The empire - gives up (and I don't mean the starwars parody)

[DaftFader]

Some of you may have seen the Quadrant fader thread in the mixers and monitors section, where Jim (ADT) and I are making our Quadrant fader designs available for free for non-profit use.

Well I thought it would be a good time to unburden myself of a couple of other projects that I no longer have the 'force' to finish so...

Anyone interested in an analogue vacuum fluorescent meter? Microchip PIC based (8pin 12F1572) uses a now obsolete (?) Itron 2x 101 segment display (I have 50 or so in my loft with drivers and PSU)

Coil winder ? Jim's been using it to wind his replica Lustra Phone transformers , so it kinda works OK

Raspberry PI controlled (could easily be converted to use a PC) Desktop software in Python. Uses a couple of PICs (12F1572) to generate stepper motor pulse trains and count revs . mechanics are simple enough (might be 3D printable ?)

Any takers?

 

[PermO]

A vacuum fluorescent meter, with driver and psu so that it actually works ?

I would love to have one of those for a DIY project !

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Jim just told me about your coil winder, there will be lots of folks I'm sure who'd be interested in that scheme.

I sure like that meter

 

[JohnRoberts]

Deja VU, back in the 80s I designed a 100 segment vacuum fluorescent Peak/VU meter. As I recall the segments were addressed in banks of ten so I had to multiplex the meter drive 3x, 1) single segment peak value, 2) full blocks of 10 VU, and 3) remaining fraction of VU. I used crude digital logic so probably multiplexed x4. I only built one working prototype but it looked sweet.

I calibrated it for 1 dB per lamp segment. I performed the conversions by gating a counter from a discharging RC compared to the analog voltage (RC charge/discharge follows e^-t/rc). I don't know how accurate it was down 100 dB below full scale but it sure made a pretty display.

JR

 

[DaftFader]

JR ,
That sound like fun I remember using an RC discharge to log scale an 8 way bar graph video meter (8 vertical bars on a TV screen) The circuit was super simple and I couldn't get it stable enough to be useful.

 

[DaftFader]

Analogue meter circuit diagram and some info

circuits and data for the VFD here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwXDcXKx2KzldldqSlZTS0hvT3M/view?usp=sharing
and attached is a pdf of the PIC micro analogue input part.

The PIC code is all assembler (MPASM) is documented well enough for me to pick it up after a year , so should be readable .
e.g.
; The display is multiplexed one frame at a time, by taking a grid
; (or pair of grids) high (output 1) and the anodes low for off
; or high for on
;
; In order to ensure even brightness at the ends of the grids, the
; top and bottom anode segments are illuminated separately with
; the two adjacent grids on.
;
; A complete scan is made every 19 frames.

; Many possible display modes are possible:
; i) for a conventional bar - 0 at the bottom 100 at the top set 'bar on value' (bonvl & bonvr)
; and 'dot value' (DotVl & DotVr) to zero. Then change the Bar off values (BoffVl & BoffVr)
;
; ii) for an inverted bar - 0 at the top 100 at the bottom. Set 'bar off value' (boffvl & boffvr) to 100
; and 'dot value' (DotVl & DotVr) to zero. Then change the Bar on values (BoffVl & BoffVr)
;
; iii) for trend meter with zero in the middle - For values < 50 should set Bar on value
; (with Boff fixed at 50) For values > 50 Bar off value should be set to 50 + value

; iv) for dot display simply set dot values (dotvl & dotvr)

; v) a centre line for the dot display can be set using Bar on and bar off set to 50

; vi) bar and dot modes can be combined to show level bar with peak dot


I was selling the VFD/driver/psu kit on ebay for £25 + a couple of quid postage (does that sound OK?) but got fed up with everyone asking how could they connect it to an arduino.
[edit] These parts are now listed on the BlackMarket.

I have no PCBs for these but there are gerbers for the VFD in the zip file above, and I'm out of PICs so , sorry, I can't throw one in with the kit.

 

[PermO]

I think this goes over my head to get it to work.... I'll stick with my mechanical VU's

If it were a complete kit that only needs power and audio input these would sell like hotcakes I guess.

 

[DaftFader]

"If it were a complete kit that only needs power and audio input these would sell like hotcakes I guess."

Funny, I was just discussing this with Jim.

A kit of parts takes almost as much time to assemble and box for sale as assembling the project and selling it as finished . There's not much saving ,from a manufacturers point of view, of selling a kit . And for a short run the cost (in time) of support for a kit kills any profit there was :-(

I'm not sure what level DIY I should expect to find here : In my day a kit aircraft , was a box of balsa and a paper plan (but back then we lived in a cardbox box in middle t' road).

Am I posting this in the right place ? Brewery too political???
Jim suggest drawing board ????

 

[PermO]

If you just want to sell them off, the black market is your place to be.

If you want to turn this into a GDIY (limmited edition) project the drawing board is the place to be.

There's plenty of people here that can do anything... I'm just not one of them, if it involves logic and code I'm out.

 

[Whoops]

Coil winder ? Jim's been using it to wind his replica Lustra Phone transformers , so it kinda works OK

The Coil winder looks great, congrats, I like specially the design of the feeder thats something I always have dificult with.

Tell us more also about the Lustraphone Clone transformers, is there any thread on that?
would love to know more info

 

[DaftFader]

>>Tell us more also about the Lustraphone Clone transformers, is there any thread on that?

Best ask Jim (insert pseudonym here) they may be top-secret or something ;-)

 

[Whoops]

Hi mate,
I really dont know who is Jim or which specific Jim are you referring to

 

[DaftFader]

Jim is 'crosstalk' on this forum . Try sending him a PM

 

[Whoops]

Thanks Daftfader,
I will do