Dave King wrote:

1. How does one secure the mobo, drives, and power supply without the
case?  Bolting or riveting them onto the airframe is very problematic.

Mount the board to alum sheet with standoff's as well as everything else then
mount that to the airframe with rubber isolation biscuits. If its out of
the way
thats all you need, if your paranoid fab a light 020 alum cover. Some of the
sensor packs I've done were done that way.

2. Where does one find the 12V to 5V dc converter that I keep hearing
about?  Google searches produces wild results.  The only promising one
was a circuit layout that we had to build.  All others that seemed even
halfway useful were many hundreds of dollars. 8-(

AI Nut

You can build a simple regulator using about $3 worth of parts. You'll need
5vdc and 12vdc if you are running drives or other peripherals.  A power brick
convertor will cost you more than you think.

All of this still beats the cost of a new notebook computer.
You could buy an old used notebook that would run DOS fine.
I am not familiar with the going rate for used notebook
computers but I am willing to bet they can be had for less than
$500.

You can buy pentium laptops for under $100 all day long on ebay.
If you are a sharp bidder you can get them down to around $40.
These are generally Pentium 133's with a color display. If you go this route
you save a bit as they generally will run off of the 12vdc system with a
cigarette
adapter. You can take the display off the main case and have a good sized
display you can mount anywhere. A 133 will give good performance on dos.

Dave

Good ideas.  The only problem with a laptop is that there is no 16 or
32  channel (or any?) A/D cards for them.  That's why I'm trying to work
a PC mobo solution.

AI Nut

I would not exactly say that. Get a subscription to Nuts and Volts.
subscrib@nutsvolts.com
http://www.nutsvolts.com

There are companies that sell data acq boards with RS232 output.

Paul Lamar
 
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