The illusive Boxford 260vmc

[irving2008]

Sorry - meant HiTech C...its the one that comes with the free IDE, but I upgraded to the full version (not essential, but someone else was paying lol) HiMem C was another, older, tool I had... the compiler does a reasonable job of hiding the chip complexity, Ram banks, i/o banks etc. from you at relatively little overhead... could usefully use more than one break point for debugging but thats a limitation of the on-chip debug support rather then the compiler... but a good range of 3rd party libraries (TCP/IP stack, CAN bus stack, even a mini-webserver).

[ecat]

See what you think about this http://www.arduino.cc/ or possibly this http://www.skpang.co.uk/catalog/prod...roducts_id=474 (http://www.schmalzhaus.com/UBW32/) plus http://www.cpustick.com/index.htm for any basic fans ( :confused: ).

The Arduino is the hobbyists choice at the moment for small projects, I think it rather costly for what it is.

The Bitwacker gives a lot more bang for buck, but adds some complexity to the software development.

They cost more than a simple chip + support electronics but both have free development tools and neither require dedicated programming hardware. In addition they come pre-assembled and ready to use... Always a benefit :)

Both are total over-kill for a rev counter + LED display, where they win is ease of use. Should you want to add functionality at a later date, they have capacity to spare - the bitwacker could probably drive your whole cnc setup and still have time to make the tea :)

[irving2008]

I have both Arduino and Freescale Automotive (8 and 32bit) dev kits, but I keep coming back to the PIC 16F/18F series for small projects, mainly because the smaller DIP-style PICs are just so easy to create prototypes with and usually have more than enough bang for the peanuts they cost. Not tried the PIC32 world yet.

A 16 or18pin PIC16F, a cheap display, a bit of stripboard and a 4Mhz resonator are all thats needed for a simple rev counter

[GeorgeD]

Or a piece of foil and one of those ebay £25 point and shoot auto reader counters.

[Ricardoco]

View from below Driver rack ready for Logic voltage mods.

New tracks added ready for drilling and component additions.

Solder side view with Components added and soldered

Component side view

All done, and ready for fitting back in machine...(maybe)

Rick

[irving2008]

View from below Driver rack ready for Logic voltage mods.
...All done, and ready for fitting back in machine...(maybe)

Rick

neat way of adding the level shifters... looking good...

[Ricardoco]

Or a piece of foil and one of those ebay £25 point and shoot auto reader counters.

Thanks George, I did consider going down that road and I may even buy one as they are a very reasonable price and usefull for other things, but i wanted to encorperate it into the machine nice and neatly, which as ugly as it may be the Trexon fitted the bill. Or even something similar I could get my hands on without waiting for eternity, but it seems that this type of circuit is not available off the shelf in the UK which im gutted about.

I have so little time in my day as it is, being a 12hr night shift worker, the only real time I can spare is sleep time, but it seems I will have to go down the Microcontroller road, as nobody on here at least can suggest any other alternative off the shelf solution to the Trexon .....:(

Rick

[GeorgeD]

The tachometer circuit.
http://www.davehylands.com/Electronics/Tachometer/03-Schematic.html

http://www.davehylands.com/Electronics/Tachometer/

[GeorgeD]

Thanks George, I did consider going down that road and I may even buy one as they are a very reasonable price and usefull for other things

Think outside the box,or in this case inside:heehee:

Buy one, position the foil somewhere on the spindle,strip down the tachomete handheld unit,unsolder the the sensor and put/mount the digital readout in the front of the case n the boxford,solder some wires to the sensor and resolder the wires from the sensor to the digital readout unit.

[irving2008]

Think outside the box,or in this case inside:heehee:

Buy one, position the foil somewhere on the spindle,strip down the tachomete handheld unit,unsolder the the sensor and put/mount the digital readout in the front of the case n the boxford,solder some wires to the sensor and resolder the wires from the sensor to the digital readout unit.

you missed two vital points George... firstly its not a sensor but a laser reflectometer which is only rated for pulsed usage and secondly, they are not continuous reading but 'read-on-demand' therefore need a push-to-read button ... as a speed readout its not that useful....