One Button, One Baybus, Possibly an LCD? - Minor text update: 21/01

sweet this has a lot of promise in it....

 

Coudn't agree more... shiny minimalism

As for the other side of it, a temp display would be cool, but digital and styled like the other half (so a different LED lights up depending on the temperate) to keep with the style. if it were symmetrical, with the single button in the center that would be sweet

makes me want to try and fix all those kits i couldn't make properly

 

How about having something etched in on the other side, or something of that like. You could dremel it, but that would take a mighty steady hand.

 

My dremel skills are, shall we say, a little poor Thanks for the ideas guys

 

Practice on old cases

 

Find someone with access to a laser cutter and use it to etch a design into the faceplate. Tonnes of people work in factories and stuff that use them.

 

My God It's full of stars!!!

If there were any way to get one here to Korea... please let me know.... I would gladly pay for all the parts and whatever for the full up kit... (I do have decent soldering skills from many an adventure with the ol' EET course I took... )
But that is something I would be looking for for my case...
P.S. Why not drop a line to Zap (Mr. I won a Laser machine) Wizard for your panel???
just a thought...

 

I'm sure Zap loves people bugging him to have stuff laser cut.

 

Well he said he would laser cut stuff for people if he won... "would help the modding community."

 

Well I suppose it's not like it uses consumables

 

Hey, in fact I finaly get my laser working to 100%

I was having some software/hardware problems.

Apparently the USB on a nForce2 system doesn't like the laser.
(The output is slow and full of errors)

So for now I am using my nForce3 system to run the laser.

I can start cutting some stuff, but not too much for now, I have my own stuff to do before January.
Also I don't have any plastics either and I haven't tracked down a source of good stuff localy yet.

Plastics from home supply stores is totaly cheap and melts to near liquid under the laser. But most things etch just fine.

 

Dear Mr famous Zap Wizard.

www.lairdplastics.com

www.gepolymershapes.com

www.REGALPLASTICS.com

Give regal plastics a look at, I think they have an office in texas.

ZapWizard edit
El Paso, TX 79935
10871 Pellicano Drive
915-593-1373 • 800-637-3425 • 915-594-0583 Fax

 

Unkle Zappy... I hope that I am not throwing your name around too much...

 

Regal is also here in Austin, if im not mistaken.

 

Yes they are. Here is the page that shows their locations.

http://www.regalplastics.com/contact.htm

 

Nice. I'm a little confused as to why you have diodes connecting the LM317 out line to the relay and in reverse bias with ground. Couldn't you just connect out the to relay terms (not coil) and forget the diodes? Maybe I'm missing something here....

edit: Its pretty easy to make the bezel, once you decide what case your gonna put this on. Maybe use really thin dril bits and use optical for the 'leds' and for the bulgin/pot use a step drill bit....no need for any dremel

edit2: Noticed you just changed the schematic a bit and have chosen to use cpemma's diobus idea ....

 

trash those transistors!

I don't know whether this will help you much, but since PCB space seems to be a major issue for you (go SMD!), you might like to consider replacing all those NPN switching transistors with a single darlington array driver. I suggest the ULN2803A, made by SGS-Thompson, which includes integral current limiting input resistor and flyback diodes for driving inductive loads.

These guys can also be used to drive relays, should you need to - they can handle 500mA per channel!

Texas Instruments make a version of this as well, info here. So do Motorola.

Essentially, since you're doing low-side switching anyway, all you need to do is replace each output transistor with an output on the 2803, which will go low when the relevant input is driven high. The only snag you might run in to is that you'll end up with a slightly higher saturation voltage across the collector-emitter junction - around 1V if I remember correctly.

There are also other versions of the ULN280X which are optomised for other logic families (e.g. HV-CMOS, PMOS, etc).

I don't know if this is of any use to you, but there you go

Ali

 

Hiya, folks. First post here, but I've been watching for a while. Heh, as for actual mods, give me a bit. They're all in the theoretical stage atm, although getting the drill press for Christmas brings 'em one step closer to reality.

Anyway, I digress.

Just wanted to throw in a couple things here. First, I'd dearly love to see a temperature readout added, but using a similar setup to your voltage display on the other side. Maybe do it in 5 degree intervals, allowing you a fair range of temps. That'd give you a nice symetrical look, and a nice range of useful info.

Second, what a brilliant idea! It really is great looking.

Would it be possible to add in an option to control all four channels at once? It seems to me that often you'd want to crank up or slow down all the fans at the same time. If you're about to do some heavy gaming, or getting ready to go to bed and it'll just be idling, you'd want to turn them all up or down. I'm afraid my knowledge of electronics at this level is iffy at best (don't suppose the electronics gods that seem to be posting on this thread could recommend a good book or two on the subject?), so I really have no idea if it'd be doable, but it's a function I'd love to see.

 

[Hijack]
Welcome to the Forums Mouse. If you want to learn some electronics, get mirc from mirc.com and get on a QuakeNet server then join #bit-tech. Bsodmike is skilled with electronics; Yo-duh87 is also a wiz with electronics. Just ask some questions and you'll get some answers.

For learning, nothing really beats hands on experience. So look at some mods on here and set out to try them on your own, you'll get the experience with the commonly used parts and familiarity.
[/Hijack]

ps: just so this is not a total Hijack, we want to see more pictures and updates!

 

This image explains how I was able to create the 'led graph effect' via the 3 state pins...

edit: Mouse, this does exactly what your looking for.

This was inspired by Nilhists thinggy bob and is based on a one button, pic controlled fan bus. The code has been written by a buddy of mine.

Some Notes:

This uses 4x LM338T Voltage regulators or 4x LM317T (depending on the kind of loads you want to attach. The former allows a max of 5A per chan while the latter allows 1.5A per chan. Eitherway it would be safest to attach TO-220 compatible heatsinks to all the vreges.

Code:

example - theoretical max power: 12 - 5 = 7*5 = 35W (with LM338T) and 7*1.5 = 10.5W for the LM317T

In the second image, each 'led' represents 3 leds so that we create a grapher of say three green, three orange and three red which indicate 5v, 7v and 12v. I've included connections for 18 leds so that it is possible to symmetrically have the graph duplicated on either side of the switch There is one resistor per 3 parallel leds to limit the current (to handle 120mW per branch - you can use 1/4W resistors if you like)

Let me know what you think...