wierd_w

no... Not really. I think his ink system may have a bad air pressurization unit. The 1055CM uses a pressurized ink system that is basically an integrated "Bulk ink". The tanks hold about half a liter each!! If he used half a liter of ink on a poster, it would be sopping and dripping! (besides, they are not that expensive if you buy on ebay. Alternatively, you can switch to generic bulk ink if you buy the right stuff at alibaba.

I have a large format printer. (Designjet 1055CM) I can print up to 36" wide, and as long as the roll will go. For day to day things, I am content with my black and white only laserjet 4Vi. It's old, but still works.

Sadly I was crawling around on the carpet at that period. I missed out on the first round of home PCs and portables. I cut teeth well into the IBM PC age. I had to get a summer job and buy my own laptop, because my folks refused to spring that kind of dough. (Somewhat amusingly, that summer job was fixing PCs. I got *A LOT* of experience doing that. Had my hands in everything from XTs all the way up to AS400s and beyond. I can make those old DOS machines dance, and was the bane of the computer lab staff at school. They were terrified of me. They insisted on giving me a chaperone after I noticed several outstanding problems with how they set up their network, and politely pointed them out after class.) Like so many people then, they did not appreciate how computers were going to change the world, and felt my fixation with them was unhealthy. Really, it just gave me a heads-up on the current world. I wish there were more opportunities to share the experience with others besides my co-workers back then. I am kinda sad that there aren't any local groups in my area; KC is a 5 hour drive from here, and I JUST learned about it tonight.

I have been giving some thought to the power supply issue. Here's the thoughts so far-- There are "Universal Laptop Cords" (ahem) that supply ~19v at quite a few amps, DC. That would be nearly PERFECT for using DC-DC regulators to derive the voltages needed for the PEB. Take for instance, this rather inexpensive one. https://www.walmart.com/ip/iGo-90W-Universal-Laptop-Charger/23703025 It has a keyed DC plug, which is *supposed* to accept little nibs for the various devices out there. If instead, there was a receptacle for just that plug, it would provide a nice, regulated 19V DC, keyed so you can't bodge it. From there, an internal DC-DC converter setup can derive the needed rails, which could be fabbed on some perfboard. If not that supply, then one similar to it, since laptop chargers tend to all output ~19V. I just need to spec one that is ubiquitous, cheap, and outputs reliable 19V at sufficient wattage. ALTERNATIVELY-- Internal PSU, that uses a 24V LED driver as the base, followed by said DC-DC converters. Such as this badboy. https://www.amazon.com/ABI-Supply-Outdoor-Rainproof-Weatherproof/dp/B01IU8QBCO?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_2 Sadly, it is only 82% energy efficient, and thus "Illegal" by CA's new standards. Finding a suitable DC supply might be tricky. Not sure how efficient this one is, but it looks potentially useful too. https://www.amazon.com/LEDENET-220VAC-Switching-Supply-Converter/dp/B00OLYAGSC?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_7 Has fancy voltage output adjustment pot.

Kansas city is close enough for me to attend even!

PLA resists every solvent known to mankind just about. Its weakness is heat. (It deforms on contact with hot water. No shittin.) It sands well. These were set with a high layer thickness as a prototype stage. Proof products will print at the previously cited "2 days to print per section" duration, and will have a much finer height, and additional top layers. I am wanting to verify my CAD data at this stage, and or-- work out any bugs with the assembly. I am unsure about the PETG. The PETG did not want to adhere to my build plate, even with PVA glue painted on. Most frustrating. Nylon sticks no problems, as does the PLA. For a part that fills the whole build area, good adhesion is not something I can compromise on. My preferred material for something like this (Durable surface that needs to accept threaded screws in the back) is nylon. Nylon resists all solvents, but degrades on exposure to strong acids. Sands like shit. (leaves "shreds" on the surface). For Nylon finish proof parts, I would use something like featherfill, sand that, then paint.

The petg did not want to cooperate. Had to settle with PLA. That said, heres the first set. These are the front side that have female sockets on the back. I still need to do the fingered back panels and glue them all together. When Globerons peb arrives i can verify screw hole placement and fitting.

I like the modularity there. It gives options. The RAM in the 99 is not terribly fast anyway due to the multiplexer, and the added waitstates. The extra waiting that happens from having RAM that far away from the CPU is a drop in the bucket. Specifically, SAMS banks out the 32k ram area. If you build-in the 32k on the TIPI car, then a sidecar SAMS is not useful, and in fact, becomes incompatible. Being able to decide "Hmm.. 1MB+ with bank switching, or just straight 32k? Hmmm.." is useful. Especially if you want to incrementally upgrade your kit. Keeping them separate has tractable benefits.

I leave my FG99 in all the time as well.

(I rarely ever reprogram eeproms. The few instances in which I desperately did need to, I just "abused" an old network card (with flashable eeprom socket) and used its flash utility.)

Heh... That last bit I totally dig. I had an old Compaq Armada 1530DM in the mid 90s that I brought to school for schoolwork. I was faster at typing than I was at hand-writing notes, and it kept me from having to spend so much time in the computer lab. It was the first true laptop I ever purchased, and I was very proud of it in the day and age. All the other kids felt it cemented my status as a hardcore nerd though. The teacher staff however--- They were nonplussed about having an "Electronic Device" in their classrooms. LOL. These days kids have school issued ipads and chromebooks. Oh how times have changed.

In the late 90s, before the rise of USB, many PCI chipset motherboards had integrated serial and LPT IO on the back. In this case, keeping that thing around is useful if you want to set up/load up some old vintage x86 machines, since you can use a copy of fastlynx to parallel transfer files over. (It's basically like midnight commander, except it can transfer over an LPT cable, or a serial null-modem. LPT was faster.) Given how the prices on those things has exploded on Ebay, if you have any such old clunkers and you dont love them, load them up with FreeDos and some abandonware, and sell them for around 200$ a pop.

Except that is 8bit ISA, and those are PCI slots...

I saw, too bad I can't read dutch. I am looking forward to its arrival. I am 3D printing a PEB plastic front right now for test fitting. Having my own unit to test out manufactured components on will go a long ways to finishing the PEB measurement project.

I would hang on to that thing. Never know when an LPT card will come in handy. Personally, I would find an old junker to slip it into, then document what the jumpers do, tack a sticky note on it, and put it away in a static bag.

I now have 4 of the 7 components of the front bezel modeled with all the little fingered sockets in place. Next are the backing parts, with the fingers. Initial slicing through Cura shows that my printer should be able to print them with a 5mm wide brim, just barely. The longest running part with the slicer settings I provided is ~2 days print time.. So, printing the front bezel looks like an approximately 2 week long ordeal. It will also use an insane amount of material. Regardless, I intend to start doing a print test. By the time that shiny new PEB arrives in the mail, I want to have a prototype RepliPEB bezel ready for test fitting. If it fits, I will release the print models. If not, I will do necessary revisions, test print AGAIN, and repeat until I get it to fit properly. The material I will use is black PETG. It prints about the same as the PLA, but is higher temperature. I don't have enough of my preferred material for something like this (nylon) on hand. We'll see how well it works. I have the weekend off (YAY), so I will continue with the sheet metal parts after I finish the remaining 3 parts of the plastic front.

So, I won Globeron's PEB auction. (as the only bidder. That's kinda sad. I am tempted to send the man some bills in the mail to cover the international shipping) Last night, I spent a little time contemplating how to section up the front plastic bezel of the PEB so that a 3D printed replica could be produced. I have decided that I can do it in 7 sections, and still have a somewhat pleasing cosmetic result. My printer has an 8" bed, and the width of the PEB front cover is ~7 inches, which theoretically should work out OK. (Again, my ghetto chinese clone of the Prusia A3 is a bit janky.) This is still in the theoretical stage, as I have not printed anything yet, and am still doing the modeling to make this happen, but here's the thought-concept for the "Fingered socket" I intend to use to lock the pieces together. Looks like I need to move the socket over a little bit, because that is too close to the edge. (Only noticed now that I made the section view...) The idea is for some little "finger" tabs with hook tabs on the ends will collide with the angle of the inside of the socket, and get bent over, and lodge behind the hook on the inside of the socket. Thus, the parts will stick together permanently. There will be 2 layers, which overlap, so that the seams in the printed parts are reinforced. The idea is to supplement with a strong slow-set flexible adhesive.

Considering I make 20k/yr, it adds up quick. (I changed careers to something that pays significantly less [I used to bring home over 100k, but having 3 bosses, and having to be constantly monitored because C-level hates paying people what they are worth made me feel like I was in a George Orwell novel. The final straw was when the company got bought out by a fortune 500, and they introduced the IP policy of DOOM which I could not agree to. Seriously, they wanted to claim ownership to any and all ideas I had, in perpetuity. No sunset clause in the verbiage. No thanks.], to have significantly less occupational stress. As long as I keep my tech habits in line, it's OK. But this little toy is turning into a money trap. Thankfully, at this rate, the last big purchase I need is an F18A.)

REM port is really just a jumper on a pigtail. When the leads are closed, it disables the drive motor. That's all it does; lets the computer disable the motor. You can live without it, it just means you have to press play and or record pretty quickly when it prompts. The leads on the back are separated left and right audio channels. The TI datasette is a monotone signal. Might be more sensible to just use a single channel and be done with it.

Really? For me, it's been "I spent way more than I should have..." Gonna have to cut back hard. Then again, with having won Globeron's PEB auction, I should be OK for awhile. He's got that thing loaded.

Can be done, but without the REM port, you will have to be johnny on the spot with the play and stop buttons.

Looks like i won globerons peb. Paid for the auction. Time to wait! With any luck Helocast can get his weekends back.

turn volume knob all the way up and mess with the tone knob.

Woohoo!

I know you said FPGA, but other than trying to squeeze every ounce of performance out, a reasonably fast micro controller would suffice in most cases. Many of those have existing host-mode USB stacks that could be leveraged. The same kind of code that the 99/2 uses would still be damned tiny, leaving plenty of room for the host mode interface stack, and a HID storage class handler. But (shrug). I still like the idea of a simple device that can run off a 9v battery, that you put just about any kind of USB storage on, and it just works.