Programming the Lynx for a living - blank carts

[+karri]

So how about this design. Now you can KILL A LYNX and solder in the cart socket to the bottom of the programmer. The cart to be programmed will stick out down from the board.



For animal lovers there is still the alternative to use a soft connector. I already bought 1 meter of 4mm diameter covered rubber cable. This should work well for the cart connector.

Just sent in the files for manufacturing. Now its time to wait...

It appears that we are 4 interested today. I have now paid for 10 carts and 10 programmer boards. Perhaps it would make sense to send each of you 1 programmer and 1 cart. We could then set up a Raspberry Pi project on bitbucket for the programmer code.

 

The question is: do you have tools to solder the parts by yourself or should I do it before I send them?

 

The next step would be to test the design and try programming different images on the cart. Once everything work we could plan on the actual cart run. 100 carts minimum to get soldering done also. Would 25 carts each be too much?

Edited March 28, 2015 by karri

[LX.NET]

Wow, excellent work Karri. Some Lynxes are roadkill, so you might not have to kill one to get at the connector. I like the idea to use the actual connector. Always found it to be a good fit for the carts.

I'm in for 25 cartridges and at least one programmer board and cart, perhaps more if you have trouble finding other participants.

 

BTW, maybe I wasn't clear on that, but I am willing to share some of the connectors for those that are participating in this endeavor.

[+karri]

Thanks. I may have a dead Lynx motherboard in store. Due to pipe-works we have most of our "treasures" stocked away. But if I cannot find it I could need one connector.

 

I designed the programmer to use 3.3V for controlling the chips. The flash chip is powered by 5V to allow it to be programmed. The idea is to build just one unit for testing first. If we need level converters the cost of doing a re-design on the PCB's is small. But I believe it works like it was designed.

[+karri]

Hi guys,

 

I did a small calculation of all the expenses so far:

 

total price for the 10 cart proto series in euros = 100.96

total price for the 10 programmer boards in euros = 90.47

 

When we get the final 100+ cart run the unit price of the carts should be much lower than the 10€/cart as shown above. This also depends on the chip prices in China. To my surprise they are a bit higher than what we have in Finland.

 

--

Best regards from the mini kickstart leader,

Karri

[+karri]

New idea - again. Nylon screws!

 

The latest (and greatest) variant of this design is to create the cart as 1mm thick but with 4 holes on the edges.

 

When you assemble the cart you make a thread for a screw that goes through the top and bottom cart. Then you insert a 3mm nylon screw and cut it with a hot metal knife. These 4 short nylon screws secures the halves together without need for messy glue.

 

An artists view below:

 

 

bottom + bottom with top

[LX.NET]

Looks great. And the price for the programmer and prototype cart is very doable.

Can't wait.

[+karri]

I changed my mind again - sorry.

 

The thing that bothers me is that the cart is not flat.

 

Now I got a pretty cool idea: we could put the chips at the far end of the cart so that they actually form the edge by which you pull out the cart.

 

 

Any good idea of how to get a 1.6mm thick plastic sheet that could be folded like this? I assume that you could make sharp folds to a thin sheet by heat and some kind of forming tools. Obviously we also need a small "filler" to support the through nylon screws that hold this invention in place.

 

I also placed a reservation to the edge for some hardware additions. It would have power plus 8 high address bits and audin. These bits can be used for all kind of cool extras.

 

 

An example would be environmental lighting by having full, smooth control of three RGB leds. Like this:

 

 

Red alert on bridge

 

Or the Lynx could be used to remote control something cool.

Edited April 2, 2015 by karri

[LX.NET]

i am absolute for having the additional 8 pins plus volt and audin. That would give a lot of nice options for new kinds of games or IoT or makerlab kind of tinkering. I hope that at least the prototypes will have that.

I wonder what the possibilities for printed cartridges are. Might have said it before, but that seems to become more and more doable and cheaper. For the small runs that we are doing anyway the slow production speed wouldn't really matter anyway. And we could possibly print the original cartridge shape. Bernd says that the old PCBs tat went into them and the msdk-like rom are also still available.

[+karri]

I was planning to arrange the pins for easy SPI connectivity. Then it is just to buy any gadget from www.miniinthebox.com and dream up the most innovative Lynx application

 

We are getting on a side track here. The important thing is a cheap cart that can be easily programmed on demand when you want to sell a homebrew masterpiece in single quantities.

 

I know that you can use a 3D printer for free in the local library 10 minutes away. But I have no idea of how to define the 3D design, how durable is the result, how long does it take to print one cart. Perhaps it is time to pay a visit to the library.

 

PS. just came back from the library. The printing and plastic is free. They supply 4 colors plastic wire. Printing time for a Lynx cart was estimated to 30 minutes. So I am NOT going to sit there for 5 hours to get 10 carts printed. The library is open from 9-16 on Saturday. Time to start creating a stl-file (whatever that is) in order to program the printer.

Edited April 2, 2015 by karri

[LX.NET]

with the right file for printing out things there might be AA members with a 3d printer willing to help out. Or each homebrewer might have the time and motivation to print these on demand at location available to them. It's very interesting to sort this out.

as for the getting sidetracked: Perhaps but the option on the cartridge is something that is a big plus with its possibilities. If there is any chance to include this on the proto carts I am giving it a big yes.

[+karri]

The first 10 carts are already in transit between Hong Kong and Espoo. They should be here any minute now.

 

But as I am unhappy with the mechanics of these protos they are just considered to be test units to get the programmer tested and to check that they work with the Lynx. I don't think it is good to waste chips on all carts. Building 4 carts like this is enough. Then I could order the improved design with the I/O pins for the rest of the chips and build the remaining 6 carts with them.

 

Blender seems to have stl output. It is a while since I played around with it so the model is not completed yet.

[+karri]

Tomorrow at 10 I will try printing the cart in the library. The design of the cover was made by Duranik. Really cool design imho

 

They have three "Ultimaker 2" 3D plotters that you can reserve over the net.

 

The cart comes without I/O pins by default.

 

You can solder in either 4 pins in the middle to get SPI. Or all 11 pins for full block control bits.

 

Edited April 6, 2015 by karri

[LX.NET]

Sounds like a good idea to not waste chips on a prototype design. I would still be interested in an empty pcb (or two) for tinkering myself. So please do not throw them away

[+karri]

Sounds like a good idea to not waste chips on a prototype design. I would still be interested in an empty pcb (or two) for tinkering myself. So please do not throw them away

 

They are all yours .

 

I will wait to check that everything works on the first proto before sending in the improved design. The 2nd batch will also be just 10 carts.

 

If everything is ok on the first proto then I plan to send each participant the programmer board and one cart to get going. Hmm. that means at least 2 hours in the library.

 

The same cover design works for the 1st proto also by gluing the cover in the middle of the cart and cutting the low part away. Not nice but should do its job.

[+karri]

Back from the library. There was one young guy who recommended to use higher quality. This printout took a little over 3 hours.



The unit can print 4 carts in one go. But of course the printing time is also 4 times longer.

The cart feels nice and strong. The measures are also accurate.



Here is two carts next to each other.



A great thank you to Johannes from Duranik for this fabulous stl file. Which is included here so that you can already print out the covers while waiting for the boards to arrive.

Karri_Modulcase_A_2_Rev2.zip

Edited April 7, 2015 by karri

[+karri]

Just a small note of progress: The first batch of game cards arrived today.

 

I need to modify the cover slightly in order to make it fit the current boards. As we are still waiting for the programmer pcb's to arrive I might pay a second visit to the library.

 

Do you have free 3D services in other countries as well? In Finland we seem to have many libraries doing this and they don't even charge anything for the material. Talk about good service

[LX.NET]

I would have to check a library. Haven't been to any in the last couple of years. There are companies that offer the 3D printing service though. I will make sure I have access to the STL file so when the occassio. Aarises I can print one of the covers. Plus I know some people who Bui the printers for a hobby. If you know them to be right I will take whatever opportunity to start printing them

[+karri]

Silly me. I did not check for the gerbers well enough. There is a solder mask covering the pins. Nothing you cannot fix in a minute with a knife but it does not look good.

 

 

In the library for the 2nd time doing a fast model (40 minutes).

 

 

It fits like a glove.

 

 

Time to wait for the programmer board to arrive. Due to this mask-problem my suggestion is to use the rest of the chips on the final board.

 

A little more delay but better quality in the end

Fortunately this does not affect the development cost much.

 

I also found a new kickstarter project with an affordable 3D printer. This might be good enough for Lynx carts and definitely within reach.

 

 

Edited April 9, 2015 by karri

[Turbo Laser Lynx]

I'm in too!

[+karri]

First trial of ambient lighting worked well (used an arduino for testing).

 

I got 80 programmable extremely bright 5050 Dream Magic leds that are powered from 5V.

 

The Lynx has only 16 colors at a time on the LCD so programming ambient lighting in the game takes away a lot from the graphics on screen. A separate LED array of 3 leds could easily be created using a 3D printer. It would have a 4-pin female socket that fits into the cart. The cart + LED strip would form a T.

 

Placing 3 LEDs on a horizontal stick on top of a cart would give enough light to lighten up a dark room..

 

In "Shaken, not stirred" you could have alarm lights in a car chase (blinking blue and white leds). If you are flying you could have flashing red at port and green at starboard. In Stardreamer "red alert on bridge" could be a smooth red glow going up and down. Not to talk about a dancing game with disco-lighting in the rhythm with the music

 

The leds cost 0.33€ each including a WS2801 controller so ambient lighting would perhaps add 1€ to the cost of the cart. Talk about "cool" features.

Edited April 21, 2015 by karri

[+karri]

The programming cradle is taking shape.

 

 

And under the cradle a do-it-yourself piece of rubber band to give elasticity and wires to make contact with the cart.

 

 

Will this work or not?

 

(If it does not work we may have to kill a cat to get the connector.)

 

In the library again... The connector is taking shape and looks very promising

 

 

Edited April 24, 2015 by karri

[BadPricey]

Hi all,

I cannot find any local 3d printing facility that provides the service for free. I have sent the stl file to a company in Bristol UK for a quote but he has come back to me saying the part is very small have you exported in mm or inches? and he has asked me to resend it in mm, confirming the actual sizes. Any help greatly appreciated on this.

Rgds

BadPricey

[+karri]

You can download Cura (it is free) on a Windows machine and read in the stl file. Cura can produce printing instructions for at least the Ultimaker printer family.

 

In order to see the part and edit it I use Blender (also free).

 

At start Blender has a large cube (2m x 2m x 2m). Press DEL to delete it.

 

Then read in the stl file.

 

Import->stl

 

And zoom in with the scroll wheel until you see the design.

 

Blender has a pretty steep learning curve. But once you get it making 3D stuff is fun.

 

I can print out a few covers so you get going.

 

Tonight I may try to compile some spi code for Raspberry Pi.

[BadPricey]

Thanks for the info Karri, I'll try those programs out.

I got the quote back for 10 pieces it was £136!!!!!! I might be able to get a cheap flight to Finland for less! I'll keep searching.......

Rgds

BadPricey

[+karri]

A ridiculous price for 7 grams of plastic and 10 minutes of printing. One euro is the highest price you could ask for it.

 

I also found out that by letting the carts stand you can print tens of carts in one go.