olopede

The past two months have been filled with revisions, revisions, and more revisions!

We did a second run of prototypes three weeks ago - bringing oloduino v2, turing machine v2, siggen v2, and the uPOV to the real world. Major changes made can be found in the repositories on github, but some noticeable modifications include sweet ground planes, mitered traces, and silkscreens all around.

OLODUINO

• Is now easier to break apart! We've added drills that provide a nice, perforated edge to break on while maintaining structural integrity for those of you that don't want your projects to fall apart.
  
• We made oloduino smaller and easier to assemble, reducing overall cost and assembly time.
• Fixed the memory space problem on USBER (oloduino's programmer module).
• Added a 6-pin ISP header to USBER so that you can use USBER for both ISP and a USB-serial bridge.

TURING MACHINE

• Turing Tape is complete!
• The machine now has twice as many 7-segment displays as it did before!
• We added a rotary encoder in place of the potentiometer to make it easy to navigate long tapes.
• Developed interface code and sample FSM's (finite state machines).
• We're thinking about adding the option of optical programming (no cables). This means you'll hold your turing machine up to the monitor and a programming area will flash, an optical sensor on turing machine will pick up the flashes, and store the equivalent code in program memory.

FUNGEN

• Modified VCO to use BJT current sinks to decrease cost and increase bandwidth.
• Has seven outputs, including:
  • Square/PWM
  • Saw/Ramp
  • Triangle/Variable Slope Triangle
  • Sine
• Added selection between single or dual power supply.

AMPLIFLIER

• We decided a pre-amp would be needed for signal-level amplification, and we'll provide an optional 20KHz filter if you're interested in using this for audio applications
• We're going with a Class-D totem pole for the power amplifier. This topology gives you the freedom of a variable supply for your output stage (motor, solenoid, speakers, buck converter, etc.) and should be able to provide at least 30 Watts of pure power.

MICROPOV

We've finalized the design for this tiny guy, and are planning to ship them soon! Our last batch of prototypes had one error - we connected the battery backwards! So, we're going to order a whole new batch this week, and hopefully we'll get to ship them to you by the end of the month!

We don't have and image gallery yet, so I'm going to post lots of pictures later today! (after we whip up an image gallery app.)

Stay tuned!