The September and October 2008 issues of Circuit Cellar magazine feature a two part article I wrote. The device is a Z8 Encore! based remote control I designed and built for an audio animatronic system. One of the hallmarks of the system is that the menuing code is completely dynamic. It allows my programs on the PC to "publish" GUI controls such as checkboxes, scrollbars, etc which the remote can then "subscribe" to and control. The remote becomes an extension of the GUI controls on the PC program and any changes made on the remote are reflected on the PC program in realtime.

The March and April 2009 issues of Circuit Cellar contain another two part article using a Z8 encore! part. This time I designed and built a 6 port RS-485 hub. For those familiar with RS-485, the idea of a hub makes no sense. However, there are very sound reasons for needing an RS-485 hub for my particular application. The article explains the details.

Since it seems you can only have a single photo in a post, I will follow this with two more posts for two more photos. This photo is the remote. The display is a color LCD. I created a serial backpack for it (also with a Z8 Encore! part) which simplified the code on the main board of the remote.



Thanks,
PeterM

This is an exterior shot of the hub:

This shows the inside of the hub. I have pulled my circuit board away from the enclosure. The board still in the enclosure is an off the shelf power supply from a company called Meanwell.