Paul:

  After reading some of your emails concerning home-brewed engine management
  systems, I started thinking that it might be fun to create an entire glass
  panel for an aircraft.

  Since I know you have machines that run old MSDOS, I looked for one of my
  old compilers.  I havent written any DOS graphics stuff in probably 25
  years, but thought I would give it a try.
  I downloaded Turbo Pascal 7 from the web, and found some compatible video
  drivers from somewhere in Denmark.
  It seems the old 1980s video drivers were a far cry from what is found in
  modern machines. After an evening of hacking around, I got the compiler to
  run on my WindowsXP machine at the c: command prompt.

  I looked at a couple of web sites for commercial glass panels and
  implemented some of the features I saw into a little demo program I wrote.
  Since I have no aircraft engine or sensors to tie into, I wrote a little
  simulation routine which currently replaces routines which would check the
  analog and/or digital ports.
  I set the simulation routine to output data about once/second and display it
  on the screen. I use a trig function to build some variability into the
  simulated values so you can see if it is working.
  None of the graphics produced are graphical images, They are all produced by
  compiled mathematical functions in my program.

  So if you are interested in trying it ... go to http://poplar.us/panel.zip
  and download and unzip the zipped files into a temporary directory.

  The executable file is 'panel.exe'
  The BGI files are video drivers that worked on my Sony laptop
  The CHR file is a font file for generating characters in graphics mode.

  I don't have a virus checker on my old laptop, but I reinstalled XP on my
  machine not long ago, so it probably is clean.

  To test -  go to the temporary directory created above and run the
  executable file,  Let me know if it works

  Robin


  Dig up an old obsolete windows computer and get DOS running.
  If you need it I have it. Then I'll send you QB. Then I'll send you
  the source QB code on a moving map program driven by a GPS.
  Here are some screen shots.

  -----------------------------------------------------

  Here is a freebe.

  I needed a quick way to convert from mm to inches. My PC board software is
  in inches and half the part dimensions  in the world are inches and the
  other half are mm. It is critical when laying out PC boards that you
  know the exact size of the parts.

  I wrote a program in QB that generated this table in about 10 minutes.
  I screen captured it and pasted it into MS Paint and saved it as
  a jpg. I could then insert it into a screen capture jpg from Digi Key
  on cap capacitor sizes. The caps are major parts of CD ignition systems.

  Paul Lamar


The table is good.

By the same token, you can type "7.5mm to inches" at a Google prompt
and it returns "7.5 millimeters = 0.295275591 inches" ..


Matt-

Great Matt. I'll have to try that. I tried to order some IR2155 from Digi Key
and they don't stock them. As far as I can tell there is no exact sub.
So I ordered from  Futurlec. Any feedback on them. It is hard to find
out where the parts are coming from. Perhaps China ?
I don't like typing my credit card into a web site.

The upside is no tax.

Paul Lamar

Paul, you might get an additional credit card with a LOW limit for
use on the web.  This would certainly limit your potential losses
from hackers.  It would also protect your main accounts from being
tied up while the bank tries to untangle your money.

Joel

Yes I thought of that. I'll see how this one goes.

Thanks Joel.

Paul Lamar


Paul,

One option, when ordering from digikey, is you can mail in
a check or Postal Money order.  They are used to students
(high school) who do not
have a credit card, and encourage them.   They will cover
postage a mail you the parts.

IR2155 has gone end of life.  IR2153 or IR21531 are
recommended replacements.

Futurlec -- they are not an official distributor to my
knowledge. Just buy up surplus and resell, lots of
counterfeit product out there, btw.  At least futurlec
has been around for a while. Customer of mine purchased
5,000 parts from a broker, as we were back ordered 12 weeks.
$20 price each.  Yes, all the parts were marked with our
logo, but were counterfeit.  The Broker disappeared overnight
with their $100K.  Hence we tell customers to only order
through our official distributors.

We are still able to meet 12 week lead times, lots of
IC manufactures cut way back and orders are rolling in
again. 20 to 26 week lead times being quoted!

Tom

It is not DigiKey I am worried about. They have a phone number.
Futurlec has a fax number but no phone number.
They seemed to have IR2155's
DigiKey is also out of IR2153

Is the IR21531 an exact replacement?
SELF-OSCILLATING HALF-BRIDGE DRIVER
No wonder I did not find it on DigiKey.
DigiKey has it mis labeled as simply a HALF-BRIDGE DRIVER :)

Thanks Tom that could be the hot tip.

Paul Lamar