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Paul,
It looks like there are several versions of the Maximite. Which
do you recommend?
Subject: K9555 - Silicon Chip Magazine Maximite Colour Computer
Kit Altronics
http://www.altronics.com.au/p/k9555-maximite-colour-computer-kit/
Scott Gettings
Yes that is it. Color Maximite.
They are in Australia so that may be an Australian price.
There used to be a company in the US called Circuit Gizmo. That
sold it in the US. Put "circuitgizmo maximite" in your search
engine.
My GOOGLE search engine quit working for some strange reason. They
wanted me to verify I was not a robot. But that did not work
either. I think Google is down. Does it work for you?
Also my smart phone quit working. Same thing Google. Google ought
to be put out of business. They are a monopoly.
I used another search engine and found it.
http://circuitgizmos.com/gizmo-store/#!/Maximite-Computer/c/14171440/offset=0&sort=normal
$59 dollars US for just the assembled PC board. That is the one I
use.
----------------------------------------------------------- BTW
this is the site of the guy that invented it. Absolutely a genius.
http://geoffg.net/maximite.html <
http://geoffg.net/maximite.html
I wish we had a Color Maximite on the time to climb. Then we would
have a 100 times better instrument panel. The Motec instrument
panel sucks big time. The Motec 800 does some of the things like
data logging which is trivial on a Maximite. If I had my way on the
TTC I would have used 5 Maximite's instead of anything Motec has.
Motec cost thousands of dollars.
Here is the Motec instrment panel. You select one of three with
the switch. See if you can make head or tails out of it.
Now here is a screen from the Maximite
The display potential is enormous. Screens are available in many
different sizes as they are standard PC VGA's
Paul Lamar
It seems that most of the big EFI players have ECU's that are set
and controlled by software, which have gauges displayed, setting
tables and code burning ability. Who ever set up the time to climb
would have used that software, called M1 Tune. That in your pic is
a dashboard display, fairly limited with just the basics needed to
fly the aircraft. Computer hardware is not much good unless there
is software to go with. Lots of us can tinker with the mechanical,
some electronic hardware, but programming will send most into
hiding!
Steve Carlisle
That a real shame. The colleges pushing programming look down
their nose at BASIC to justify their existence. A five year old can
learn to program a Maximite. In fact, once you learn it, you can
explores all sorts of obscure equations and get an A in college
math and physics for that matter.
Paul Lamar
Paul and all Geoff Graham developed the Micromite after the
Maximite. Go Micromite or Micromite Plus as it has all the Maximite
does and more. Faster hardware and further developed mmbasic with
for example integer math which Maximite cant do.
http://geoffg.net/micromite.html OR
http://geoffg.net/MicromiteMX470.html
Cheers Steve Izett
I disagree Steve. It does not have a printed circuit board with a
PC keyboard interface or a VGA monitor interface. It is also
missing a battery backed up real time clock and 32Gig SD card slot.
These things are essential. The micro mite is just another micro
computer that uses a windows notebook for software development. The
same as at least a dozen others. There are several ARM versions
that are way more powerful.
This is one ARM that I have as well as several others.
It is obsolete IMHO.
Paul Lamar
Hi Paul This is what Geoff developed after Maximite, and its what
I now use. Explore 100
http://geoffg.net/Explore100.html Don’t let
the name fool you. Its better than Maximite in every respect.
Geoff further developed the MMbasic operating system/interpreter
with support for more hardware which is much quicker than Maximite.
He has not ported the mm basic improvements back to the Maximite,
its just not as good. You can see it has all the hardware your
after realtime clock, memory cards, keyboard, and importantly easy
direct lcd displays of from 1.5” to ~7” and you can still program
it from your desktop as I mentioned before. Maximite was clever the
way it used DMA to do VGA on board, but that is now history. Have a
read and you’ll see, if you thought Geoff’s Maximite was good, he
hit the jackpot with MicromitePlus.
Steve
It is close but no cigar. There is no operating system in the chip
or software editor as far as I can tell. The stock PC VGA connector
is not there.
It is close but no cigar. It is not a stand alone programming
system. It requires a Windows PC as far as I can tell. The Colour
Maximite does not.
Those click boards are expensive as well. It cost a lot more than
a Color Maximite.
For our application it is not worth the additional hassle IMHO.
Paul Lamar
Paul and all Not sure if your understanding Maximite/Micromite/Plus
family,
Geoff Graham developed them and lives here in Perth WA.
The cool thing he developed is his MMBASIC operating
system/Interpreter that you love Paul. He has just continued to
develop it for the next versions of the PIC32 chips that are
faster.
The hardware he and now others have developed just keeps getting
better and have both small and large versions with whatever
peripherals your needing, all with MMBASIC as their OS.
I have 3 Maximite mono’s a Colour Maximite and various Micromite
boards including a Explore100. Just choose what hardware your
after.
As far as writing the code, you can edit the code on an onboard LCD
screen using the keyboard connector provided (Exactly like a
maximite) but most people use MMEDIT running on a PC via USB to
whatever hardware you using. MMEDIT isn’t ported to OSX so I use a
terminal program to do main coding, or I can directly use onboard
editor via the explore100 keyboard and 5” LCD (A bit small for
writing heaps of code, but great in the cockpit for getting out the
bugs).
I migrated to newer hardware as Geoff continued to develop MMBASIC
to support great advances like integer math etc. He hasn't ported
the latest MMBASIC back to the old chips that Maximite used.
As for costs. Hard to beat a maximite on the bench with an old VGA
monitor. A cant remember what my Explore100 with 5” LCD cost, I
would imagine <$100.
If you want the brilliant MMBASIC environment with an excellent
display in the cockpit with capacity to edit the code in situ
(onboard keyboard connector and onboard editor) then a 5” LCD on an
Explore100 is a very good platform for ~$100
MMBASIC THAT YOU LOVE CAN NOW DO THE FOLLOWING - note PS2 keyboard
dot point
Cheers Steve Izett
Geof does not design the PC boards or manufacture them or sell
them. Other people do. The best so far is the color Maximite from
Circuit Gizmo.
Suppose I want a larger display. If it had a VGA connector I would
have my choice of hundreds if not thousands of VGA displays. The CG
Maximite has the VGA connector. The MMPlus kit from Rictect
Limited in NZ does not.
We don't need a faster or more capable computer kit. It is nice to
have but we don't really need it,
The Motec is a good example of the single computer approach. It has
one of the most powerful processors available.
As for that matter many EFI systems in cars also use the single
computer approach. The RX8 had a software bug that causes it to
flood the engine and make it impossible to start,
We need a simple single board low cost computer for each simple
job. One per injector. Another for the dash. They can share sensor
outputs. The CG Color Maximite is more than capable as is.
That makes the hardest job as simple as possible. Namely the
software. This is not a new concept. Perhaps some people have not
heard of it before. Large programs are more difficult to write and
debug. The probability of bugs is much higher.
The Color Maximite from CG fits the bill at only $69 completely
assembled.
If somebody somewhere builds a new PC board just like the CG Color
Maximite with all its features with the new MMPlus chip and
software I would go for it.
Paul Lamar
Paul,
Do you envision the three computers living in the same box or
separate units? The Altronics version has a nice enclosure, but this
only accommodates one Maximite. It is a little more expensive.
Stick with the CircuitGizmo bare board version?
Scott Gettings
They can live in the same box.
There are a bunch of extrude aluminium boxes on the market.
Here are some.
Paul Lamar
Paul,
I noticed that the MaxiMite that you identified has an area for
additional parts. Would this be a good place for the injector drivers
or would there be too much noise for the computer?
Joe Berki
In theory yes. But you will need a heat sink on the injector driver
transistor/FET
You can bolt the FET to the inside on an aluminum box. It will also need
a driver
chip to drive the FET. That can be mounted in the prototype area on the
Color Maximite.
Here is a pdf on that tiny device.
Paul Lamar
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