Well, it feels like a long time since I have posted any news of happenings and such, so here it goes. First, I am about to ship the next round of Opus modules. This thing has taken on a rather cyclical dimension as a consequence of how I can schedule my time to build, but it does make the whole thing a little more sane for me. For example, the other night I built fifteen Ballsie modules, which works out to 720 SMT parts and 315 solder joints. Fifteen DACs is 420 SMT parts and 870 solder joints. Here's a pic of modules about to be packed...
There is also the new TOSLINK micro-module, which is silly-small.
What else... oh, we got some cool protoypes made with the last run and work is progressing. Here is a pic of four of the prototype boards [one board redacted - not ready for public consumption yet - top secret]...
The board on the top-right is the ASRC (codenamed Metronome), which has tested out well so far and is just about ready for release. The design is pretty final and we will probably pull the trigger on that one fairly soon. Like the DAC, it exposes just about all the functionality of the TI chip through jumpers for wide customization.
Below that in the bottom-right it the Pogo prototype (this is an early test design). It is based around the PGA2320 stereo volume control chip from Burr Brown, and features +-15V swing. The general idea is that each module comprises two single-ended channels, or a single balanced channel, and is controlled via an SPI daisy-chain, allowing you to add as many channels as you want.
All of these would be controlled by our elusive Uber controller. Here's a shot of an early prototype board for development...
We have several user interface ideas floating around at the moment, but the basics are that it will allow remote control and panel control, uses a display (OLED, LCD, etc), will control multiple Pogo modules individually, drive Joshua Tree and Darwin relay boards (along with a small driver module that attaches to the relay board's 10-pin connector), and any other SPI or I2C devices we happen to think of, such as software control of the DAC, etc. Once we get the hardware right, the only limit will be what software we can write.
That's about it for right now. We are up to our necks in it, but having a good time. Hopefully you will too. Over and out.
Edited by user Monday, November 12, 2007 8:10:12 PM(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified
