The Arrival of the Futurlec PCI8255

By friday 29th 2006, the much awaited PCI8255 Futurlec Interface Board finally reached its destination, the Haewaytian Cakehouse factory. Indeed the reason its taking some time to arrive here is simply because the mail order has been diverted through Thailand from Australia before being shipping here. The reason is, Thailand is the SEA dealer for Futurlec.
Anyway since the interface board is here already, then the job can be carried out soon after the year break. One good thing about Futurlec device is that order come complete with the CDROM that contains manuals as well as datasheet. What is more, they also give some samples codes in various programming languages such as Delphi, VB, C and many more. Next they also provide the test program to make sure the supplied interfaced board can run once we received it. This is very good service and I would like to recommend it to everyone who are thinking of buying electronics components. Except for delivery time I guess its suppose to be a good bargain for internet purchase.

The Inter-Conveyors Mooncake Transfer Project

We have a discussion regarding what else can we do with 8255 i/o card. So we come out with this one. Actually this one had been thought quite sometime already, it just now we think it can be visualized. This is a conveyor mooncake transfer project. In this project, the objectives is to transfer the mooncakes from one movinng conveyor at 90' to another moving packaging conveyor. The basics of the design of the first stage must includes the below statements:
1- The mooncakes must be safely transfered from one conveyor to another without any changes in quality.
2- The process must run automatically with minimum electronics gadgets and no manpower required to operate it.
3- The design must be as small as possible due to space constraint.
4- The slider material must be made from non ferous and food grade such as aluminum or stainless steel.

The design of the first stae must be completed by end of next week, which is before another year end holiday.

About the 8255 today I checked with Futurlec and get this information.
Based on this, we might get the card around this week.

The quest for old PC with ISA slot

While waiting for the new PCI 8255 interface board to reached Malaysia, we are still not finished yet with the old ISA 8255 Interface Board. Indeed, one of the possible reason why it is unable to read input data could be due to the faulty PC ISA slot itself.
In fact, it happened once three years ago where one of those 3 slots failed to communicate with the software. Once I moved the card into another slot, then its working fine.
However, for current case I had tried all of those 3 slots. Unfortunately, it still failed to read, but only only managed to write. Eventhough I believed that the most probable reason is the card itself is faulty due to mouse urine that causing the short circuit, since we have quite an ample time now, we just do it. Who knows if the lady luck is on our side?
After searching for old PC with ISA slot, out of a few PCs in the store, we found only one is available. The rest only got PCI slots and AGP slots. We assembled it and power it on. The power supply is OK and managed to turn ON the monitor as well. Unfortunately, the motherboard FAILED to turn ON. This means that for the time being we cannot test the card with other PC with ISA slots available. Until we found the new PC for further testing, then we can conclude the card is faulty.

The new 8255 PCI Purchase Order

Today we order a new PCI 8255 Interface Board from www.futurlec.com. This is how the board looks like.

PCI Bus Interface Card - New Version
PCI Bus Interface card with 72 I/O points. Ideal for computer control of machinery, homes and offices. Easy to interface to and programs can be written in Visual Basic, Visual C and Delphi. Works with Windows 95, 98, Me, XP and NT. Standard Shrouded Male Headers included on the board, for fitting of IDCC Connectors. Schematics, Sample Code and Instructions included.

Features
• Mounts to a standard PCI Bus
• 72 I/O Points
• Adjustable Address
• Works with Windows 95, 98, XP and NT
• Ideal for home control system

This PCI board costing USD 64.90 plus USD 12.00 for S&H from Canada to Malaysia. It should be arriving in Malaysia within one to two weeks time.

Meanwhile while waitig for this board to reached Malaysia I would start the other project which is to design a mechanical slider connecting from one conveyor to another. The objective is to ensure that the items running on conveyor one at 90 degrees angle could land safely, precisely and coherently with conveyor two. This is meaning that the object on conveyor one could be transfered to conveyor two at 90 degree angle just using this transfer device. As for prototype I would use aluminum and hardwires with some pneumatic. Perhaps later on I will add limit swithes or sensor for automation.