EEVblog #979 - Mailbag

Mailbag is back!

SPOILERS:
Protean 8x2 MOSFET driver Proto Board
Fujitsu Lifebook Stylistic 500 Tablet PC Teardown
HP 48G Graphing Calculator
RoboMaid RM-770 Robot Vacuum Cleaner
RatherBoard Industrial Raspberry Pi Controller
Old Philips Databook

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[ratherboard]

Dear Dave,

thank You very-very much for the review, and for the suggestions. Yes, USB and ethernet cables may be connected through cable glands.

I (Gergely) am happy with the pronounciation, it was really good! :)

Best regards,
Gergely

[mikeselectricstuff]

That Ratherboard has to be an off-the-shelf case or something made for an existing product - can't see how it could be viable to custom mould

[DanielSallros]

Here is the link to the TE rugged automotive enclosure that was used to house the Rather Board:

[caddyguy]

That rather board case is freaking nice.

[Teth]

Those automotive connectors are called Deutz connectors IIRC. They're very nice to work with, but stupidly expensive, like $50 per connector and a buck per pin.

[flymypg]

That was me! I made the comment about the bagless mailbag segment.

[ChipGuy]

The Rasberry Pi rugged box looks pretty much like that standard ruggedized boxes available from Tyco Electronics. They were made by a company called "Deutsch Connectors" and later acquired by Tyco AFAIK. No custom mold necessary :)

[faeranne]

They likely use the usb port because the pi has built-in protection when you use the usb port, while the 5v pin on the header is connected directly to the cpu and there are no pins connected to the 5v regulator.

[adamlhumphreys]

Late or not, I still very much appreciate your time to feature and take a brief look at my Protean board! I’m certainly going to try my luck again and hopefully come up with some improvements and possible changes. :D

[voltlog]

*mailbag video even more awesome when you show an actual mailbag*

[andrewbaker]

The Stylistic 500 was my first home automation panel. I got a lot of them on ebay for a song. I built a special frame that provided power and serial from the attic. I replaced the HDD with a 8MB flash card running a minimal gentoo linux with basic pen services. Could control all kinds of things with it. Was a fun project. This was probably 2001/2002.

[BMRStudio]

Big big big thumbs up for the Hungarian project! Absolutely hungarian rigid quality! When hungarians do something, is done like a tank :)

[patim]

After I graduated in 1987, I worked a few weeks for the Dutch royal phone company (PTT). We checked the photographs against a query list from the mainframe. Then the modified/checked list went back to where they came from. They made the changes and the new list plus pictures came back to us and we checked everything again. I told the manager it is more easy to only make a list of the changes. The answer was "you are payed to work, not to think" :-(

[cdsmith]

"Red. Brown. This disturbs me greatly." - Best line in the video, even though I haven't finished watching yet. :)

[rich]

DHL is good in australia? When I use them, it looks like my packages were dropped from a plane, dragged for 5 miles, pissed on, then drop kicked at my door.

[audiocrush]

ratherboard...
you should add a new revision where you can screw the boards down right next to the header connectors... that doesn't seem that vibration proof
could be a killer feature for most people who need such a case

[SparkyLabs]

The first item uses Deutsch connectors made by TE, they are the DT series. Coincidentally that box was originally designed for GPS modules on lorries trailers, it is so big so that it can house a battery, when the haulage cpmapny forget where they left a trailer they can look it up. I would guess originally they did not need 48 pins as the box comes in 1, 2, 3 & 4 socket versions, all plugs with different keys.

[douro]

The processor architecture on the 48G is interesting in itself; it has 64-bit registers and a 20-bit address width but only a 4-bit interface. It has numerous arithmetic registers including a BCD exponent register which can store values up to 499.

[boggisthecat]

I still use my HP 48GX at work. Very fast for quick conversions and such. Nice tactile feedback making keying accurate.

[Renatodonadio]

16:20 That should be a "virtual barrier", if you have a large room, you can tell the robot to clean only one side of the room, or it can be used to avoid that the robot falls off stairs