A new breakout board?

[DZ]

Hi all, after a break and some thought, I've decided to return, hoping that the drama around here has settled... I've also returned because, with a new office/shop, I wanted to see if there's much interest in the return of the ILDA breakout board. I plan on reviving a couple old projects and have some new ideas, but for now I want to start with this. I have completely redesigned the breakout board to make it a bit easier to use, instead of the ILDA IN DB-25 being attached directly to the board, it will now attach via ribbon cable. This will allow the DB-25 to be mounted on the outside of a projector case, feeding the ribbon cable thru the cutout to the breakout board. The new version will breakout all color channels as well as "Z" for Pangolin users. There will also be a DPDT switch to easily invert the X signal.

So, any interest in this? The original breakout board was amazingly popular, I remember selling out of the original order of 32 in less than 24 hours. My plan would be to sell these for $15 shipped anywhere in the world, this would include an assembled DB-25 connector and ribbon cable for ILDA in, if you needed the passthru cable that would likely be another 2.50 - 3.50. With 10% of each board sold to support PL.

So let me know if this is something that would be worth persuing or if you have any recommended changes. Thanks!

[Jem]

Welcome back Dave.

It's nice to have you back

[Displaser]

Dave,

Good to see you again. I've been needing a few more of these for another project. I'd like four w/all cables as soon as these are ready.

Greg

[norty303]

I'm just about to rip out 2 of the old ones to rebuild in new projectors, but if you're doing new ones, put me down for 2 with all cables

[djmatt]

Ill take 100!!!!

[swamidog]

hey dz, good to see you back in the spice mines!

here's my wish list:
invert x and y switches
10 second time delay for laser startup

[DZ]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think I will proceed with making these, there certainly appears to be interest out there.

swamidog, regarding the feature request, I'll go back and see if I can come up with a way to add invert for both X and Y. I may need to change the switch out for something smaller, such as the micro slide switches so I can fit an invert for both X and Y. And this would only affect the screw terminal connections for X and Y, this would not invert X or Y on the passthru. I'll see what I can come up with. I'm sorry to say that the 10 second time delay will not be a part of the breakout board, this ultimately goes above what the breakout board is designed for, which is a simple way of wiring your projector without having to breakout the soldering iron. The connections for L and LR are simply direct connects to pin 4 and 17 on the DB-25. The passthru will function slightly different. If you have a projector daisy chained using the passthru cable, it's interlock loop will terminate on the breakout board in the primary projector and not run all the way back to the DAC. There's no real easy way to deal with 2 seperate projectors' interlock loops going to a DAC, unless you use a couple of relays and power the breakout board, which I'd rather not do.

Another project I'm starting to work on is a 10 channel buffered splitter. This would be very similar to the one that I made for buffo a while back. There will be some functional differences and it will be on a nice printed circuit board. Like the current buffered splitter, it will be able to detect a break between the splitter and the DAC and update each channel's interlock loop, which are isolated from each other. Unlike the current splitter, it will have individual adjustments for X and Y position. I plan to also include a built in square wave generator for easy setup without a DAC connected. *edit - I should add that this will not be an inexpensive product, I only anticipate selling between 5 and 10 and already have 3 commitments. To only have 10 boards printed will be expensive, not to mention the time involved to design and assemble. Buffo's current splitter uses 80 op-amp circuits whereas this one will likely have between 90 and 100. My goal is to have the cost be about $200, but it may cost that much just in parts due to the limited run of boards, we'll see!

[Bradfo69]

Oh yes, put me in for at least a couple! I think it's just the kind of thing that is VERY handy to have around. The invert switch capability would very much be a plus!

[ImageLight]

Hey Dave,
First...Glad you decided to come back...Your truly a valued member here my friend.
Secondly...Put me down for one ILDA splitter..
Thirdly...Wow I'm glad your back...

Best Regards,
Mark

[norty303]

I'm not convinced about the invert myself. You have to get inside the projector to use the switch anyway, so why not just remove the 2 pin X or Y header connector and put it back on the other way round? This is how I use the old breakout board and it works fine.