BlueClone - The Blue Room's Own Comms System

[cedd]

I've never used a comms pack with a vibrate function, but I'm wondering if the motor I suggested will have enough of an effect to be noticeable. It's really designed for something worn in the pocket, or as mechanical feedback for a handheld device. Worn on a belt clip I'm not sure if there will be enough coupling to the body for it to be noticed. I'll have a play with the ones I've got spare and see maybe strap them to one of my walkie talkies - should have a similar sort of mass. I think they'd have to be mounted on the chassis rather than the pcb anyway.

This is the one I bought;

http://www.technobotsonline.com/10mm-vibration-motor.html

And if you go to the downloadable datasheet you'll see it wants an 85mA startup current, and runs at 75mA normally, at somewhere around 3V. I was sort of thinking that if it's something people wanted, they could bodge it themselves, maybe just with a power supply and a transistor off of the LED. Maybe a solder pad somewhere around the lamp circuit that would allow people to sniff off the call lamp signal?

 

Have you thought about a source of the belt clips themselves? Maybe something that you could include in the panel drawings and group buy? Just some folded sheet would do the job. I find that the off-the-shelf ones for hobby projects don't stay on all that securely - the clip isn't long enough to properly grab around your belt. I've got a stash of ones rescued from Kenwood UHF handhelds, but it's not enough to be able to offer them to others I'm afraid! These ones are sprung but I don't think it's something a custom made one could be all that easily.

[CharlieH]

maybe strap them to one of my walkie talkies

I own a set of radios with inbuilt vibrate functions, and I find them really useful! The vibrators are much stronger than you get on a mobile phone, meaning when they're clipped to your belt or pocket you can normally feel them; and it means in loud environments you can be made aware to bring the radio up to your ear to listen.

[alistermorton]

Have you thought about a source of the belt clips themselves?

 

Looks like they're easily available as spares e.g. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-x-STEEL-STRONG-METAL-BELT-CLIP-UTILITY-SPRING-CLIP-MONEY-CLIP-MULTI-USES-/251283766330

 

[Brian]

Looks like they're easily available as spares ...

 

They are.

 

I was simply going to point people at a few likely suppliers in the parts list. The fixing holes for the clip should be the only holes you need to drill and it's hard to get drilling two 3.2mm holes wrong (isn't it?).

 

I'm not sure how much vibration will come through a chunky metal case but, as boatman says, the circuit should drive one OK as long as you don't need too much current. Any motor current comes directly from the master PSU and eats into the number of slaves you can connect.

 

I suppose, as the pack metalwork floats wrt ground, we could always add an HV generator and fit a 'tingle' option for operator alert!

[cedd]

Looks like they're easily available as spares e.g. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-x-STEEL-STRONG-METAL-BELT-CLIP-UTILITY-SPRING-CLIP-MONEY-CLIP-MULTI-USES-/251283766330

Those ones look significantly better than the ones I'd seen when I built my last set of comms packs. They barely had an inch of "hook" to go over your belt, meaning they very easily dropped off.

[peternewman]

I'll retract the Xenon request then.

 

I suggested the siren though, I've often missed my mobile vibrating while moving around and doing stuff, but a link on the board was the sort of thing I was suggesting, just to give people the expansion options.

 

On your connector, is it worth adding regulated Vcc too Boatman, for more quirky hacks.

[Tom Baldwin]

It sounds as though the number of good ideas for expansions/ upgrades/ conversions/ repurposings is threatening to exceed the amount of board space by some margin.

 

Would there be value in breaking out as many internal signals as possible to a pair of parallel headers, to allow bespoke daughtercards to be easily mounted? I'm specifically thinking of the form factor (style) of Arduino shields, where one or more expansions can be stacked on the main board.

 

No need to populate the main PCB with the headers if not required, but for anyone planning on expanding their BlueClone, there's a nice, standard way to go about doing so.

[dbuckley]

Last week we were at Minack where they had a mix of canford cans and ASL cans and the mic levels seemed to be quite different.

This is a problem by design; ClearCom and Technical Projects decided upon different levels for mic insert signal, and so anytime you mix packs, you mix philosophies.

[boatman]

We have prototype PCBs which, as you can see, really are blue! I don't know if they work yet, but the colour is right!

 

http://mydesk.myzen.co.uk/_Useful/BlueCom/PcbFront.jpg http://mydesk.myzen.co.uk/_Useful/BlueCom/PcbBack.jpg

 

I have spotted a couple of minor corrections required but they shouldn't cause it not to work.

[cedd]

Wow, that looks absolutely the dog's whatsits. I suspect I'm going to have to get some practice in on my soldering though! Never soldered dual sided board from scratch before, only repairs. I guess there's a knack!

[Brian]

Never soldered dual sided board from scratch before, only repairs. I guess there's a knack!

The board is 'plated through hole' so you don't really need to worry about 'the other side'. Just solder it up as normal.

 

As soon as we know...

 

a) that it works

b) that it fits the box

 

...we'll be releasing the files and thinking about a group buy.

[Dmills]

Excellent work.

 

Just a nitpick based on the board photos, it is hard to tell from a photo, but it might be worth bumping the default anualar ring size up a couple of notches.

 

Particularly on the connectors, but also generally it looks very much tighter then I would normally use for a through hole board, and increasing it will make registration of the two layers somewhat less critical as well as making removal of a component less likely to damage the board.

 

Also, adding stitching vias will help tie the two polygon pours forming the ground plane together, never a bad thing.

 

It looks to my eyes like C11 is across L1, I would have expected to to be to ground?

It looks on the photo like there may be something funky going on under R20 component side, dead track?

Via tenting? Your call, but normally our house style tents both sides of vias.

Teardropping connections? if you cad package does this it is useful on a through hole board, the extra copper makes accidentally pulling a pad during rework slightly less common.

 

Sorry, doing PCBs professionally these days and you come to notice these things.

 

Regards, Dan.

[pjb304]

 

Teardropping connections? if you cad package does this it is useful on a through hole board, the extra copper makes accidentally pulling a pad during rework slightly less common.

Sorry to go a bit OT, but what do you mean by teardropping connections? I've recently had to rework a board and had a few problems with pads coming off so anything I can do to avoid it is worth finding out about.

[Dmills]

There is a picture of some teardropped connections a few posts down this page http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3622&p=36846 Note how the tracks smoothly merge into the pad.

This helps to reduce the risk of drill breakout and also gives a little more copper in the pad area

 

It is only worth it if you cad system makes it easy (altium does, as I suspect do most of the serious cad systems), if not then forget it, too much like hard work.

 

Regards, Dan.

[Brian]

Thanks for the comments Dan.

 

We've discovered a few, mostly mechanical, errors on the first boards which means a version 2 will be needed for final checking.

 

I've bought parts to build a small system's worth of the v2 units so that we can test them together and know that they work properly. They'll also be tested in a system with other makes of pack.

 

One of the things we want to avoid is releasing something that doesn't really work.