master/slave using pc hardware

[BruceM]

The long term stability (UV) of the ink is the issue- or are you thinking laser printer to transparency?

I like the concept very much, it's hard to get a professional look with a permanent marker legend below LEDs on an aluminum panel!

Bruce

[AdeV]

then it dawned on me to just create the layout in a word processor using the font that i want, laying out spacing a placement
are much easier and cleaner. then it occurred to me to just print it out on a transparency and then sandwich it between the
led mount and cover plate.

i can't imagine a cleaner and easier to setup process to get a custom look that will look very professional or should look that way.

Bob, that's so simple & clever it's bordering on genius. In fact, no, it IS genius.

NICE thinking. And loads easier than messing around with silk screening, etc.

I'm guessing you could even do pretty spectacular multi-coloured effects, given a nice colour laser printer; or, maybe, one of those TekTronix Phaser wax printers, they're supposed to give good results on transparencies.

[mobile_bob]

thanks Guys

btw, not at all sure it is "genius" rather just a product of being lazy 

i just find it easier to adapt and apply other technologies where i can, and this one has been
on my mind for several years now.

i have looked at those little rub on transfers, they would work, but hard for me to get just right

a felt tip pen and freehand is out for obvious reasons, i am no calligrapher (also not much of a speller)

Ade's idea of silk screen seemed like the best approach, although i would need someone to make the screen
and sure as i got it made, some alteration would render the screen obsolete.

i think what got me to thinking in that direction was "fonts" , i figured i could mock up something and print it out
just to get a feel for the look and fit for my panel, when it hit me. "why not print on a transparency"?

ya! thats the ticket!

cheap enough, and easily replaced without major rework of the panel, just remove the front glass and slip out the old
and slip in the new, how easy is that?  then i remembered my old heathkit scope, it had a green piece of plastic with the
scaling done on it, you just loosen the bezel and it was easy to change out, not sure but maybe there were other scaling
versions available?

i am getting pretty excited about this project, just finished ordering a batch of fifty bussed 9pin 10k resistor arrays, to use
as pull down resistors for the input and output pins of the micros, those will really clean up the board and leave much more room
for other stuff. i really didn't like the look of seperate 10k resistors on the proto section of the processor boards.

going to order the interface relays and sockets today, i have decided to use the iso (automotive) relays, as they are common
as dirt and very inexpensive. i decided to use them instead of the more expensive open style relays i already have, because they
take up less space, likely will be more reliable, and take very little power to activate.
being predominately used in automotive applications means that down the road should i need a replacement i should be able to get
one at the local autoparts store or any wrecking yard.

i gotta thank you guys for your kind words and support, it is very motivational to actually getting the project assembled, programmed and working.

much nicer having a forum to discuss this with like minded folks that are of the "get er done" persuation, rather than the "if i tell ya, i gotta shoot ya" sort of group.

to be fair maybe it has more to do with the higher level of knowlege that populates this forum?

i don't know, but i like it!

bob g

[BruceM]

Bob, please do let us know what you find that works well with a transparency (overhead projector film).  I do have a Canon photo printer, with the allegedly more UV stable inks, also a black and white laser printer.

For some of my older stuff, I think I'm going to have to buy one of the little label printers, at least.  You keep raising the bar on us, Bob, but it's a good thing. 

Another option in project status displays:

There are some good deals on serial LCD displays on ebay. I got a 2 line one for $14.  I tend to use LEDs (high efficiency ones at just a couple ma) as I have my  problems with an unshielded microprocessor in my face for very long, but I do think in most cases a simple serial LCD can use less power, and provide a lot more status information with less wiring and hardware. (More software, but not too much for simple status displays.)

You send ascii text to the display, straight asynchronous serial, TTL.  You can display text and readout numbers instead of just on/off info.   You can define special graphics, and much bigger, fancy graphic displays aren't all that spendy.

My little unit draws a whopping 12ma (w/o backlight). It uses a PIC chip to drive a cheap LCD, and provide the TTL serial interface.

BruceM

[mobile_bob]

a year or so back i picked up maybe a half dozen of the 4x20 line lcd screens, they have a common hitachi chipset
iirc,  i was able to download the spec's on the units, but i am thinking that they are parallel instead of serial ?

i got them for 5 bucks each, and figured someday i would work on integration into the system, but that is likely down the road
a piece for me.

i really like analog guages, particularly antique units that are bakelite cased and ornately done, hard to find but they are just cool
in my opinion.

not very accurate for measurements that require accuracy, but good enough for relative indicaiton of most stuff.

a project for way down the road, would be the removal of the movements from modern analog guages, and remounting
them into cases of my design, with ornate needles and some antique font for the numbering.

a guy can go crazy building wierd stuff, and i am one of those that likes wierd stuff i guess.

bob g

[dubbleUJay]

I've printed on transparencies for overhead projectors before to make negative/positive for UV printed cct boards and it works well with a laser printer.
Just remember to print it in "reverse" to put the "ink" at the back of the sheet when you look at it from the front. It seems to display better and if you don't cover it with another piece of perspex, it cannot rub off.
I'm running out of 2c pieces again!

[AdeV]

thanks Guys

btw, not at all sure it is "genius" rather just a product of being lazy 

If you want to find the easiest way to get a job done, give it to a lazy man. Another way of looking at it; "genius" is just applied laziness...

It works for me 

[AdeV]

i really like analog guages, particularly antique units that are bakelite cased and ornately done, hard to find but they are just cool
in my opinion.

...

a project for way down the road, would be the removal of the movements from modern analog guages, and remounting
them into cases of my design, with ornate needles and some antique font for the numbering.

a guy can go crazy building wierd stuff, and i am one of those that likes wierd stuff i guess.

You & me both, Bob...

Once I eventually get around to doing my system, I plan....:

• An olde-worlde Lister-style control panel, with big analogue gauges, chunky bakelite-type knobs to turn stuff on & off, and some sliders ideally. And maybe a knife switch, just for the hell of it. Big lamp indicators in red, green and amber would also be much in evidence. And, since seeing Tatu's engine + control board, I want it mounted on slate....
  
• Automated control will be using an old Sharp MZ-80K computer from the early 1980s. They're pretty robust for old machines, and I love the retro-cool look of the built-in monitor & keyboard. And the tape deck...
  
  Being Z-80 based, and seeing as Z-80s are still available to purchase today, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to rebuild the machine from new parts, if required.
• Finally, I'd have some kind of modern PC-based system as a backup to the Sharp based machine. It'd be pretty barebones, the only time it'd ever be used is if the MZ-80K has gone pop

Both the '80K and PC based control system would interface to control modules. I've not decided what route to take with the control modules. The masochist in me wants to use Z80 (or, even better, Motorola 68000) CPUs with appropriate A2D/D2A converters, memory, clock circuitry & so on. The realist thinks maybe a PIC-type system (or PICaxe, or BASIC Stamp, or whatever the embedded system du jour is) would be a bit easier, especially when I have to learn digital circuit design from scratch. Fortunately, I've already got a pretty good handle on the theory, logic, and programming...

So, you're not the only mad one out there Bob!

[BruceM]

Ade, shouldn't there be some exposed vacuum tubes glowing on the Lister control panel? 

I wish I had't tossed my old S100 bus North Star Horizon computer 15 years ago.  It was a "full house", 4 MHz Z80 with 64K of ram.  Fortran, Compiled Basic, Pascal, complete statistical anaylsis, regression analysis packages, finance and business packages. It was a gem I used for a long, long time.

[quinnf]

I had a 4 MHz Z80 card in my Apple IIe.  WordStar positively flew on that system.  Had 128k of memory on the extended video card.  Ran BASIC, then discovered VisiCalc and dBase II.  Great fun in those days.  But I've gotta say when Lotus 123 came out on the (8080?) PC, the magic sort of faded.

Quinn

[AdeV]

Ade, shouldn't there be some exposed vacuum tubes glowing on the Lister control panel?  

Oh, now you've gone and done it.... some vacuum tubes for sure, and I may have to add some nixie tubes now!

But I've gotta say when Lotus 123 came out on the (8080?) PC, the magic sort of faded.

This was basically true of the PC as a whole. You kind of knew, as the PC became the dominant desktop machine, that some of the fun factor was just gone. I grew up with BBC B's, the Sinclair QL, Commodore PET-type machines (an 8032-SK, specifically), ZX Spectrums, the Apple ][ europlus, and of course the Sharp MZ-80K which I bagged for free from my secondary school (not sure what that equates to in US terms - early high school, probably; ages 11 to 16 basically). Of all the machines, my favourites where the Commodore (so sleeeeeek!), but the '80K pipped it because of that crazy keyboard & the built-in tape deck.

Just a thought, this is going big-style If anyone wants to gas about old computers & how much better they were (in fun terms) than the new beige box stuff, head on over to general I guess

[mobile_bob]

i got a pile of nixie tubes that read out the top end, i think i have 10 of them in total
and two that are quite unique
they display a sinewave, a bar for dc, the ohm symbol, A for amps, and a few others i don't recall
maybe even HZ but not sure on that one.

i can see a real frankensteins monster coming on



bob g

[BruceM]

Hell no, AdeV, don't go to General,  this is Daryl's and my little corner, and we encourage rambling about old favorite computers.   Besides, Bob starting it by reusing old PC hardware in an ingenious way.  

I remember when I saw one of the first IBM PCs, with a color display.  I felt the cheesy keyboard, the crude display, and proclaimed  it junk, and that why would anyone want a crapy color display.  (There were lots of superior, mostly monochrome display machines at the time.)  My former boss said, "but it's IBM."

Did I miss that call, or what?!  

Without color or graphics, we sure could get a lot done with not much computer.  Likewise, CPM was sweet, and didn't get in your way, could be ported to a new machine in days.  Single task OS with a background print scroller...I'd like that today, if it was available.  It would make a turtle fly.
I can only do one thing at a time, anyway.

Bob, the $5 LCDs are certainly parallel interface, but you can buy a std. serial driver board for them.

[mobile_bob]

went to the last vestige of surplus here in the seattle tacoma area this afternoon, it is a miserable place
where anything that is anygood is allowed to weather for itself out in the rain, snow, whatever, usually in barrels
and buckets that can and do fill with rain water,

so if you find something there it is usually beyond hope

today i found a rotton wood crate, so the water could no collect, full of 2 and 3 foot looms of color coded wire
i gathered up a good sized arm load, and took it to get weighed,  turned out to have 15lbs of the stuff.

got it for 10 bucks plus tax which i thought was very good, certainly much cheaper than buying multiple spools of different color
wire to work with.

all 18 guage tinned multistrand wire,

not a bad haul if i do say so myself, and will make the interconnections much easier to layout when it comes time to build this monster.

finding this sort of thing locally anymore is getting very hard to do.

bob g

[BruceM]

A good source for cheap hookup wire (18 gauge and smaller)  is Jameco.  Of course nothing like the mega color bundle bargain Bob found. 

I ordered myself a Brother label maker machine (PT2700) for Xmas yesterday-  $50 after instant rebate at Staples, free shipping.  Fancy model that does 1/4", 3/8, 1/2, 3/4, and 1" wide tapes, stand alone or USB to PC.  They have a special flexible tape for wire labeling, which clinched the deal for me.

I had a rough day, but did manage to get out to my Concho place and built a cabinet for my custom AC battery charger (for 120V battery bank).  It's good to make some sawdust fly, build something and have the Listeroid pump some air.  Next trip I'll get all the gear mounted, today I ran out of steam.

Bruce M