Saturday, February 28, 2015

Minima - My Coding Efforts Resumes

After a long delay (due to surgery), I am returning my attention to my Minima Controller Alternate Tuning Method coding effort.

My previous (i.e. current) revisions as available on GitHub "radiono_erb" will remain as-is, with little or no further development for now.

I will "Fork" (GitHub speak for clone) my current Minima Controller GitHub Repro and give it a new name, currently the planned name will be "radiono_PNW_Exp". This Fork will initially be used to experiment with some new Minima Controller software and hardware strategies. Later, "radiono_PNW" will be published for general use. Note: PNW denotes Controller coding efforts that some Minima Builders around the "Pacific NorthWest" are considering. See: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pQRP/

Goals

One Goal is to reduce the front panel switch and knob foot print, that is, maybe reduce the number of switches and knobs, but at the same time increase the Controller functionality. Maybe this can be done by optimising the circuit and supporting code. The standard Minimal Volume control could be eliminated with a change of the circuit to add an I2C Quad POT. The Quad POT has four sections; 1) for volume control, the three others could be assigned other tasks, for example: 2) LCD backlight control, 3) LCD Contrast control, 4) and maybe a future Automatic Level or Gain Control (ALC or AGC). Others could be added as required or wanted.

My personal Goal is to reduce my Minima to a small hand-held unit by using very small SMT parts, yet, maintain compatibility with the majority of Builders using their Through-Hole and/or Ugly style of construction. I am a fan of Ugly Style of construction, but for my Minima project small(est) is better.

I plan to maintain circuit and software flexibility to potentially use and include a computer interface, via bluetooth or direct cable connections. Current (readily available) software programs could control and provide a familiar user environment for the Minima.

My overall Goal, which is similar to the main idea of the "Minima", is to; "Use Less Hardware, and Do More with Software".



-- Home Page: https://WA0UWH.blogspot.com

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