Greetings -
Want to give you the latest news on the DR4 ... 9:00pm EDT USA Friday 17 Sep 2010
After the show in North Carolina last month we came back and made a lot of small (but big) changes to the design of the DR4. Some were based on testing and experience with the DR4 prototypes and some were 'forced' upon us by a world-wide shortage of several critical components.
So we spent a week or so fine tuning the design and then ordered some PC Boards and a small pre-production assembly run. If all testing of the pre-pro units goes well this weekend we expect to place a production order next Monday or Tuesday.
The changes include:
Upgraded Master processor to a PIC32MX340F512H - this will give us even more processing power, some more Ethernet throughput, more flash for programming and web pages, and more RAM for buffering. This upgrade was forced on us because of supply issues with the PIC24H chip we have been using. It was made fairly easily due to a pin-to-pin compatibility between the two processors. We only had to change a few traces in the hardware design.
Swapped SST25VF016B flash for our AT26DF161A flash - the ATMEL flash (both old and new) are in short supply. We managed to acquire an entire reel of SST25VF016B flash and this will guarantee our supply for the rest of the year.
Changed the power supply connector from USB-B to 2.5mm x 5.5mm barrel jack - we had tried to use the USB-B as an easy standard to supply the 5VDC of regulated power. We found the quality of differing USB wall mount power supplies to be problematic. We standardized on a 2amp high quality regulated 5VDC wall mount power supply. We have acquired them in quantity for USA, EU, and Australian power plugs.
Changed the separate Qty 4 RJ45 jacks and Qty 8 indicator LEDs to a 1x4 RJ45 with two LEDs per jack one piece unit - this will be easier for manufacturing and require just one opening in the front panel for the enclosed unit.
Other minor updates include using all 2.54mm jumper blocks instead of a mix of 2mm and 2.54mm
---------
Progress:
The SMD assembled pre-pro boards arrived this morning (Friday). We assembled the needed through-hole components to build up the power and Ethernet sections and worked all day on upgrading the software to run on the PIC32. After working all day we got the TCP/IP work all finished and tested by early evening. We then rapidly brought four other boards up to the same assembly level and tested all five boards.
Tomorrow we expect to get the upgraded flash working and all of the slaves working with the master. Then test thoroughly on Sunday and ship a few out to some testers on Monday.
On Monday we will finish the CNC design for the front/rear panels of the enclosures and finalize pricing.
Monday we will open up ordering for delivery approximately 14 days later.
So, a busy month behind and a busy weekend ahead.
I'll post more information and photos tomorrow evening.
-Ed
Want to give you the latest news on the DR4 ... 9:00pm EDT USA Friday 17 Sep 2010
After the show in North Carolina last month we came back and made a lot of small (but big) changes to the design of the DR4. Some were based on testing and experience with the DR4 prototypes and some were 'forced' upon us by a world-wide shortage of several critical components.
So we spent a week or so fine tuning the design and then ordered some PC Boards and a small pre-production assembly run. If all testing of the pre-pro units goes well this weekend we expect to place a production order next Monday or Tuesday.
The changes include:
Upgraded Master processor to a PIC32MX340F512H - this will give us even more processing power, some more Ethernet throughput, more flash for programming and web pages, and more RAM for buffering. This upgrade was forced on us because of supply issues with the PIC24H chip we have been using. It was made fairly easily due to a pin-to-pin compatibility between the two processors. We only had to change a few traces in the hardware design.
Swapped SST25VF016B flash for our AT26DF161A flash - the ATMEL flash (both old and new) are in short supply. We managed to acquire an entire reel of SST25VF016B flash and this will guarantee our supply for the rest of the year.
Changed the power supply connector from USB-B to 2.5mm x 5.5mm barrel jack - we had tried to use the USB-B as an easy standard to supply the 5VDC of regulated power. We found the quality of differing USB wall mount power supplies to be problematic. We standardized on a 2amp high quality regulated 5VDC wall mount power supply. We have acquired them in quantity for USA, EU, and Australian power plugs.
Changed the separate Qty 4 RJ45 jacks and Qty 8 indicator LEDs to a 1x4 RJ45 with two LEDs per jack one piece unit - this will be easier for manufacturing and require just one opening in the front panel for the enclosed unit.
Other minor updates include using all 2.54mm jumper blocks instead of a mix of 2mm and 2.54mm
---------
Progress:
The SMD assembled pre-pro boards arrived this morning (Friday). We assembled the needed through-hole components to build up the power and Ethernet sections and worked all day on upgrading the software to run on the PIC32. After working all day we got the TCP/IP work all finished and tested by early evening. We then rapidly brought four other boards up to the same assembly level and tested all five boards.
Tomorrow we expect to get the upgraded flash working and all of the slaves working with the master. Then test thoroughly on Sunday and ship a few out to some testers on Monday.
On Monday we will finish the CNC design for the front/rear panels of the enclosures and finalize pricing.
Monday we will open up ordering for delivery approximately 14 days later.
So, a busy month behind and a busy weekend ahead.
I'll post more information and photos tomorrow evening.
-Ed
