Tuesday, December 6, 2016

X40 board for Clock, Total Fuel, EPU Fuel and Cabin Press Gauges

The X40 board can be assembled with different elements depending on the function of the board to serve as Waltham A-13A clock, Total Fuel indicator and other gauges as EPU Fuel and Cabin Press. The elements needed in each case are the following:

As Waltham A-13A Clock:
-   (1) X40 front connection stepper motor with two concentric needles for hours and minutes needles
-   (1) Pushbutton for stopwatch
-   (1) Encoder for winding


As Total Fuel gauge:
-   (1) X40 front connection stepper motor with two concentric needles for A/L and F/R needles
-   (1) Adafruit Oled display ID938 or (1) Adafruit Oled display ID931 for total fuel indication



As EPU Fuel or Cabin Press gauges
-   (1) X27 front connection stepper motor for one needle

It comes with (1) 16 I/O chip to be connected to the digital I/O I2C channel of the PSCockpit system and its elements (resistors, connectors, …) to work with 5V, 8 SMD leds for panel backlight and, depending on the function, the pushbutton for stopclock and the digital encoder for winding.

Adafruit displays, X40 and X27 stepper motors are NOT included in the supply. Depending on the total orders I will be glad to make a buy group for these elements.

It will have different amount of free I/Os to connect some other elements depending on the function:
-   (5) free I/Os used as clock
-   ( 8 ) free I/Os used as Total Fuel gauge
-   (12) free I/Os used as EPU fuel or Cabin Press gauges

All elements are accessible with pins, so the pcb can be used also for other systems than the PSCockpit system.

You will find the following elements in the backside:
-   (1) Connector for backlight illumination.
-   (1) Connector for free digital I/Os of the 16 I/O chip.
-   (1) Mini-switch to select digital I2C channel address

The following connectors are not accessible with the PSCockpit system but they can be used for other systems:
-   (2) Connectors for the two stepper motors
-   (1) Connector for stopwatch pushbutton

The pcb dimensions are 63mm height x 60mm width and the mounting holes have a distance between them of 44mm.

Be aware that when using the Adafruit displays or the encoder for winding the thickness of the display or encoder will cause to move the panel plate 5mm so the needles may need some sort of spacer to reach the stepper motor. Not a big issue though.


Note for the clock

As the X40 stepper has only two needles, to match the real Waltham A-13A clock, the PSCockpit software will operate the clock as follows:

Stopwatch pushbutton:
-   First press will set the stopwatch mode by setting the minutes’ needle to 12 o’clock. The hours’ needle will remain indicating the time.
-   Second press will start the movement of the minutes’ needle in stopwatch mode
-   Third press will stop the movement of the needles.
-   Fourth press will set the mode to clock again.

Winding encoder:
-   Clockwise: winding, 8 full turns of the encoder will “wind” the clock for 8 days. After 8 days without winding, the clock won’t move. After two days without winding the clock will run slower  :harhar: :harhar: :harhar:
-   Counter-clockwise: time set. The needles will be moved to set the time.

Regards,
Shep

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