The HotSpot Adapter (HSA)
P R E L I M
I N A R Y
As the name would suggest, the HSA indeed is a
combination of the products so far. The best features from the
famous Mini-HotSpot (MHS) revision B were combined with some of
the features of the also-famous Node Adapter to create a new
board with all the features combined.
Designed to fit in a nice, small enclosure (which is
included in the kit) the new board tries to pack as much functionality
as possible in the little package.
Although the enclosure is shown as a regular square
type, it is also available in a somewhat more oval-styled version for
those who prefer that.
For communications, connectors are provided for the D-SUB9
radio port, a 2.5mm "stereo jack" for the serial port (many
GPS and USB/serial cables use this pinout) and a Mini-B style
connector for USB.
A pre-made Radio Cable is
also available, this cable will connect the board to most modern
transceivers that feature a PS/2-style ("MiniDIN-6") port labelled
"data", "packet" or "tnc".
For status, the board comes with the (OK, agreed,
maybe a little TOO bright at times) blue power LED, a green
COS/RX LED, a red TX/ERROR LED, and three yellow LEDs
to indicate relative signal quality of the signal being received by the
radio. In addition to these, two LEDs are provided for user status (see
below.)
To allow for several interesting extras (see below),
we did change the microprocessor to its larger brother, the PIC8F4550
from Microchip. Although almost the same as its little brother used so
far, this one features many more programmable I/O pins, which can be
used by the various option modules that can be used with the board.
Option modules?
Yes! Rather than fixing everything on a
single PCB, we decided that many amateurs would enjoy being able to play
with it. As such, the HSA can be considered a "main board" with all the
basic hardware, and in that state, it will act like a normal
Mini-Hotspot / Node Adapter system as you'd expect it to. This
basic board will work with DVAR Hotspot, OpenG2, NI-STAR, and so on
without changes to the software.
All the extra features can be implemented on two
"series" of option modules which can be plugged in to one or more of the
five (!) expansion connectors. Two sets of mounting holes are
provided for extra support of these modules, as well.
At this time, the following modules have been taken
into consideration:
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DV Adapter (DVA) |
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The first module that was considered, and
which was the reason why this project came along. This
module adds analog audio capabilities to your system, and,
as such, it can be used as a standalone DV Adapter
(plug in a speaker, a microphone, and you're on the air !)
or it can be used as an analog/digital gateway
system, or as a source for a web stream, or...
think about it!
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| User Option Board (OPTION) |
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Although first designed as "just" an LCD
add-on board, it was decided that users would have a lot
more fun with a general "breakout" type of board that could
be used to hook up home-brew extensions to the system.
So, this board features two I/O
connectors that can be used to connect it to a
breadboard, your own PCB, and so on. Function names
are printed next to the pins for easy (and safe) testing.
The board also features an
HD44780-compatible LCD connector, an I2C real-time
clock (backup battery is mounted on the bottom side), an
I2C local/remote temperature sensor/thermostat, as
well as an I2C-based GPIO/LED extender, which LEDs
and I/O pins. |
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| Integrated Analog Repeater (RPTR) |
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[picture not available yet] |
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This little board adds the circuitry to
implement a 'regular' analog repeater function to the
system. It includes the audio amplifiers/limiters, the audio
switch, a CTCSS/SELCALL/DCS tone code processor, and so on.
Combined with the SoftCOS feature in our firmware, it
creates a very small, dual-mode repeater system!
It also features the LCD and RTC circuitry found on the
Option Board module, so you can monitor the system at a
glance.
This board can co-exist with the DVA
module, allowing for an analog signal monitor as well! |
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| RF Access Point (TRX) |
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[picture not available yet] |
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Requested by many, this board implements
a miniature RF transceiver using the SA58646 chip from NXP.
As this board can co-exist with the DVA
board, we might be able to implement some very interesting
features in the firmware! |
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Since the design implements a full SPI bus as well as
an I2C bus, the possibilities for adding your own extensions are almost
endless. One of our beta testers is already having fun with
designing his environment status/control system, including sensors for
temperature, humidity, system voltages, and so on, and the option to
send an SMS Alert to a mobile phone if something does't look right!
Availability
Right now, the first batch of test boards has been
received and forwarded to the test users, who so far are having fun with
them. The boards work as expected, and only minor changes have been done,
mostly cosmetic ones.
The firmware so far has proven to be as rock-solid as
its "NODE" platform counterpart (which is the same source code, just
compiled for a different platform) and we expect to be able to order the
first production run sometime in late October.
UPDATE: testing for the HSA itself and
the Option Board have been completed; the final design for these boards
will be sent off for production during the second week of November !
If you feel like this is for you,
contact us for more information!