Re: Future Direction
If a more dedicated design were done, you could still allow expansion capabilites with optional inexpensive dual Berg style connectors. Think Lynx Express 16 where you plug in the wireless board if desired, but in this case it could be anything. Please also consider having as much "on board"/in-field managability as possible. Using a simple 3 or 4 7 segment display, you could allow for status displays (the name of the board, firmware revision, etc), configuring simple things like DMX start address, and for kicking off test modes and/or set-up modes (all on, all off, ramp all up/down/repeat, cycle through one at a time, blink all, etc.). Although it adds a little bit of cost, the extra capability and usability it adds is seriously nice and really makes the controller (I cannot get anymore) one of the best DMX DIY setups out there. It would be nice if we could also standardize on the enclosure (like a CG-1500 which I still have quite a few of, or the CG-2000 for mounting) as that makes life really easy also. I had started a concept thread (Renard RE16) where I dicuss doing this with PIC because we can get free samples (thank you Microchip), and the programming is straight forward via the PicKits, and lots of people are familiar with them. Switching to a prop means ANOTHER set of programming tools I need to get stuff for and remember how to use. Oh- on board programming capability is nice also (why people refuse to put a penny single 6 pin Berg on their pic designs is beyond me...)
Well that is my $.02 whatever that is worth these days...
<rant over> ;-)
[I][SIZE=2]"Beam me up Scotty, there are only limited pockets of intelligent life on this planet!!"[/SIZE][/I]
Communicating humor in a text only medium is an art form subject to imprecise interpretation by the audience...
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