System redesign example
One of our British customers, serving the worldwide tobacco industry, built their cigarette-machine weight controller units still with an ISA bus PC, single board 486 CPU, a Keithley DAS card for analog inputs and custom digital conditioner board. Most of the parts for this system are hard to get or have been obsoleted.
Infotrade has redesigned the whole system from the ground up onto a 6 layer 180x108m PCB, with two Altera cyclone FPGA's, one running a NIOS II processor and another dedicated to external digital I/O, high speed counters and pulse generation. The two FPGAs are interconnected with a LPC (low pin count bus), known from modern PC's. The analog part was replaced by opto-isolated, hispeed serial A/D converters. Also the external PSU has been replaced by on-board power regulators. All external connections still have the same connectors and pin layout as the original system, so upgrading the controller board is a 'piece of cake'. The firmware has been completely redesigned, in the process adding new features and improving software maintainability.
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HDLC bridge modules The following products were specifically designed to interface to tobacco machinery. Due to changing standards several versions were designed over the years. To the PC the convertor appears as an serial port, so the software remains the same, regardless of the used version. The modules are designed and manufactured exclusively for Isatec Ltd UK
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The tested and proven Z182 HDLC engine with USB interface, measuring 80x100mm. Can either be
powered by the USB bus or externally (9-24V). Comes enclosed in 112x30x85mm extruded all-aluminium casing with dye-engraved frontpanel. |
Drop-in replacement for the ISA version with a higher level of integration. Standard size PCI card. | The original design which is obsolete because no ISA systems are being produced anymore. | |
Picasso multimedia development platform of a large Dutch electronics company
Major design contributions by our system architect
Obsolete products
RM/Master
Z80180, 32 I/O, 8x Counters, 2x RS485, 1x RS232, 32K Battery backed up RAM, 32K ROM, 13 ST6 I/Os (including 8 bit ADC), RM Basic
RM7
8 relays, 8 opto-isolated inputs
RM8
4 relays, 8 opto-isolated inputs, 1 D/A channel
RM9
8 opto-isolated counters
Optional units from the RM/Master were:
PC POST code card
Shows POST (Power-On-Self-Test) codes on a two digit 7 segment display aiding in troubleshooting
Antique products
The Spectrum Doctor (1984)
This box tested the famous Sinclair Spectrum, checking the powersupplies, memory and datalines. It was used to
diagnose faulty Spectrums (which were quite common) and to give an indication of cost of repair to customers. This
box was featured in an article in the Belgium magazine HCC.