Lorcan
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Frontpanel Services on Europe - Mainland + UK?
Lorcan replied to Phatline's topic in Parts Questions
$90, wow that's amazing. I prefer to favor local production but at this price it's quite tempting. Does that include shipping ? Also import duties (VAT + processing fees) might bump this price quite a bit. -
Frontpanel Services on Europe - Mainland + UK?
Lorcan replied to Phatline's topic in Parts Questions
I have used Schaeffer in the past, a bit pricey but great workmanship. I am going to try frontpanels.de for my next panel, they seem cheaper and the examples inspire confidence. -
Hi, continuing on my MCU clone design, here is a board I designed to hold 8 encoders, LED rings and integrated DIN / DOUT modules. To keep it compact I used SMD parts (1.2" spacing between encoders), but that shouldn't generally be a problem for someone with a little bit of experience to hand solder (SO16 / 0805). Please tell me if you spot any mistakes or potential problems !
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By the way I forgot I had this old DINx4/DOUTx4 assembled combined board laying around. It's the older r4 version not the latest r5 with box connectors. I can sell it to you for a few euros if you want.
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I believe ModularAddict took over from SmashTV, so perhaps you could try asking him. But it's his work and how he makes his living, so that would be a very generous offer from him. Aisler take Eagle, KiCAD and other files. As I said in a previous post it's really not very complicated to make a PCB design from a schematic. Plus you'll learn a skill which will be useful for other future projects.
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What a nice feeling to find out it's working !
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Thanks, I've tried all of the above already. I've put the OLED on a breadboard too and tried all CSx lines, they all work except CS7. Then I checked the motherboards and noticed that a few solder joints were less than perfect. Turns out they're all GND connections and that the pads don't have thermal relief, which isn't great. I also swapped out the U74HC595AC I got from Reichelt (made by Unisonic Technologies, never heard of them) for 74HC595AC by ST I had laying around, they seem less susceptible to noise. Now everything looks much better ! There's just an occasional glitch on a few pixels on one board which I'll investigate later.
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Yes I thoroughly cleaned all boards with isopropyl, thanks. I have 2 complete motherboards + discovery as I plan to build a MCU + a MCU XT. I double checked the bootloader, eveything is fine: SSD_1306 x:8, y:1 This is what it looks like:
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Looking at the core schematic, I see CS7 is connected to both Q7 of the 74HC595 and PD7 of the STM32F4, whereas CS0-CS6 are connected only to Q0-Q6 of the 74HC595. If PD7 is also an output pin, I wonder if PD7/Q7 could be interfering with eachother ?
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Found a problem: the 8th display is always garbled. I've tried swapping the OLED's, adding 100nF decoupling caps, stuffing only one, swapping cores, using a separate breadboard with only CS7, 3.3/5V, haven't managed to fix it yet :( I hope the external 3.3V supply will get rid of this ...
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Thanks, I'll incorporate this idea when I'm done with all the rest. I don't think I'll do it for the LEDs though, I've yet to see one of those fail on me. These things are incredibly enduring, provided you use reasonable currents. For the 3.3V, I'll be using this 3€ DC/DC part, it hardly dissipates any heat unlike linear regulators.
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It's not that hot, but I only have 6 screens connected atm. The regulator on the core is rated at 100mA absolute max and it's a tiny SOT23 part, so it could become a problem if people use fonts with lots of lit pixels. This page quotes as much as 40mA consumption in certain scenarios ! And for general reliability it's better to keep things running cool ;) The screensaver is a great idea, the life of these things is a few years at most and I'd prefer not to replace them that often. May I ask how you implemented that ?
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First test, everything seems in order ! The 3.3V LDO on the core board is a little hot, I'll probably use external power for this.
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I don't know of any other seller. Why don't you order it for manufacturing yourself e.g at Aisler ? It's a simple design and you should be able to route it in KiCAD easily. For a 6x11 cm PCB, it would cost you ~14€ vs 21$ at modular addict. The shipping will probably cheaper/faster as Aisler is in Germany too !
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Hi, I've designed this PCB in KiCAD to hold 4x8 Omron B3W-9000 illuminated switches, as well as integrated DINX4 and DOUTX4. Price vary quite a bit depending on the distributor, but in the EU I found them at ~2€ each here. The quality seems really quite good, and you can insert a printed transparent label to indicate function. I've used completely separate lines for SI/SO, SC1/SC2 and RC1/RC2 as I understand this is the recommend way to reliably chain modules together in series, in order to not to mess up the timings. Can someone more knowledgeable than me please confirm this, and point out any potential mistakes before I send the files for production ? I'll put everything on github when I've built the pcb and confirmed everything works as intended.