Thoughts on backplanes and card cages.
Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:25 am
If one has a sufficiently complicated or sufficiently multipurpose electronic instrumentation system, one will start accumulating multiple pieces of custom electronics.
I am thinking about the possibility of containing these within a backplane and card cage system, with an individual electronic unit on each card. Something a bit similar to what Thomas Rapp did: http://www.rapp-instruments.de/Elektron ... nframe.htm
However, while it looks like Thomas Rapp used a more or less ad-hoc arrangement, my own thoughts were to abuse an STD bus backplane (of which there are a number of on Ebay, and some pretty compact half-rack ones with built in bipolar power supplies). Data exchange would be using RS-485, probably some kind of quasi-Modbus protocol, and there would be an Arduino or other microcontroller on each board.
(I'm thinking grid drivers, RF drivers, electrometers, etc here. As well as some general purpose gauge and controller I/O boards to tie it all into a nice *uniform* modular setup.)
Proto boards with edge connectors are rather expensive, but in this new era of cheap PCB prototyping, it looks like I can just make custom protoboards for less than 10 dollars a board. Unless some CAM hold guy takes a look and goes "WHAT" at all the holes.
I am thinking about the possibility of containing these within a backplane and card cage system, with an individual electronic unit on each card. Something a bit similar to what Thomas Rapp did: http://www.rapp-instruments.de/Elektron ... nframe.htm
However, while it looks like Thomas Rapp used a more or less ad-hoc arrangement, my own thoughts were to abuse an STD bus backplane (of which there are a number of on Ebay, and some pretty compact half-rack ones with built in bipolar power supplies). Data exchange would be using RS-485, probably some kind of quasi-Modbus protocol, and there would be an Arduino or other microcontroller on each board.
(I'm thinking grid drivers, RF drivers, electrometers, etc here. As well as some general purpose gauge and controller I/O boards to tie it all into a nice *uniform* modular setup.)
Proto boards with edge connectors are rather expensive, but in this new era of cheap PCB prototyping, it looks like I can just make custom protoboards for less than 10 dollars a board. Unless some CAM hold guy takes a look and goes "WHAT" at all the holes.