[miljnor]

put up a picture of those bad boys!

[Falcon69]

Okay, here ya go. Hard to take pictures of something that reflects my flash on the camera. Maybe next time, I'll got take pictures outside.







And I've already started assembling the External USB Mounts. Lookin Good!

[jm82792]

Coding is rather quick and intuitive, it's simplified C++(it has a lot of libraries to get most of what you want done). I picked it up when I was in my mid teens without effort. There are people who have made reflow ovens with them. There is even shield for it that is for sale, I bet there are many other projects and test code.
Yet looking in retrospect, perhaps buying a reflow oven may be best.

Reflow Controller Shield (Arduino Compatible) - Rocket Scream

Reflow Oven Controller Shield (Arduino Compatible) | Unleash the rocket scientist in you!

[miljnor]

very nice!

I like those usb ports too.

[Falcon69]

Ya,

I needed to find something that had 5 pin outs. the 2.5 or 3.5mm headphone jacks only have 3. The Micro USB's (even smaller) were just way to small to hand solder, + they are 10pin. The telephone jack I was considering, but, they were just too big and ethernet was definately too big.

The Mini USB just seemed the way to go.

The boards are designed so they are 1/2" on center. Will make it easy to cut the panel out to install them. I used the 40pin IDE connectors to use a standard 40-pin Harddrive connector to go from there to the mainboard that will be inside the controller box.

The IDE cable will be included, and is 17 inches in length.

[Drools]

Hi Falcon, I was wondering about the IDE connector, why go that route?
I'm not sure if you plan on selling these (it seems you are) why not use a DB25 and wire it for a second parallel port or maybe the screw type terminals.
I love the idea, and since I have yet to add limit switches to either of my machines I might try your design.

[Falcon69]

I had looked into that, and the cost was just too much. A DB25 won't work. I need something with at least 35 pins (7x5pin). Those larger connectors were just way too much $. Plus, the cost of the cables or the cost and labor to make my own. With the added capacitor in line in the switch, I don't think noise from inside the control box will be a problem. Besides, if those cables work inside a PC Case with the fans and drives running, and the cable isn't effecting the PC system negatively, it should work just fine.

EDIT: If the cables attract noise and causes false alarms, then I can go with different cables that are shielded. But, I really don't those IDE cables will be a problem. Unless, of course, you have your motors in the control box and you wrap the cable around it.

[Falcon69]

SO far, Romanlini and John100 have not sent me a Private Message. I really would like them to test these for me, let me know what they think. Afterall, they did help me design them.

I'm still waiting for the darn resistors and diodes to come in. I may need to send the resistors back. They are 0805 size surface mount, and in 1/4w. But, I'm not sure the peron I ordered them from is completely honest. They may be 1/8w. John100 didn't think those would work in the switch cases once the cases were filled with resin. So, I need to test them when they come in.

This is a big project, big project for one person, but I'm hoping to make my investment back at least. Again, when I sat down to figure cost, It didn't make sense to pay $180 for one circuit board ($180 for the mainboard), when I can pay a couple hundred more and make 100 of them. Not really what was spent, but one-off prototypes are spendy, not to mention the cost of a stencil too.

[Drools]

I will have to check over the schematic, as I'm not sure if I had all 4 lines of each switch going back to the PC in my designs. I think the +5 was common and the gnd was common, if I remember correctly I only brought 1 GND and the output from each switch back to the PC.
So the 40pin IDE cable will have +5/GND and Signal/GND from each switch going back to the control box?

[Falcon69]

For the single LED ones, It's just the board. Pretty Identical to the freetronics, just ALOT Smaller and brighter LED. 3 out puts. (Look at the original design on 1st page?)

The ones that have dual color....Take a look at the schematic. There's 5 outputs coming out of the switch going back to the Mainboard.

The 40pin cable is only there because I chose to have the design to be able to nicely mount the USB inputs/outputs on the back of the control box. It looks alot nicer then drilling a hole and feeding 4+ cables through the control box to connect to the mainboard.

The schematic has 1 output for each of the 7 switches to go to the breakout board, plus the common ground/power if needed. The circuit board is also designed so that the X-Axis, Z-Axis, and Y-Axis....each axis can be Jumpered together to form a single output to your Breakout board. That's if you want a switch on the positive and negative side of the axis, but only have space for one input per axis on the breakout board.

[Falcon69]

oh, forgot one thing. I also added one extra circuit in there for output additional fused +5 volts (as long as it doesn't exceeds the fuse amperage), but, there are jumpers on that as well, for 2.2v or 3.3 volt out. In case you want another Powered LED in your controll box or something. I had an extra spot on the screw terminal. LOL

Oh, i also forgot to add. I am also including the switch to test (lamp test) all the LED's once wired up.

Question, do you all prefer small little square switches, or round ones?

EDIT: Actually, maybe it would be better to just leave those off. Everyone will have different switches on their control box front panel, and will prolly want them all to match. It's prolly better if the buyers buy there own switches.

[Falcon69]

I got the rest of the components in. I didn't have the oven set up yet, nor do I have the solder paste. SO, I did allittle hand soldering, so I can at least test one of them. But, I didn't have the male/male usb cables. So testings will have to wait. But here's some pics of them assembled. FYI, what a pain to handsolder SMD components. And the LED's take for ever to solderup and hest shrink, but they look good. Even color coded the heat shrink to the LED bulb.

Enjoy

[john-100]

Hi


looking good ,the solder mask looks to have made it easy :cheers:

well done


John

[Falcon69]

ya, They will look better when I use the solder paste, stencil, and reflow oven, when I get those set-up.

John, I have a fairly nice Multi-Meter, but for some reason, I am getting 5 volts at the other end of a couple resistors, when it should read 2.2 and 3.3 volts. When I use the ohm meter across the resistors, it's still showing 150 ohm and 82 ohm. So I don't know what's going on there, something strange. Could it be my multimeter is messed up?

This is the measurement going across the extra LED Output that I put there because I had an extra screw terminal.

Oh, and John, send me your address, I want to send one of these sets to you so you can test for me. You can keep it.

[Al_The_Man]

John, I have a fairly nice Multi-Meter, but for some reason, I am getting 5 volts at the other end of a couple resistors, when it should read 2.2 and 3.3 volts. When I use the ohm meter across the resistors, it's still showing 150 ohm and 82 ohm. So I don't know what's going on there, something strange. Could it be my multimeter is messed up?

If it is a Fluke meter? if you are getting strange readings, check the battery.
I had an electrician come to me on one location and asked why he was reading 240vac when it should have been 120v.
Battery solved the problem.
Al.

[CarveOne]

I was getting close to 250vac readings on a normally 123vac line for the same reason. Changing the battery fixed mine also. I couldn't understand why my appliances seemed to handle the high voltage with no outbursts of smoke and fireballs when turned on.

[Falcon69]

Got some USB cables to test the mainboard and external USB mount.

Sad news. I can't get it working.

Only the Red LED stays on and the hall sensors are not switching. I can't figure it out. I've retraced every circuit and can't find anything wrong. I've spent all day on it.

The switch that tests the LED's works, but still, no green LED. So that tells me that I did not wire up the ULN2003's backwards.

I've pulled the ULN2003's from the breadboard that I knew worked, and wired those up to the mainboard. Still, same thing. Steady on RED LED's. no green and no switching.

I just can't figure out what could be wrong.

[daniellyall]

is there power at output when magnet is close.
is the switches north or south pole or both.
is the led around the right way (silly question i hope)
did you verify the circuits work before getting them made.
does it work when just hooked up to a 2k2 resistor.
if you have diodes are they around the correct way.

these are silly questions but i am making some thing similar to you for ir limit switches and all i have on the circuit are diodes, resistors, capacitors and led for inducting power on and switch active very simple but works after putting diodes around the right way.
hope you work out bugs

[Falcon69]

I am making the circuits. And I rechecked and double checked, then checked again before I had boards made. I must have missed something.

I don't think the problem lies within the switches. With the board only hooked up to the Lamp Test switch, the panel mount LED's should be green, then both green and red turn on when the lamp test switch is switched. That is not happening. The red LED's stay on.

No change at all when I hook up the magnetic switches, except that the switches LED's stay red as well and the sensor doesn't seem to work at all. The switches should have the green LED on, then switch to the red LED when the sensor is triggered by the magnet.

On the prototype breadboard, everything works as it should. I've looked over the circuit boards, and just can't find the short. obviously, there is some kind of a short somewhere.

I thought maybe it was just the one board, so I wired up another. I even tried wiring up the through hole ULN2003's to the circuit board, instead of the SMD ULN2003's, and still, the same thing is happening. The through hole ULN2003's taken directly from the breadboard, so i know they work.

The diodes are not even hooked up at this time (except for the LED's). The diodes are the correct way, but they are only on the outputs that goto the breakout board. so, even if not hooked up, the circuit boards should still work as intended.

[Falcon69]

I did notice something strange on the mainboard.

When i hook up the multimeter and set it for tone (continuity?), I get no tone across the 2k2 ohm or the 150 ohm (for red LED's) resistors, but i do get tone across the 82ohm (for green LED's)

Other than that, I don't notice anything strange.