Seems to me that some enterprising engineer could produce the necessary
circuits. Maybe someone with the right experience and a love of OMs will
do so, just as a "spare time" project at some point. I would think that
any new circuit wouldn't have to be a direct replacement in terms of
exact duplication of chips, layout and size--only in terms of function
and ability to provide connection to the necessary inputs and outputs.
Given the time elapsed since the circuitry was originally designed, I'd
think it could probably be simpler to produce now and perhaps even
smaller and more reliable.
---
Scott Gomez
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Boland [mailto:mattboland@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Subject: [OM] Re: OM4 strange electronic buzzing sound
I guess I like photography AND engineering. I was just thinking that we
could do better than USD$250.00 for an OM4Ti circuit. And I would get to
make the shadow and hi-light buttons into -1/3,+1/3 stop buttons.
W Shumaker wrote:
> I mentioned that possibility a couple of years ago. But who has
> really got the time to spend on it when that time could be spent
> making photographs.
> Wayne
>
> At 08:44 AM 7/15/2004, you wrote:
>
>>Is there enough demand to develop our own replacement circuits? I
don't
>>know how much the circuits changed over the years and whether or not
>>they use the same chips as the originals, but USD$250 sounds extreme.
I
>>currently am working on a 32bit CPU board running linux, 32M of RAM
and
>>Flash, and they will cost roughly USD$120 to manufacture. Texas
>>Instruments make a nice little chip called the MSP430 which comes in
>>many variants and is designed for ultra low power applications.
>>Something like that could incorporate most of the functionality in
>>software. I reckon a USD$40.00 part could be met. Of course, FCC and
CE
>>EMC compliance would need to be addressed, so maybe the cost of
testing
>>to those standards outweighs the development effort.
>
> The material cost is not the issue when you figure in time and effort.
Matt Boland (BEng) Phone : 61 7 5594 9824
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