Current Prototype Work (aka hacking)

From CSL Wiki

Working on box 108 to attempt and implement some of the 2.0 ideas.

Contents 1 Box Power 2 Sensor Head Power 3 Sensor Head 4 Hardening 4.1 Box 4.2 Sensor Head 5 Niceties

Box Power

The idea is to power from Li+ batteries which are easily removed and charged outside the box (individually since we had "issues" charging them in parallel)

Mounting (via velcro?) batteries to the inside of the lid or on top of the metal panel seems a good idea accessability wise.

• Removed the charge plug and switch
• Attached connectors (female cylindrical OD 5.5mm?, common in other projects) to several batteries and one of the smart chargers
• Attached a wire directly to "batt" switch terminals which ends in 3 male cylindrical connector

Sensor Head Power

• Created temporary adaptor wire from the 5V power output inside the box to a "9V battery" connector
• Testing Results :
  • Seems to work fine if box is powered from batteries
  • Lots of extra noise (buzz) when box is powered from cheap wall-AC to 12VCD adaptor
  • -- Since deployment is battery powered, this is ok with me...
  • -- We should probably get cleaner wall-AC to 12VDC adaptors (off the shelf)

Sensor Head

Nothing yet.

Plan (for now) is to rearrange assembly so that speaker are sandwitched between the top and bottom lexan plate, creating a space (which we can more or less seal) for wires and non-hardened connectors (RJ45 from the actual mics).

Still debating wether a tetrahedral arrangement is worth the bother.

Hardening

The system needs to be resistant to dust, dirt, and significant amounts of moisture (at least light rain). It also needs to travel well and be able to take some physical knocking-around.

Plan is to replace all the cables between the sensor head and the box with a single cable w/ hardended connectors. Bulgin's Standard Buccaneer (25pin) [1] look like a fine choice. 25 pins is overkill, but at least 12 are needed and I would like to have grounds plus some expandability.

Update: 25 pin is hard to get ahold of... will probably use 12 pin connectors (maybe 400 series).

Box

Planning on modifing the metal plate in the box to hold other connectors (serial, network, 12VDC adaptor input) and remove them from the outside of the box.

All plugs in the outside of the box need to come out of the same side of the box. A nice position would be in the recessed area around the "pressure vent" in the handle area.

The slauson needs to be rotated 90' (and moved more central) so wires comming off of it can be fixed to the underside of the plate and not be so cramped.

Need to clean up the wires (shorten and affix where possible).

Sensor Head

Need to put all the wires and non-rugged connectors inside a closed area.

Niceties

Plans:

• Add LEDs (should be "clear" not "diffused" to make them more visable in sunlight)
  • Locate on edge of lid (handle area)
  • 8 LEDs (4 on each side of ridge on box)
    • Power LED (power connected and switched "on"
    • Batt Low LED or some other Batt status LED
      • A potential circut to base it off of [2]
    • Amplifier on LED (just wire from the LED on the amp board which is 2V ~10mA)
    •  ?
    • "Booted" GPIO switched LED
    • "Recording" GPIO switched LED
    •  ? GPIO siwtched LED
    •  ? GPIO siwtched LED
  • Need to decide on colors