can supply the following up to date PC to Display Panel Interfaces:
The power supply below is longer available.
However Robert Coward's Data Sheet:
Display Release 29-09-06.zip [1.42 MBytes] provides alternate types you can use, plus information about the whole display panel and interface system.
See an extract from a Robert Coward E-mail at the bottom of this page for futher details of system.
Also, there were actually two power supplies, if you remember; your
picture shows the logic PSU, but there is also the whopping big 8V PSU
that came with the original system.
I don't think Distel bought any PSUs from Greenweld, because there
were none left. The original system consisted of 15 panel units, with
one logic PSU and two 8V PSUs each. There were 60 systems in total,
meaning 120 8V PSUs, 60 logic PSUs and 900 display panels. Therefore,
as people have been building small systems with up to 3 panels, you
can imagine that the PSUs will run out much faster than the panels."
"Regarding the Power Supplies, I haven't got a definitive list, but I
have clearly specified the requirements in the documentation. I don't
think this will be a problem, as this project is aimed at more
experienced constructors, anyway. Also, I don't want to prescribe a
specific PSU, as I would then have to prove that the system works with
it - something I don't want to do at present.
An extract from a Robert Coward E-Mail about his new improved PC to Panel Control System:
"Therefore, I have had a number of QUICC-IDM (QEDD9008 Universal Interface and Control Circuit - Intelligent Display Manager) control boards manufactured, so that I am in a position to supply them if people wish to build a complete system. This board is a more advanced version of the QUICC board you already have, and provides power management and configuration/control/status reporting facilities. However, it does not store message data, and is still just an interface board to a PC. In 1998, only the PIC16C84 was available as a flash device, so I had to design a software UART (Universal Asyncronous Receiver/Transmitter) into it, using one timer, one interrupt and just 36 bytes of memory! This was quite a challenge at the time, but would be trivial these days with a PIC16F876 or PIC18F252 (and you could easily add display message memory as well).
I have also updated my supplied documentation to reflect the current situation; however, I don't plan to do any more development work on the system, given its age...
I would plan to make the QDSL software and EDF hex image available for free, together with all the relevant documentation. I do not plan to make WinDSL available, as it is somewhat decrepit, and does not work with EDF. Also note that I am not in a position to supply display panels, power supplies or any other parts for the system (though I may throw in a few free components with the QUICC-IDM board)...
I am more interested in helping people use the system than making a serious amount of money out of it. Also, the £49 price tag for each panel from Display Electronics will probably be a big stumbling block for many people (meaning a complete 3 panel system and control board will be heading for £200 before you even consider power supplies, etc)...
One of my other customers still does use the system for sports scoreboards, as demonstrated by the following links:
http://www.mikrotime.co.uk/rowing/row2003/tiff03p6.html
http://www.mikrotime.com/mtb/ast2004/ast0405p1.html
http://www.mikrotime.com/wwslalom/dysl00p5x.html Microtime Sports Display.