HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

I have managed to source out a very small 4 way button directional button that will take up much less space than the 3 buttons required for the HXC. I was just curious, does anyone know if there is a smaller 16 x 2 LCD or OLED, Hitachi format display that could be used so it would fit into a standard 3.5" floppy bay? Ideally, if it was narrower, it could allow the SD slot to have room at the bottom of the faceplate. I've done some scouting online and at a few electronics supply sources in Toronto but, have not come across anything yet. For now, I have created wire harnesses for the display and buttons and I plan on mounting it into a small thin project box that I will velcro to the faceplate of my older samplers. I would prefer not to have to modify my sampler's case to add the HXC2001's as they are in good shape and fairly vintage. Any suggestions?

Well, after doing some more digging, I realized that this topic has already been touched on. Any updates on this Jeff? My friend has found some very small OLED displays however, I'm not sure if they will work:

http://www.sourceresearch.com/shelly/PL ... odules.cfm

Some examples of displays that would seem to be possible to make fit within the space of a 3.5" floppy drive face plate:

25.2mm tall:
http://www.raystar-optronics.com/produc ... n&ProID=26

23.3mm tall:
http://www.powertipusa.com/pdf/pc1602e.pdf
http://www.eeurd.com/content/documents/lcd/WH1602V.pdf

20.0mm tall:
http://www.relaytronics.com/ripl/pdf/Po ... 16211A.pdf
http://www.lcduk.com/Theale%20Mini%20LCD%20Modules.pdf
http://www.data-modul.com/eu/products/p ... cid/2.html


So it would seem there are some options.

Of course, to best fit everything into the space of a 3.5" floppy drive, it might be interesting to locate the SD card slot more towards one of the sides, possibly even vertically, rather than horizontally in the middle.

// Christian Brunschen

I believe the EMC issue is the main problem with migrating the board to a new location (if the slot was made to be vertical that is). I am sure Jeff could expand upon that. Shifting it to the left or right and keeping it horizontal might work (placing the buttons above the slot and the LCD beside the slot and buttons) but, it would probably require a new board design. However, I feel quite confident in saying that if Lotharek was able to make this design change to allow it to fit into a 3.5" floppy bay, the sales of these devices would increase exponentially. Bottom line is, it might not be easy to do but, may be worth the effort.

Don't dream too much: the global price will be higher. so the sale will not increase so much...

How much more would you guesstimate? I personally know about 6 other people who said they would buy one if it was a standard size.

Really ? even at 150 euros ?

Well... I would pay that price over hacking up a vintage synthesizer. Yes.

to be honest there are something on the road. but i cannot tell what exactly for the moment .

The minimal thing necessary shouldn't actually be too tricky or expensive to do.

Really, there are two issues with the current emulator available for sale:
1) it includes a display that's too big to fit in a 3.5" drive bay
2) the placement of the SD card slot in the middle of the circuit board means that even if I bought a smaller display myself and put it to one side within a faceplate, the display will block easy access to the SD card slot, or even block access completely.

Consider if an alternative circuit board layout is made that simply moves the SD card to the right-hand-side (and with the SD card slot possibly 'sticking out' a bit, to accomodate the fact that it might be placed behind a display that has a few millimeters of thickness) , but without either display or buttons mounted included & mounted, just the front-panel connector available.

With this arrangement, I could buy a small-form-factor display mysel, and buttons, and mount things in a floppy drive bay without having to make any physical alterations to the case where things are mounted. And I wouldn't end up with a larger display that I had no particular use for, either.

Pre-made front panels could even be sold separately or together with the emulator - with a small-size display and three buttons for a 3.5" drive opening, and with a larger-size front panel with a standard-size display & three buttons that might fit a 5.25" drive opening.

(Alternatively, instead of moving the SD card slot, might it be possible to keep the current circuit board layout, but instead of mounting the SD card slot on the board, connect one via a flat cable or similar and allow it to be positioned separately - similarly to how the front panel can be positioned? Certainly, it seems possible to buy SD card extension cables so this might be possible.)

Best wishes,

// Christian

The problem and the expensive part is the box with this production size (=<10000).

Why would there need to be a box? In this scenario, the whole point is to mount the emulator inside an existing drive bay; the only outside-facing thing would be the front face, with display, SD card slot and buttons, surely?

For comparison, the AztecMonster is a SCSI CF card adapter, intended to replace internal SCSI hard drives with CF cards; it comes as a circuit board with mounting screws and cubic nuts, with mounting holes suitable for mounting in a standard 3.5" drive bay:

http://www.artmix.com/CF_AztecMonster.html (English Translation)

http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=17047

Best wishes,

// Christian

In this case you can already mount the actual version as you suggest. hxc holes are suitable for mounting in a standard 3.5" drive bay.



Yes but how do you attach them to the computer/keyboard?

The current circuit board may be able to be mounted in a 3.5" bay, but that doesn't solve the problem of the display. SPecifically, it still leaves the SD card slot in the centre, where it would be obscured or difficult to get at, if the face contained a display. If instead the SD card were off to one side, then there would be no such conflict in spacing; or indeed if the SD card slot was not mounted to the circuit board but was instead on the end of a suitable cable.

In such an arrangement, a face place containing a small (53x20mm) display and the three buttons could be attached in a 'T' fashion to the circuit board (with circuit board the 'stem' of the T, and the face place the 'crossbar' at the top) – electronically connected to the emulator through the faceplate connector that is already available.

As I've said before, all this really requires is the availability of a version of the emulator with the SD card slot off to one side and extended a bit forward to accomodate the thickness of such a face plate, or connected via a cable and thus possible to place arbitrarily; and with the display & buttons available as a separate purchase – so, *not* included with the emulator itself.

This means that a purchaser would still have to assemble things a bit, but there's still a huge difference between assembly as in this proposed case, and cutting or other destruction as currently necessary.

Best wishes,

// Christian

So you still need to manufacture / make a special mechanical part for the front panel.
As i said this is not free and will cost at least 20/30 euros.

About the lcd, the small lcd are generally more expensive than the standard one and we need to change the connection (we need to add a flex connector to the board).

About the SD card extension cables this is a bad idea (signal integrity problems + EMC)