A question for you PI design experts

[Qiaozhi]

More Stuff

This might also come in handy ->

http://www.ecircuitcenter.com/Basics.htm

[Carl-NC]

Hi Carl,

Can you provide a link to the spice program? I couldn't find anything except one that works on switching power supplies.

Thanks,

Reg

Same program... it's Spice, souped up to handle switching power supplies. Paul's links are correct.

I also ran across a GNU Spice, called ngspice. As is normal with GNU, you can get all the source code, but I could not find an executable.

Also, GNU has a PCB layout program. I never gnu that....

- Carl

GNU EDA page - All their EDA devs, all free
PSpice - I used this a lot back in the 80's
Visual Spice - looks good, and cheap
Wikipedia - Lots of links to Spice vendors

[Reg]

Hi Carl,

Thanks for the info. I have used Electronic Workbench for years. I like the old EWB 5 but it lacks some major features. I also have the Microsim 7 which isn't bad but still has bugs. Personally, I am tired of paying to upgrade just to get a more bug free program, so I am looking for another one that is reasonable, price wise. It is hard to justify a lot of money for a program used a few times a year, and then, more for fun than anything.

Now, I did download the visual spice and it does seem interesting for the price. One little note, the company has a $100 discount in place at this time on the home website. Here is the link:

http://www.islandlogix.com/index.html

I would like to hear from anyone who has used this program for a while though.

Reg

[Muntari]

Charles,
Your idea of Bluetooth is not as left field as you think.
I currently have a dsp based design that sports a wireless link using NORDIC components for thr RF side. I originally used a custom ARM module for the user interface including a little Sharp 3.5" colour LCD with integral touchscreen.
Noise is a factor with an RF link but as transmit pulses on my PI are at very low rates, I can burst info to the top end display interface during the first half of the transmit pulse. It takes a number of pulses to get a full data set but does work.
The top end display unit must be absolutely quiet during any front end recieve phase and currently I do this by puting the ARM module to sleep when the PI frontend is capturing any recieve coil signal. That data is buffered and then sent to the display a few bytes at a time on each PI transmit coil pulse.
It is still too slow to react for say a 1 metre per second swing action of the average detector and this is what I am working on currently...speed up of the information transfer. It sounds easy but it is not that simple when graphics become involved AND you have to keep the noise levels down.

I have not yet tried Bluetooth but from what I know about it, may be a bit tricky..noise wise I mean.

Anyone out there with experience on Bluetooth data rates etc?

Cheers

Brian K

[Muntari]

Thought I would investigate Bluetooth protcols/ modes etc.
For those interested check this link out.

http://www.btdesigner.com/


Still like to hear from anyone involved in designs based on Bluetooth though before I invest in hardware. Only because I have something working with other RF products. Might be a dead end but perhaps not?

Cheers


Brian K

[Muntari]

Ok and one last one before I sign off tonight.


This is the chipset I am currently experimenting with for my RF link.

I use a DSPIC30F6010A for the PI front end, coupled to a custom ARM user interface via a NORDIC 433Mhz RF link.

See link for the device used

http://www.nvlsi.no/index.cfm?obj=pr...display&pro=83#


It may be of interest to some folk thinking about RF links.

Cheers

Brian k

[Unregistered]

JC1

Hi All,

some spice info. Ti has this thing I have never tried, don't know if its good or not, but it is free.

http://focus.ti.com/docs/pr/pressrel...prelId=sc05125

Wikipedia has spice info and links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPICE

This is the old free spice web page, get raw berkely engines (you don't want to do this) but has engine numbers,

2g6 3f4 3f5 stuff like that.

http://www.repairfaq.org/ELE/F_Free_Spice.html

haven't used this top spice freebe either but top spice I have heard is pretty good, i don't know.

but here it is.

http://www.ecircuitcenter.com/demos.htm

basics?

http://www.ecircuitcenter.com/index.htm

JC

[Unregistered]

JC1

this looks interesting for basics has some spice stuff.

http://newton.ex.ac.uk/teaching/CDHW...Resources.html

[pml]

Carl,

Is there anyway of converting Eagles libraries to LTSpice? LTSpice seems better than the Eagle & Opus combo, but I love Eagles vast libraries. If not, is there a lot of libraries offered for LTSpice? Although I see LTSpice has a lot of Linear Technology parts.

Thanks,
Paul

[Unregistered]

Back on topic

Hi Charles,
I'm going to try to get this back on topic. If you build a hammerhead, you will have a pretty decent detector to play with. It will be something you could actually use as opposed to some of the less than professional designs available out there. As for the possibility of you successfully building one, if you use Carl's PC board, you should have no problems. If you get stuck and just can't get it working, which is not likely, there are plenty of people on here, including me, that would be happy to get it and look it over and get it working for you. From experience though, if you try to breadboard or design your own PCB (assuming you don't have PCB layout experience from your original post) you would most likely have problems getting a successful unit built. This is because layout is critical primarily because you have a mixture of digital and analog circuits in the design. While I have an electronics background, I never did any PCB layout until I decided to design my own detector. I struggled with drift and other problems. After several tries and much money I found a tutorial on PCB layout. I tried to follow those recommendations when laying out the next board and that unit came out working beautiful (no change to the design, just the PCB layout). Now I'm in the process of designing a proton mag with a graphics LCD, USB, and SD memory card. As you know, the software is the challenge on that one.
Good luck,
FJ

[J_Player]

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