Side Cart backplane.

[Sinphaltimus]

So with all this talk about new peb interface cards or a cable adapter I decided to just throw together something quick illustrating an idea I had.
There's always room for new tech and the dirt cheap alternatives so here goes.



A speech synth can be stripped of its casing and inserted using a male to male edge connector.
The 90 degree adaptor fit the existing PEB interface.
Pass through edge connector for the 32K side cart.

Or take the existing splitter adaptor and add a vertical slot for the stripped down speech synth.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Sinphaltimus

[+Schmitzi]

hmm, I am not the one who knows about, but isn´t the flexcable like a terminated bus,

so that the 32K cannot come behind it ? But don´t worry, I am just guessing

[+jedimatt42]

Why not just attach the speech in its current, beautiful state, then the 32k sideport, then 'hats'/daughter-boards/whatever-you-want-to-call-them to the right side hat headers on the 32k card. If each hat uses stacking headers, then it can keep on building out. At least that is what I had in mind.

 

-M@

[+jedimatt42]

Oh, I see, you also want your PEB connected. You can connect a PEB to the right of my 32k card, you just have to build a small adapter, which I have tested, and will publish howto later...

 

But if your goal is to make a right angle vertical twist for your peb connector to improve desk space usage, then... Interesting...

 

-M@

[+jedimatt42]

hmm, I am not the one who knows about, but isn´t the flexcable like a terminated bus,

so that the 32K cannot come behind it ? But don´t worry, I am just guessing

The way I look at it, the flex cable and boot that connects to the 4a, is like a bridge between two buses. 1 the sidecar bus, and 2 the PEB card bus.

 

We have splitters that work just fine from what I hear so you can have more than one PEB connected to a single 4a.

 

-M@

[Sinphaltimus]

The idea was to free up space on the right side of the console by consolidating how things connect without soldering modifications.

 

I have zero experience or knowledge in software to create board layouts for manufacture.

 

But I'm willing to learn and research.

[gregallenwarner]

Something like this doesn't really serve a need for me, since I am not wanting to tie myself to a strict 32K RAM expansion, as I hope to build myself a SAMS clone someday for the full 1MB of RAM in the PEB. But certainly I can see this being of use to others.

 

Something that worries me is standing the PEB's firehose cable up on it's edge like that. It's a rather bulky and heavy cable, and I'm afraid its weight would put a considerable strain and torque on the TI's edge connector. The firehose cable's TI-side connector, terrible as it is, was designed with a little foot to keep it elevated so it doesn't strain the connector. Things like strain relief are always a big part of designing a connector.

[Sinphaltimus]

Something that worries me is standing the PEB's firehose cable up on it's edge like that. It's a rather bulky and heavy cable, and I'm afraid its weight would put a considerable strain and torque on the TI's edge connector. The firehose cable's TI-side connector, terrible as it is, was designed with a little foot to keep it elevated so it doesn't strain the connector. Things like strain relief are always a big part of designing a connector.

Absolutely - just a rough concept of the idea itself. I imagine it being in a box with support for the flex cable interface. The entire mechanism would need a base to sit on.

 

And the hose clamped.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Sinphaltimus

[Sinphaltimus]

I've super simplified this already.

Going off M@'s 32K design, the back plane would be little more than 3 connections. One to the TI, one for a vertical install (Speech Synth) and a passthrough. One edge connector on the left to connect to TI and an edge connector on the right to continue expansion (sounds exactly like what I posted?) except the vertical expansion would just be pins. If you wanted something there, you'd need the pin to edge adaptor (same thing you would need if you wanted to connect something to the 32k already attached to the TI). I imagine no more than 2 inches wide with a hole in each corner to install support (like a plastic stand off).

Putting the firehose on it's side, yeah, not such a great idea (after actually setting up a mock setup). However, an adaptor to fit...say...a customized SCSI cable to fit in the vertical slot or off the side would be fine. It would be little more than an edge connector on one end to fit the scsi cable and a female connector on the other to fit the pins on the backplane.

I think what I'm going for is a side expansion backplane that is very small and modular with the purpose of saving space. Saving space is accomplished by the vertical installation of a stripped down voice synth.

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER - I just made a bunch of pins without counting, not to scale or representative of actual idea in any accurate form.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Sinphaltimus

[Sinphaltimus]

I should be clear, the objective of this adaptor is to cut the foot print of the speech synth to as least 1/2 the current width by stripping off the case and mounting it vertically with a continued pass through. Several of these can be combined to add more side port expansion in the future that can be mounted vertically, like for instance, an interface for a new PEB interface to plug in to, etc...

In regards to a new peb interface. Let's say something like the scsi cable solution mentioned in another topic, An adaptor can be made for that to plug in to this. An option for side port expansion that would require nothing more from the end user except to plug it in and plug things in to it. I don't have the "know how" to make something like this for sale, but I could make one for myself, demonstrate it and post it all for others to make their own or improve upon it. Not sure if anyone else has interest in a device like this but I do and you know what they say about necessity......

Edited November 17, 2016 by Sinphaltimus