[time-nuts] PICTIC II ready-made?

Attila Kinali attila at kinali.ch
Wed Apr 25 19:11:46 UTC 2012


On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:45:52 -0700
Chris Albertson <albertson.chris at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 5:50 AM, Bill Dailey <docdailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I have wondered the same thing.
> 
> 
> It might be time for a group project to design a "Pictic III" that uses
> parts that are readily available.   Today I'd build it around an Arduino
> rather than a PIC even if the cost is more.  Arduino is programmable by
> __anyone__ and plugs into a USB port, no onwwouldhave to supply programed
> chips and because it is so easy to program maybe some users would try to
> make improvements and offer them to others.

May i ask what makes the arduino programable by "__anyone__" ?
Sofar, i only had a look at the hardware of arduino, but never looked
at the software side, as for me, who is regularly writing C code for
bare metal uC applications, the software part is solved if i know that
gcc can generate code for the architecture in question.

> Other suggestions to do something like this have come up on this list but
> then someone starts talking about using some specialized technology that
> 99.99% of the readers don't know (like FPGAs)  I'd like to see it done with
> 25 cent parts and technology a beginner can master

The thing is, we want to get into a region of mesurment precision,
that requires good and high quality devices and/or heavy post processing.
Most of the devices needed are pretty advanced. A PICTIC II like Nutt
Interpolator can be build using a higher frequency XO with lower jitter
and using higher quality components (eg ECL devices instead of 74HC, or
better ADCs) which could lead to a magnitude or two of precision enhancement.
But these devices are not as easy to handle as the ones used in the PICTIC II.
They would be all SMD with smaller pitch than 1.27mm (mostly 0.63mm,
some 0.5mm), nothing you'd solder by hand if you have not at least some
experience and an either a good sight or a microscope or similar.

On the other hand, i am pretty sure that a 100 pieces production run
could be done with all the interest on this mailinglist. And with that
you'd get probably below 100USD for a PICTIC II like system. Even if
using more expensive components.

			Attila Kinali

-- 
Why does it take years to find the answers to
the questions one should have asked long ago?




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