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Category: electronics

SDrive NUXX End Panel v1.0

Published March 8, 2009

SDrive NUXX Front and Rear Panels v1.0

After a very busy weekend working on polishing the SDrive NUXX documentation, PCB layout, end panel artwork, and programming nuances (in between fun times for dinner with friends, parents visiting for dinner, etc) I’ve come to what I hope are the final versions. That up there is v1.0 of the end panels, which I hope capture a nice 80s feel with the Atari-esque font for the name and the round-end single-pass-with-a-cutter-in-a-mill line font for the labels.

This artwork is also (hopefully) much better than the last stuff I posted, a bit over a month ago, which was rather limited, particularly due to the limited features of Front Panel Designer. This new artwork was done in Illustrator, providing far, far more flexibility. Hopefully the end panels will come out nicely.

I’ve also finished off v1.1 of the PCBs, moving the tactile switches slightly outwards, adding two missing traces, fixing a footprint, and adding test pads to make voltage testing after assembly easier. This, combined with the finished artwork, and the (forthcoming) results of ‘s testing will hopefully allow me to open up ordering by Wednesday. Yay! Now it’s time to rest for a day or three.

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End Panel Mockups

Published March 5, 2009

Cardboard mocked up front panel with the v1.0 / Prototype PCB in the enclosure. Production panel will be 1.5mm thicker.

Tonight after a profanely busy day at work I did cardboard mockups of my current SDrive NUXX front and rear panel artwork. I’m mostly happy with it, but as my printer seems to stretch things out slightly on the page I have to double-check a few things (toggle switch hole and DIP switch markings, in particular), but I think that what I have is close to the final artwork design.

Here is an image showing the rear panel with SIO connector, reset button, etc. Note that the ugly blue switch caps were used because I don’t like them, so I was willing to throw them away on a prototype. The other switch caps may be seen here. I think I’ll be putting black on the front panel and red on the reset button on the rear. It’d be nice if a dark gray cap was available, but Digi-Key nor Mouser seem to list one.

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SDrive NUXX Is Working!

Published March 3, 2009

The SDrive NUXX up and running, with the SDrive by C.P.U. software running on the television behind via my Atari 800XL.

Today I learned a little lesson about programming AVRs†. After sorting that out I was able to properly use the SDrive NUXX‘s onboard programmer with no problem. After that I thought it should have been working, but the device wouldn’t work. Poking around I found the AVR running, but then found that the SD card slot was only getting about 1V, which is far below the 3.3V it requires.

This problem turned out to be caused by the LE33CZ 3.3V LDOs that I’d ordered from Digi-Key. As can be seen here, when fed 5V the LDOs were putting out just over 1V whose datasheets I had read wrong. I stupidly missed the “from bottom” note on the pinout section and been both fitting and testing the part backwards. (This is another thing to fix in the v1.1 / production run.)

For testing last night I worked around this by feeding the SD card 3.3V from a benchtop supply, everything worked great. The following morning I understood my mistake and fitted the parts properly, and now the benchtop supply is no longer needed. The 2GB SD card I’d picked up for cheap at Micro Center worked great, and I had no problems loading most of the .ATR images which I’d tried.

There’s still a couple problems with the PCB, but I’ll sort those out before the production order. Most notably there is the missing traces in the programmer, then I also screwed up the switch marking silkscreen for the front panel. Whoops!

At least it’s working. Yay!

Continue readingSDrive NUXX Is Working!
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Electronics Woes

Published March 2, 2009

Completed board, connected via a M-M DB25 cable to a PC, for programming.

After returning home from a really great vacation Sunday morning (more on that later) and sleeping, I got to work on the SDrive NUXX PCBs which had arrived last week. While the boards themselves look good and went together well, I’ve yet to get things working right. I first had some problems getting the chip programmed, but patching two missing traces (my fault) and powering the target device sorted that out.

Tonight I found that as soon as I set the fuses on the AVR, even after a successful program, the chip can no longer be accessed by the programmer. I believe this is because the programmer is then trying to talk to the chip at too high of a rate, but I’m not completely sure. Also, the option for setting the programmer to the slower mode (using PonyProg2000) is seeming to not work, so I’m not completely sure what’s happening.

Now it’s time to just relax and get ready for tomorrow. That’s another day of work, then maybe some bike riding. After that I can get back to working on this, and hopefully figure it out.

More photos are available on pages 2 and 3 of the SDrive NUXX album.

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Nokia E51 and Kensington Expert Mouse For Sale

Published February 18, 2009

I’ve got a Kensington Expert Mouse (Trackball) and Nokia E51 for sale. Both are in like-new condition. The trackball was only used for a couple hours, until I decided I didn’t like it. The phone was used for a couple months, but after the recent acquisition of the G1 / Android, I don’t really need it.

Here are photos of the Kensington Expert Mouse: 1 · 2 · 3
Here are photos of the Nokia E51: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12

In case you don’t know, the Kensington Expert Mouse is probably the best trackball made. It’s got a pool ball sized ball, four large buttons, and a scroll ring around the ball which serves the same function as the scroll wheel on a mouse.

The Nokia E51 is a very nice Symbian Series 60 phone with a metal case. It’s quad band, has a SIP client for VOIP goodness, a nice browser, great screen, and 802.11 connectivity. I really like this phone, I just no longer use it. It is completely unlocked, so it’s not tied to any particular operator, SIM, or anything else. Any SIM should work in it, anywhere in the world.

For the Kensington Expert Mouse I’d like: US$50
For the Nokia E51 I’d like US$180

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Google’s My Tracks Is Good

Published February 17, 2009

The T-Mobile G1 / HTC Dream failed to focus in freezing temperatures. This was taken while I was out on a bike ride.

Google has released the My Tracks app for Android, and I think it makes the T-Mobile G1 into the best hand-held GPS I’ve owned. While on a beat-the-snow bike ride† to test out the Mary Bar from last night (note: moving it slightly made my hands much more comfortable) I fired up the app and a short segment of the route back to my house, then around the parking lot a few times. I’m very, very happy with the detail in those logs. You can look at the KML (which only works in Google Earth, not Maps, for some reason) here: 17-Feb-2008_MyTracks_Test_While_Biking.kml

Right before I started this route plot I tried to take the photo seen above with the G1. For some reason, in temperatures right around freezing, the camera wouldn’t focus. I guess this is to be expected, as all manner of small mechanical systems aren’t intended to work right at those temperatures.

All in all, I’m finding myself quite happy with the G1. There’s a few quirks, but nothing that makes me want to get rid of the phone. In fact, I’m considering selling my recently-purchased Nokia E51. I’m also thinking that the On-One Mary Bar might work out well for me. I need to adjust the bar position a little more, but after tonight’s fiddling I found it considerably more comfortable.

† Total ride tonight was somewhere just under 16 miles. I did roughly the same route as on last Tuesday, but with a few detours. I rode the single-speed fully rigid Bianchi D.I.S.S. with very knobby tires, which made for a little more challenging riding. Thankfully the snowy / icy ground was relatively smooth.

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New Front Panel Material

Published February 14, 2009

Detail of black and white text on sample panel material. This is about 5mm tall. The detail seems limited to the grain of the metal.

Today I received some samples for a new (to me) type of front panel material which I may use on the SDrive NUXX. It is aluminum which has been colored and anodized in a manner which allows for very reasonably priced markings in black and silver (natural aluminum). As can be seen with the ~5mm text above, this method of marking has far more detail than what one sees in panels from Front Panel Express.

The downside to this new process is that I’ll have to order a fairly substantial number of panels (100) to get the price that I’m wanting, but hopefully they’ll sell.

After seeing how nice the sample piece looked, I began working up new artwork for the panels which takes advantage of this different marking method. Here is one of my first test results, showing a nicely Atari-ish font and what I feel is overall a more appropriate look for something which is to be used with 25 year old hardware. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to get the rear panel roughed in, and somehow (nicely) tie them together visually.

There is one thing I feel really guilty about, though. In my search for a good font for the button / slot / LED labeling I ended up using the font Interstate, which is the same as was used throughout the x0xb0x front panel redesign. I guess it still holds as a good stuff-labeling font.

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SDrive NUXX v1.0 PCBs Ordered

Published February 10, 2009

SDrive NUXX v1.0 PCB

Well, that’s that. Last night right before bed I sent off the order for 10 of the SDrive NUXX v1.0 PCBs. With any luck they’ll be here around the end of the month. If these work well I’ll begin taking orders

As mentioned last night I had to make the PCB 3mm larger to best use the case but no adjustment to the buttons was needed. Now it’s time to spend my evenings working on things like the documentation site, figuring out how to handle payments (PayPal? Google Checkout?), and doing non-electronicy things like actually keeping my house clean.

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3mm Larger PCB

Published February 9, 2009

Because the PCB can slide past the bezel I will be able to make the PCB 3mm longer so that it will sit directly against the front and rear panels.

Today I received the enclosures for the SDrive NUXXes and found that I forgot to take into account the 1.5mm thick plastic bezels. This meant that I had to make the PCB 3mm longer, so that it’s now 123mm x 100mm. Now I just have to finish tweaking how far back from the edge of the PCB the tactile switches sit and it should be time to call this v1.0 and order a prototype run.

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