mehdidib:
Thats exactly what i wanted to say , one of the 5 character
I did, you're proposing a great solution , in fact someone in New Zealand made it using your method New Zealand,
he started by re-creating the circuit diagram , he said :
'From this you can deduce several things, firstly there is no real control logic on the board. I had sort of assumed these units would be daisy chained back to a controller on some sort of multi-drop bus such as RS422, but as you can see each board would need an individual 20 pin cable back to another controller or a bigger mother board
"The 4063 comparator is obviously part of this bigger picture and looked far too complicated to even guess how they had done this on the real control board, so I knew from first base I was never going to try and reproduce the way it was originally done."
OP, your English is a lot better than your writing. BUT, please don't keep pushing that scribble as a schematic.
It's a mud map - for YOU to use in creating a schematic. I doubt anyone here will try to follow more than 2-3 wires.
In general, we'll take a cursory glance, but if you want anyone to make a serious attempt at figuring out the operation, provide a sensible diagram.
If you're not sure how to, pay a friend with a bottle of wine, and ask them to help.
In fact, if you opened up a relationship with someone here, they may do it with you for $20
Robin2 has already said, there is probably a simple addressing scheme to select individual characters in a set, and some sort of synchronous pulse to 'flip' the flaps on each character... whether 'home' is determined on the individual character, or by a signal sent back to the controller will become clear with the schematic.
If you don't have any schematic capture tools, VISIO can do a fair job on a relatively simple circuit like this. The main control board is a different story!
Remember that(very old) saying... GIGO == Garbage In, Garbage Out !
I like what your doing, and agree with your aspirations for the project.
On the side, I'd be designing around 60 flaps - keeping 5 for spares!
lastchancename:
I like what your doing, and agree with your aspirations for the project.
On the side, I'd be designing around 60 flaps - keeping 5 for spares!
Thank you , let me know what you think about the handwritten circuit schematic ! is it clear now ?
mehdidib:
please let me know if you notice anything that can help !
Sorry if I sound lazy, but it would take me far too long to make any sense of that - and I can't turn to the hardware to test any ideas.
My approach to the problem would be different. I would try to think about out how the system works at a high level - what signals it needs from the hardware (which I mentioned before) and what signals it needs from the controller.
By comparing the connections to several digit modules it should be possible to figure which wires are share and which (if any) are specific to each digit module. Can you power the system without the motor and see what the sensors produce when you rotate the digits by hand?
And maybe the simplest thing is to ditch all of the existing electronics and just rely on the mechanical system and the sensors.
That drawing is a GREAT improvement, but sadly - needs to go a bit further... (thanks for the high-quality copy)!
What you've done so far will help you make the next leap.
(I'd start breaking the larger drawing down to smaller modules - e.g. power-in and motor driver on one page, then the optos and counters on another... the functional blocks will become clearer.)
Even the main I/O connector could be on a page of it's own with descriptive links off to the detailed logic pages - and most importantly it gets clearere & simpler to read!
The fact you have so many 'jump over' wires - says the drawing is not laid out logically - just wires going from one place to other places without logical reason.
You know for example the motor is the result (output) of the whole process, so you should put that - and probably also the opto-interrupters - nearer the right-hand side - and the logic will flow backward from there.
Currently you have a lot of chip outputs that turn around and head back to the left.
That's counter-intuitive when looking for logic & signal flow.
There are also some glaring issues -
IC3-11 (output) goes to IC4-2 (output)
IC8-13 (output) goes to IC4-1 (output) goes to IC1-13 (output)
These are possible if it's a wired-OR setup, but highly unlikely
The lower 'opto' output (pin 4) goes to IC4-13 (output) - not happening...!
The +Vcc / +Vdd rails don't need to be drawn everywhere - simply use an arrow +Vcc or something like that to eliminate 20% of the spaghetti.
Same for 0V / Gnd / Vss
Where do Vdd and Vss, and GND come on to the board? I can't see thm tyrace back to the connectors...
A great start - but if it took me more than 5 minutes to find the motor - it's not done yet!
Robin2:
My approach to the problem would be different. I would try to think about out how the system works at a high level - what signals it needs from the hardware (which I mentioned before) and what signals it needs from the controller.
By comparing the connections to several digit modules it should be possible to figure which wires are share and which (if any) are specific to each digit module. Can you power the system without the motor and see what the sensors produce when you rotate the digits by hand?
And maybe the simplest thing is to ditch all of the existing electronics and just rely on the mechanical system and the sensors.
...R
This would work but i don't have an oscilloscope !
lastchancename:
Added: Second to Robin's comments...
That drawing is a GREAT improvement, but sadly - needs to go a bit further... (thanks for the high-quality copy)!
What you've done so far will help you make the next leap.
(I'd start breaking the larger drawing down to smaller modules - e.g. power-in and motor driver on one page, then the optos and counters on another... the functional blocks will become clearer.)
Even the main I/O connector could be on a page of it's own with descriptive links off to the detailed logic pages - and most importantly it gets clearere & simpler to read!
The fact you have so many 'jump over' wires - says the drawing is not laid out logically - just wires going from one place to other places without logical reason.
You know for example the motor is the result (output) of the whole process, so you should put that - and probably also the opto-interrupters - nearer the right-hand side - and the logic will flow backward from there.
Currently you have a lot of chip outputs that turn around and head back to the left.
That's counter-intuitive when looking for logic & signal flow.
The +Vcc / +Vdd rails don't need to be drawn everywhere - simply use an arrow +Vcc or something like that to eliminate 20% of the spaghetti.
Same for 0V / Gnd / Vss
Where do Vdd and Vss, and GND come on to the board? I can't see thm tyrace back to the connectors...
A great start - but if it took me more than 5 minutes to find the motor - it's not done yet!
lastchancename:
There are also some glaring issues -
IC3-11 (output) goes to IC4-2 (output)
IC8-13 (output) goes to IC4-1 (output) goes to IC1-13 (output)
These are possible if it's a wired-OR setup, but highly unlikely
The lower 'opto' output (pin 4) goes to IC4-13 (output) - not happening...!
I asked the same when i traced the circuit, i am 100% sure that i didn't make any mistake , sometimes I think there is no real control logic on the board.
I retraced my circuit in Proteus 8 Pro , and I attached in the links below the Proteus file and a PDF version, I couldn't find my comparator (MC3320) and the High voltage High Current Darlington Transistor Arrays (MC1416D)
in Proteus library so i used different ICs with the same functionalities.
PS: I am sorry for wasting your time with all the old drafts
Please correct me if i am wrong, so in order to control the right position of the motor , i need to find the pins of my photo interrupter from the motor driver after that i would connect it to Pin2 of my arduino in order to read the signal, what i am thinking about right now is to write a counter program to read the input signal and then synchronize it with the power pin to turn the motor at any postion , do I need a PID controller ?
.