ball blocking the sensor but not actually inside the breech. Plus you could use eyes on a non-gravity-assisted feed.

[Simon]

Yep, the board will be able to run DC motors directly. You can use it to drive a hopper from the gun or even as a stand alone to run a hopper...

[new ion?]

That's definitely an interesting thought, being able to run a hopper with the gun, and not just intellifeed.

[Curt]

Alrighty. This is happening, I just filed the order with the board house, I expect finished units to be shipping in ~1 month, barring fundamental design catastrophe.

This is a first for me, doing the project open-source, but I have been preparing for it and keeping my development snapshot separate from the proprietary business stuff in my project partition. I will be ready to release a very very pre-alpha version of things soon, but it won't do anyone any good since you don't have the hardware yet.

Show of hands, who would actually be interested in prototyping the DNA hardware (maybe $20 worth of parts if you already have a suitable workbench) and helping work bugs out of my SDK?

I expect no one, but doesn't hurt to ask. In any case I'll be asking for help fleshing things out once the hardware arrives, and that's going to be soon

I'll also be setting up a wiki here shortly for documentation purposes.

-Curt

[new ion?]

You can greenlight production without confirmation of it working on the mini/axe/tm7 platform?

[Curt]

"greenlight" in this context refers to funding, the actual gold-plated gerbers have not yet been sent to the fab house, they are awaiting my final review, which will be completed the moment I confirm Axe functionality, which will be within 2 hours of it being delivered to my house

I am pretty sure I know what the AXE is doing, and because the DNA can source two current paths that it will work, with at most a single diode added, and I don't actually think that will be required.