Thursday, August 4, 2016

The Bride of Frankenboard

Rise, my child, RISE!

1) Bride of Frankenboard. I wanted the add-on board (to the left, with the blue sockets) to be somewhat serviceable so I created it to be removable. Originally I had a fantastic Arduino-shield like design with headers that the board would slot into, but there just wasn't space. At the moment this is the best option, but a later revision will be larger in design so that it's in fact serviceable and not just in theory (i.e without a ton of cables in the way).

Alright -
So I've created a daughter board to the light board made from an old obsolete switchboard, hence the bulky blue sockets, containing all N-Channel MOSFET's to allow for logic 5V switching of loads independent from the logic (i.e > 5V). Link to circuit.

Seems to be working fine so far!

The downside is that it's hideous. And slightly erratic in its dependency, as it seems to have a glitch somewhere, but I can't see or find it. So I guess this board will have to be a sort of "proof of concept".

But it does work.
And that means I can continue with other stuff.


2) Ignoring the broken magnet holder, here's an active light with 12V (i.e around 1.5V due to duty cycle).
Still not super bright, but...

3) ...good enough for the purpose. I will try higher voltages, probably 24-36V, in the future
as well as bulbs won't light up properly otherwise. Either that or actually converting to LED's... 
Also, note the washed out colors of the text. I have a solution for that as well, but that's a later issue.