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Category: electronics

SDrive NUXX Ordering Begins 04-Aug-2011 @ 14:00 EDT

Published July 28, 2011

Orders for the second run of SDrive NUXX parts will be accepted beginning on Thursday, August 4th, 2011 beginning at 2:00pm EDT (2011-08-04 @ 14:00 GMT-4) via this page: SDrive NUXX Ordering Page.

Pricing is US$150 for an assembled and tested SDrive NUXX, US$40 for a PCB / End Panel / Microcontroller set. All prices include shipping within the United States, and shipping to international destinations require a US$10 surcharge for each assembled device and every five PCB/panel/uC set.

The ordering page is up, but is not currently live, with all order submissions going into a sandbox. At the date/time mentioned above the page will go live and orders will be expected up until items are sold out. There are 30 assembled SDrive NUXXs available and 20 PCB/panel/uC sets.

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SDrive NUXX PCBs Washed

Published July 25, 2011

This evening I finally got around to soldering the last of the washable parts on to the SDrive NUXX PCBs that I’m assembling. After washing off the water-soluble flux I blew off the water with an air compressor then stacked them as seen above to dry under a fan. With the air conditioning running most days here (due to the hot weather and Roxie now living here) the house’s air is nice and dry and should be perfect for allowing any lingering or absorbed water to evaporate before soldering the rest of the parts in place.

I took a few more photos today during this work, including a bunch of the PCBs laid out on the workbench, flux that needs to be cleaned off, a now-clean PCB, and another view of the PCBs stacked for drying.

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SD Card Connectors Fitted

Published July 14, 2011

Here’s thirty SDrive NUXX PCBs with SD card readers. Thus, the first step of PCB assembly for this run of devices is complete and the boards are under way.

I know what I’ll be doing with most of my free time for the next week or two. Not that I mind; I really enjoy this stuff! Short production runs are fun.

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SDrive NUXX ATmega8-16PU Programming

Published July 12, 2011

Here’s what I spent a good portion of my evening doing: programming and labeling 50 Atmel ATmega8-16PU microcontrollers as part of a new SDrive NUXX production run. Some of these will be sold preprogrammed along with blank PCBs and aluminum end panels while others will be fitted into assembled devices. The next step is for me to begin soldering on the surface mount SD card connectors.

Programming was done with CrossPack on OS X. The issue that I previously complained about has since been fixed, so I had no issues using avrdude and an AVR Dragon fitted with a ZIF socket to quickly program and verify each device.

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SDrive NUXX PCB Cross Section

Published July 6, 2011

The new run of PCBs for the SDrive NUXX arrived today (photo), and with them was this this piece of the PCB, embedded in acrylic, sliced, and polished to allow inspection. The through-hole plating, top and bottom layers, and everything are all clearly visible (and measurable). Now it’s time to order up the components and enclosures, wait for the end panels to arrive, and get to building.

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MultiTech MultiModem II (5600 Series) Teardown

Published March 7, 2011

I recently had a chance to play with one of the last bastions of high-quality analog modem technology, a MultiTech MultiModem II, 5600 series. It’s an extremely high quality device which can do things such as automatically dialing a stored number when DTR goes high. These are quite useful as diagnostic backup devices and are often found connected to enterprise-class equipment to allow tech support another channel in or to allow the device to send emergency error messages.

Since I had access to this I decided to open it up and look inside, since tech like this isn’t too common these days. Photos of the MultiTech MultiModem II (5600 Series) disassembly (such as the one above) can be seen here in this gallery.

In the two photos showing the two sides of the PCB (top · bottom) here’s the components I found most interesting:

· Conexant SM56D / CX06833-44: This is the heart of the device; the modem itself.
· Atmel ATF1502ASV: EEPROM CPLD (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory Complex Programmable Logic Device); likely where the front panel controls run and how the modem chip is controlled.
· LM7805 (x3): Three linear voltage regulators which seems to me like an old but very reliable method for getting smooth power.
· Intersil ICL3207ECBZ (x2): RS232 transmitters / receivers.
· Atmel 26C16AN: 16K serial EEPROM.
· Atmel AT49BV040A: 4-megabit (512K x 8) Flash Memory. (Hidden in photo by front panel bracket.)
· Fairchild Semiconductor 74LVX4245: Dual Supply Translating Transceiver. Converts between 3.3v and 5v busses; used to drive 5v logic in LCD display module. (Hidden in photo by front panel bracket.)
· LM386: Audio amplifier for modem speaker.
· Cypress Semiconductor CYIFS781BSXC: Spread spectrum clock generator designed to reduce EMI.
· 28.224 MHz Crystal: Connected to clock generator.

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Inconvenienced by Safety

Published March 5, 2011

A few weeks back I ordered this turkey fryer setup from Cabela’s to replace the burner/regulator that I had problems with a few weeks back. Today when setting it up for use I found that there is an electronic interlock on the gas line which will cut off the gas flow after the last time it was manually reset.

I attempted to remove this, but as can be seen here there is a laquer-like thread locker on the fitting between the regulator and the interlock. While this likely won’t be a huge issue, I’d really prefer to simply concentrate on brewing beer and not pressing a button to keep things running.

UPDATE: In practice this wasn’t that much of a hinderance. The large red button which starts the gas flowing and resets the electronic timer serves as a quick turn-on, and the black button is a good emergency-off in case of a boil-over. A green light illuminates when the gas is flowing and it starts blinking before the gas shuts off, giving one ample time to press the red button and keep gas flowing. While it would be nice to not have this safety in place, it’s not as difficult to deal with as I’d expected.

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Temperature Control Fitted

Published March 3, 2011

The temperature control for the kegged beer cooler fitted and it seems to work. It started, cooled the unit until the appropriate temperature was reached, then turned itself off. Now I just have to run the gas lines and see how it goes with actually cooling beer. This will require a little bit more hardware, although I’ll probably only fit it out for two kegs for the time being, as that’s how many I have. It’s too bad that my current kegs are also almost empty, as I won’t be able to run it fully loaded. I guess it’ll be time to brew more soon.

I also need to consider monitoring temperature in the unit or attaching the probe to a specific keg. I think that in the unit will be sufficient, but for the first couple weeks I’ll double-check this by occasionally checking the temperature of a keg itself.

New photos from tonight’s work are can be found on this page.

(Yes, I know those screws are too long, but they are what I had laying available. Oh well, they neither interfere with anything nor will they be seen once the unit is closed up.)

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