NMEA multiplexer

In my defence all I can say is that I'm not a hardware engineer - just a software engineer. At that I seem to have fallen off the back of the gravy train - never really got into windows and graphics, was always much more interested in the stuff doing the work. Probably couldn't make a living doing that now /forums/images/icons/frown.gif, so will stick to what I laughably call work from Monday to Friday, still, it pays every month which keeps the boat afloat /forums/images/icons/smile.gif.

I do understand that for a commercial product there are endless hoops to be cleared - each has a cost which can ultimately only be recovered from the sale of the final product. I just know that I'm going to need one of these soon and at £200 for one it is the same price as a cheap DSC radio, so its hard to justify. In my case it would need to sell for something less than £100, as I believe I can "get around" needing one of these if I use a pair of NMEA interface boxes on my instruments - just a quirk of how the instrumentation works (or so I'm told).

Jeff.
 
Knew that would come back to bite me -- just remember looking at prices for chips (the silcon kind) and noting that a complete computer on a chip (albeit rather tiny) was a couple of quid. Add some serial line drivers then you're not talking a large sum of money over the counter at your nearest RS shop. But buying the bits is easy, working out how to wire it all together is the clever bit - something I have only a passing understanding of.

Ah well, best shuffle off and see how big that hole in my foot is....

Jeff.

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"... buying the bits is easy, working out how to wire it all together is the clever bit - something I have only a passing understanding of."

Not to worry. At times I wear a hardware hat, at other times, a software hat.

... When wearing my hardware hat, one thing that is often said is.... "After all,
it's only software...." (TM)

Alan

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I agree it's expensive for what it does.

I could make a PIC available (pre-programmed) to handle NMEA multiplexing together with a circuit diagram, but it would mean building the electronics yourself and I wouldn't want to be swamped by requests for help.

Even so it's likely to cost not much less than £50 for a kit of parts plus the time needed to assemble it all. If there's sufficient interest I'll consider this.

Regards
Tom

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Tome, If you make the PIC avaialble - or pass me the details (and the software - although I guess you may want to keep this bit secret!) I can sort out the I/O bits and bobs. I could sketch up a circuit diagram and a stripboard layout and provide a PDF file with all the details which I could post on a website somewhere. Most people probably know someone who is competent enough to solder all the bits together.

alex

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Would certainly be interested in a circuit diagram and pre-programmed PIC or binary for your NMEA mux if made available. Would not expect any problems in construction requiring support.

Look forward to seeing how this evolves.

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I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested - but understand that this is the proverbial can of worms to somebody in your position.

Regards, Jeff.

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I'll give this some further thought, I see there are 3 interested parties.

Since I haven't yet ported the code to a PIC this is the main inertia to me, and I can't release code as it's part of a protected project. I could get around this on a PIC by fuse-burning the machine code.

Nothing much will happen this side of New Year, but maybe for next season?

Tom

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