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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Colour Maximite 2 Deluxe Edition with USB mouse support

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elk1984

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Joined: 11/07/2020
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 227
Posted: 04:07pm 06 Nov 2020
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  siwypiotr said  Nothing better than edge connector that we all remember from our happy times as kids!

Possibly the only thing better would be a bolt on to the back where cartridges can be fitted & swapped

But that is definitely my Acorn Electron heritage showing  

By the way - loving the CMM2 Deluxe - all working like a charm and the signal to my capture card is razor sharp.
 
Paul_L
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Joined: 03/03/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 769
Posted: 04:47pm 06 Nov 2020
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  siwypiotr said  You are correct about shift register.

...... (shift registers on the cards will be daisy chained).

This is one of the cards that will be soon available:
- relay card
- bread board card (for fast protoyping)
- power card (highly efficient delivery of 3.3V, 5V, 12V, 24V)
- wire communication card (USB mouse, RS232, RS485, CAN BUS)
- wireless communication card (WiFi, GSM, RFM - LORA)

And I hope that many more including those created by other people.

For filtering of ESP it is too late, boards will be delivered next week so It looks like we will see.

Good to hear that someone knows where Poland is :) Im located near Katowice city, 80km west from Krakow.

I definitely know where Poland is. I worked for PanAm engineering for a third of a century. I've been almost everywhere in the world. Vladimir, my grandfather, came from Balice, near where the Krakow airport is now, and was considerably closer to Krakow than you are.

Edge connectors are used extensively in Boeing aircraft, particularly in the Delco INS computers and the digital Bendix autopilot computers. They are extremely reliable and are relatively easy to clean. I don't like the individual pins and sockets which are so prominent today in the piggyback boards.

I see that you are trying to control a bunch of small motors. Inrush currents are a problem when starting ac motors, even very small ones. Switching on a TRIAC for a successively increasing duty cycle during each half cycle is the best way to accelerate the motor. It should be simple to control the successively changing trigger points programmatically. After a few seconds you could pull in a mechanical relay which would bypass the TRIAC and eliminate it's continuous voltage drop and self heating while the motor is running. Stopping the motor would entail simply dropping out the mechanical relay after which the TRIAC would block at the next zero crossing point. This should eliminate any arcing of the mechanical contacts on shutdown.

You are doing very good work!

Make sure that you bypass RFI and transients, especially if there are motors involved, with lots of small caps, and make sure that the female edge connector sockets are accessible for cleaning.

Pavel Artur Jan Waclaw Lepkowski in New York
Edited 2020-11-07 02:51 by Paul_L
 
mclout999
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Joined: 05/07/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 430
Posted: 06:28pm 06 Nov 2020
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  siwypiotr said  
  mclout999 said  Moter control relay board?


Hi

You are correct, this is relay board.

But for what it will be used?

The chip You see on the board is shift register, what benefits it will give?

If I am correct when do I get my board??
 
siwypiotr

Senior Member

Joined: 18/08/2020
Location: Poland
Posts: 127
Posted: 08:19pm 06 Nov 2020
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  mclout999 said  
  siwypiotr said  
  mclout999 said  Moter control relay board?


Hi

You are correct, this is relay board.

But for what it will be used?

The chip You see on the board is shift register, what benefits it will give?

If I am correct when do I get my board??


Ok ok, You are correct. If You want the board now in current state of development I can print 3d model on paper and send to You :P or You can wait when it is done?
 
mclout999
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Joined: 05/07/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 430
Posted: 09:22pm 06 Nov 2020
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  siwypiotr said  
  mclout999 said  
  siwypiotr said  
  mclout999 said  Moter control relay board?


Hi

You are correct, this is relay board.

But for what it will be used?

The chip You see on the board is shift register, what benefits it will give?

If I am correct when do I get my board??


Ok ok, You are correct. If You want the board now in current state of development I can print 3d model on paper and send to You :P or You can wait when it is done?
I will wait and thank you.  Have a great day.
 
siwypiotr

Senior Member

Joined: 18/08/2020
Location: Poland
Posts: 127
Posted: 09:14am 07 Nov 2020
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  Paul_L said  

Edge connectors are used extensively in Boeing aircraft, particularly in the Delco INS computers and the digital Bendix autopilot computers. They are extremely reliable and are relatively easy to clean. I don't like the individual pins and sockets which are so prominent today in the piggyback boards.

Oooo I did not know it so it looks like You will like it also.

  Paul_L said  
I see that you are trying to control a bunch of small motors. Inrush currents are a problem when starting ac motors, even very small ones. Switching on a TRIAC for a successively increasing duty cycle during each half cycle is the best way to accelerate the motor. It should be simple to control the successively changing trigger points programmatically. After a few seconds you could pull in a mechanical relay which would bypass the TRIAC and eliminate it's continuous voltage drop and self heating while the motor is running. Stopping the motor would entail simply dropping out the mechanical relay after which the TRIAC would block at the next zero crossing point. This should eliminate any arcing of the mechanical contacts on shutdown.

In fact Im not planning to control anything, Im making those card for other people to find use for it. Im not sure for what customers will use it, they can use it for AC or DC, that is why Im not sure if I should add any arcing suppression (due to inductive nature of controlled device) or zero crossing circuit (I do not know how to build it so it works for both AC and DC usages)
 
siwypiotr

Senior Member

Joined: 18/08/2020
Location: Poland
Posts: 127
Posted: 09:18am 07 Nov 2020
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  elk1984 said  
  siwypiotr said  Nothing better than edge connector that we all remember from our happy times as kids!

Possibly the only thing better would be a bolt on to the back where cartridges can be fitted & swapped

But that is definitely my Acorn Electron heritage showing  

By the way - loving the CMM2 Deluxe - all working like a charm and the signal to my capture card is razor sharp.


Bolted solution is nice, unfortunately it can not me done on existing original units :(

Nice that You like the picture, correct layout of VGA lines took me way too long, I had to scrap a lot of test batches and lost a lot of money because I was not too happy about with previous designs.
 
Paul_L
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Joined: 03/03/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 769
Posted: 10:20pm 07 Nov 2020
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Piotr,

Inrush current limitation for dc motors is usually not critical. A dc motor is a torque producing device. Its acceleration characteristics are determined by the lap and plex of its winding pattern.

It a bunch of relays are intended to control motors it is likely that they will be ac motors ... dc motors are extremely rare since Edison got out of the business of electrifying railroads. They still do exist in diesel electric locomotives.

If you're starting a bunch of motors (presumably ac) you have to either use mechanical relays heavy enough to carry the locked rotor current or find some way to limit the locked rotor current. As relay size increases the response speed lengthens, the life expectancy decreases and the cost increases, all exponentially. The overall design would probably be cheaper to build if you use a TRIAC gated on at a variable time during the sineusoid to start the motor, then a smaller mechanical relay in parallel to provide the continuous running current, then allow the TRIAC to disconnect the circuit when the current goes to zero.

The cost of a (TRIAC + smaller relay + timing components) might be less than the cost of a bigger relay.

Circuits like this are found in "soft starters" for refrigeration compressors which reduce the starting current to 20% of the normal starting current. They are sometimes the only way to start a big compressor on a small local generator. They are usually priced way above the parts cost of the gadget.

http://www.hypereng.com/
https://www.micro-air.com/

Just something to think about.

Pavel in NY
 
Tinine
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Joined: 30/03/2016
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1646
Posted: 11:16pm 07 Nov 2020
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Yes, I had the 8266 on a MX170 module which had power issues and a large capacitor solved the problem.

 
markboston36
Regular Member

Joined: 27/10/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 76
Posted: 08:47pm 12 Nov 2020
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if only i found this thread before i bought my CMM2. i don't really need any of the enhanced features except for the joystick port that would be nice. i would just want to make sure you keep creating great things.

your expansion boards are intriguing and i will definitely be buying those. keep us posted here on the progress. im sure it was mentioned somewhere here but what is your website?

im polish decent so its good to see a fellow countryman doing great work!
 
JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3641
Posted: 11:46pm 12 Nov 2020
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Is polish decent the same as decent Polish?

Just joshing - welcome!

John
 
lizby
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Joined: 17/05/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 2989
Posted: 11:50pm 12 Nov 2020
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  JohnS said  Is polish decent the same as decent Polish?John

Maybe it's Reverse Polish.

Still joshing - welcome!
PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed
 
markboston36
Regular Member

Joined: 27/10/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 76
Posted: 02:11am 13 Nov 2020
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both of you are real comedians  
 
siwypiotr

Senior Member

Joined: 18/08/2020
Location: Poland
Posts: 127
Posted: 06:43pm 13 Nov 2020
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  markboston36 said  if only i found this thread before i bought my CMM2. i don't really need any of the enhanced features except for the joystick port that would be nice. i would just want to make sure you keep creating great things.

your expansion boards are intriguing and i will definitely be buying those. keep us posted here on the progress. im sure it was mentioned somewhere here but what is your website?

im polish decent so its good to see a fellow countryman doing great work!


Sorry for late replay I have been busy building latest version of Maximite Deluxe with build in WiFi support. Im happy to announce that it is working without any problems. Thanks to power line filtering next to the module there is no power drop issues:

https://youtu.be/NcFPdyanlXw

My web page is:
https://sklep.pslabs.pl/Elektronika-c86/s_lang/en

From Tuesday I will start shipping units with WiFi.
 
siwypiotr

Senior Member

Joined: 18/08/2020
Location: Poland
Posts: 127
Posted: 08:31am 20 Nov 2020
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It is possible that this is the last batch of Maximite that I made.
All of them I will ship with random gifts like (apart of SD card, USB cable, ESP WiFi, Mouse controller):

VGA to HDMI converter
NES controller
Nunchuk controller
VGA cable
     

https://sklep.pslabs.pl/Colour-Maximite-2-Deluxe-Edition-USB-Host-Contr-WiFi-p150?fbclid=IwAR15PxVSOcWdjtZHok9MINe03HlfI_iPvYUit7yYpl21YGtD8aicQkRIxEU

Since many people asked the question i would like to make small update. It is not that I scrap the project, design is finished and there is nothing that I can change to make it better. The project is and will be supported now and in the future. I need some time to develop other products like expansion system for Maximite and some gadgets for Atari ST.

It is also possible that if I will find some time I will make another batch but to do that I would like to hear from everyone if they are interested.
Edited 2020-11-21 23:35 by siwypiotr
 
siwypiotr

Senior Member

Joined: 18/08/2020
Location: Poland
Posts: 127
Posted: 02:45pm 28 Nov 2020
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Hi

I finally found little time to continue on my expansion system for maximite. I would like to make it in size of standard Maximite 2, so it sits nicely on top of the unit.

I do not own original Maximite 2, could someone please measure original box size?

is it 139,5mm / 110 mm ?


Thank You for help.
 
romba6

Newbie

Joined: 04/07/2020
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 37
Posted: 03:06pm 28 Nov 2020
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My top cover is 139mm, this includes the small radius. The 'flat' part is 132mm.
the other dimension is correct.
Edited 2020-11-29 01:07 by romba6
 
elk1984

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Joined: 11/07/2020
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 227
Posted: 03:14pm 28 Nov 2020
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  romba6 said  My top cover is 139mm, this includes the small radius. The 'flat' part is 132mm.
the other dimension is correct.


Mine is W: 140mm x D: 110mm x H: 35mm

Again mine has a slight curvature on the top / sides.
 
siwypiotr

Senior Member

Joined: 18/08/2020
Location: Poland
Posts: 127
Posted: 03:22pm 28 Nov 2020
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  romba6 said  My top cover is 139mm, this includes the small radius. The 'flat' part is 132mm.
the other dimension is correct.


Thank You for help,

Is it possible that cover that producer used is similar to this?




If Yes that would be nice because i want to use (one of the half) as enclosure and it will sit perfect on the top of maximite.
Edited 2020-11-29 01:23 by siwypiotr
 
toml_12953
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Joined: 13/02/2015
Location: United States
Posts: 323
Posted: 10:03pm 28 Nov 2020
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  siwypiotr said  Dear Maximite fans!

My name is Piotr Siwy, Im the owner PS Labs company located in Poland. First time I saw Maximite 2 project I knew that I will build my own version. After creating 4 revisions and adding mouse functionality I decided that my product is mature enough to create this topic on the forum. I nick named it Delux Edition.



Are any more of these going to be available?
 
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