Weblog Ben’s HobbyCorner

Working on a Software version of the hardware Central Board. Using the CodeJock libraries, they are great. Takes a lot of time to get things working as I want them to work, but the result is amazing. Icons of 64×64 pixels in a ribbon bar, tabbed toolbar, message bar with the last alarm etc. Main screen with all menu options working, at the moment I am typing all code for the submenu’s.
A one-by-one call is done to all field devices in the list and they should react within 50 mSec. When not, several attempts are done and when still no reaction a contact loss is put on the message bar. There is a possibility to have the alarm been send as a Text message (SMS) by cell phone. For this part I use the Kylix-libraries. Specially the Flash SMS option is very nice, instead of receiving a new message on your cell phone you get the message straight on the display. And even sending a URL with a link to a more detailed HTML-page is possible…..

We are starting with the userinterface of the USBDRM. 10 sliders for 10 different bands. Selection will automatic be done with a 4017. 40 bit datastream will be send to the AD9851 with DTR (selection AD9851 or 4017 - their chip selection is opposite), RTS (data) and TXD (clock). And a very nifty way to reset the 4017 each time a different band is selected. There are still some minor problems we have to solve.

USBDRM, a new design. No buttons, LCD or dial on the PCB, just a connection for USB, soundcard and antenna. All information will be visible in a Visual Basic program with the IOCOMP-library. The receiver is a double super 10.7 Mhz 455 kHz 12 kHz. DDS AD9851 will be programmed through a FT232RL, and after putting it on the right frequency a bandwith filter is automatic selected with a 4017. On this prototype this selection can be seen with a row of 10 LEDs.

Nice double sided PCB.

Got the chance to work with a few ActiveX add/on packs from www.iocomp.com Great to get some visuals on data. Great stuff. This is a picture of the Scope I made with some data from a table. In the other pictures lots of LCD’s, LED, Sliders, Valves, seven segment displays, gauges etc. etc. The helpfile on almost every item is nice, but it took me quite a while to get the scope running.