I really like the setup that Mark is describing. As to TAPR's plans,
we've found that enclosures are a challenge -- metalwork is pretty
expensive unless you get significant volume, and in our niche market,
that's hard to do.
But I am hoping to find an inexpensive clamshell-type enclosure with
flat front and rear panels, and then do up designs (perhaps with Front
Panel Express) for those panels. That can be done at a reasonable cost,
and at a minimum we can make design files available so people can order
their own panels.
For my own use, I'm also going to do a couple of 2U rack enclosures --
one to hold two TICCs operating independently, and another for the
"megaTICC" -- four units slaved together to make an 8 channel counter,
with a Raspberry Pi controller along the line of what Mark described.
(In multi-board mode, each TICC outputs on its own USB line, so the
RPi's main purpose is to deal with the 8 channels of data from 4 USB
connections.)
I'll make the design files for those enclosures available as well, but
it may be a while as my entire lab is now packed up as we are in the
final stages of moving from Atlanta back to Dayton.
Also, in a day or three I'll be announcing a simple project that sprung
out of the TICC assembly and testing process that some of you might find
useful. We're still finalizing details on that.
John
----
On 02/21/2017 11:45 PM, Mark Sims wrote:
I doubt that it is something TAPR would do. Building complete systems gets
into all sorts of issues (mainly regulatory). But it is easy enough to build.
They sell a nice case that the RPI3 and touchscreen mounts in. The
PI+touchscreen+case sells for around $110. The TICC(s) connect to it via USB.
There are also some Win10 tablets with 1024x600 touch screens that sell for
around $60 (apparently Microsoft doesn't charge manufacturers for Win10 on
tablets with small/low res screens).
I am thinking about laying out a front-end board for the TICC. It would have
some switchable (relay?) 50 ohm input terminators, switchable PICDIV dividers
for PPS/1MHz/5MHz/10MHz/15MHz (or 2.5 MHz) inputs, footprints for a decent
reference oscillator (MV89/8663/DIP/etc), and a 12V to 5V (3A?) power converter
for the TICC and PI... most of the better surplus oscillators run off of 12V.
Also maybe add a data multiplexer for combining the outputs of two TICC boards
into one data stream (but Heather could do that in software). John has some
ideas for a similar board.
-----------------
Wow! If you can persuade John and TAPR to produce that, I would be there
with my chequebook before the ink had dried on the web-page! :-)
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