I'm toying with an idea and require your input.

[Omega-TI]

Lately I've been on a quest to reduce cables, plugs and wires of every assortment.  I've been fairly successful when it comes to the P-Box, but I've been wondering if it's worth all the trouble to take the 'final step'.

 

As you can see from the photo below, it would fairly simple to make a couple of Y-adapters to feed a power supply for the TIPI's RPi off of the 110VAC connections on the back of the AC outlet (power is available here even when the P-Box is off).  There should be enough room in the P-Boxes power supply and fan area to house a proper adapter.  One could then pick a method to route the cable to the Rpi keeping everything internal to the P-Box.

 

 

[Mehridian Sanders]

I truly understand this healthy pursuit. In order to get my TI running I have a jury rigged ATX1 power supply (Previous thread) which has an emasculated ATX Connector. Which I just found out will be in violation of a CA law going into effect January 2020, PS without "PS-On" are not considered to be low power consumption.

 

I digress.. 

 

My own 2 cents ... the less wires the better. I support you in your endeavour.

[cbmeeks]

3 hours ago, Mehridian Sanders said:

Which I just found out will be in violation of a CA law going into effect January 2020, PS without "PS-On" are not considered to be low power consumption.

Wait...seriously?  Does that mean old AT supplies are in violation or just new PSU's?

[Mehridian Sanders]

1 hour ago, cbmeeks said:

Wait...seriously?  Does that mean old AT supplies are in violation or just new PSU's?

will start new thread on this for clarity

 

[wierd_w]

Given the number of things that need a PEB, I am toying with the idea of building my own.  (Seriously, with how much those things cost to buy + ship, it would probably be cheaper for me to just design and build one myself.)

 

I just havent reached the critical threshold to get over my natural indolence.

[Tursi]

13 hours ago, wierd_w said:

Given the number of things that need a PEB, I am toying with the idea of building my own.  (Seriously, with how much those things cost to buy + ship, it would probably be cheaper for me to just design and build one myself.)

 

I just havent reached the critical threshold to get over my natural indolence.

It's not a bad plan, there's actually not much to it - just a power supply and a backplane.

 

You would still need the "flex cable interface" to hook it up to the TI. Those are at least easier to ship, but I am not sure how common they are without a PEB attached. IIRC, they are mostly buffers at both ends of the cable.

 

[atrax27407]

There are already a couple of plans for a 3-slot P-Box and I'm sure it could adapted to add another slot or two. There was a diagram in the Hunter Valley 99ers newsletter.

 

[+helocast]

20 hours ago, wierd_w said:

Given the number of things that need a PEB, I am toying with the idea of building my own.  (Seriously, with how much those things cost to buy + ship, it would probably be cheaper for me to just design and build one myself.)

 

I just havent reached the critical threshold to get over my natural indolence.

Lol. I got over my indolence, but not my abject poverty.

Because I hate working with metal, I bought this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WFMVCY2 to form sheet PVC https://www.ebay.com/itm/ABS-Black-Plastic-Sheet-1-8-x-24-x-48-Textured-1-Side-Vacuum-Forming-Pack-4/142720539508 (roughly 8 enclosures), designed a 10-slot backplane in ExpressPCB (98-pin ISA CECs - 62-pin portion mounted like a normal PEB and 36-pin portion mounted on only 2 of the 10 slots leaving 8 configured for legacy cards). One of those designs is the PEB card end effectively an HD68 pin connector and buffers on the extended backplane while the second and alternate design is a 16-bit PEB card with buffers and nospikel.com's Hyper-AMS to take up all the dead space on the PCB card end. A 68-pin round SCSI cable finishes the joining to a separate small PCB (16-bit data bus + lost pins the original fire hose doesn't carry) at the computer. The power supply is one of the many readily available Mean Well enclosed multi-rail ones (with some DC regulation (as applicable) on the back plane tighter than the unregulated +16V -16V +12V +8V PEB standard.

I'll have it some day for myself, but the cost is prohibitive for mass production - I'd be effectively redesigning the standard, designing it UL compliant, then getting certification, and finally manufacture, assembly, and sale.

 

But where is the critical mass? You have two camps: the existing user base with the excellent, expanding sidecar design that do 80% of what a PEB does/did and the existing user base who have PEBs that wouldn't want to throw away the enclosure and start over to keep using legacy TI peripheral cards.

Doug

[wierd_w]

Some items only exist for the PEB.  Things like SAMS cards, or the Geneve (and most likely, ultimately the Geneve clone i hear FarmerPotato is working on).