The Worlds Smallest Atari 8-Bit?

[djmartins]

Interesting stuff, make me think I need to build a 576NUC+....

I built the memory and IOboards for MiSTer FPGA so these boards don't seem too hard to do at all.

[Panther]

On 7/24/2024 at 9:44 AM, mytek said:

Let me know what you discover, and if you discover something better let me know and I can give it a go over here as well. I'm not opposed to changing the shroud to fit a new fan. But I will have to build myself a new board set, since I'm sending off my one and only today.

I went through my collection of small (<60mm) fans and every single one of them is 12 volt.  I guess I've never had much use of 5 volt fans before.

 

[Panther]

Can a 40mm (x10mm) fan fit?  A Noctua NF-A4x10 5V would go well in this.

 

[+mytek]

8 minutes ago, Panther said:

Can a 40mm (x10mm) fan fit?  A Noctua NF-A4x10 5V would go well in this.

 

Let me mock that up and I'll get back to you shortly

[+mytek]

Noctua didn't provide much in the way of dimensional data, so I grabbed a screenshot and scaled it within a CAD program and came up with this.

 

 

And then created this.

I think this will fly 👍

 

I also like the 1/2 height as compared to the smaller fan, and obviously we'll be seeing a lot more air flow (win-win). It looks like I can add a small hole for the wires to pass thru, but I'll wait until I have one in my hand to verify.

 

Now I just got to get a fan on order

[Panther]

6 hours ago, mytek said:

Noctua didn't provide much in the way of dimensional data, so I grabbed a screenshot and scaled it within a CAD program and came up with this.

Excellent!  It looked like it would be close, but I'm glad it should fit.  It turned out I have a couple of these fans in stock, I just didn't realize they use the same size boxes as the 120mm fans.  The fan opening is right about 37mm, the screw holes are 4.3mm diameter, and they are 4.0mm from the edges (center to outside edges).  The housing diameter is 39.90mm.

 

Also, the cable connects at a section 7.5 - 11.5 mm from the edge.

 

Edited July 26 by Panther
Added additional info.

[+mytek]

2 hours ago, Panther said:

The fan opening is right about 37mm, the screw holes are 4.3mm diameter, and they are 4.0mm from the edges (center to outside edges).

So I pretty much nailed the mounting hole centers (40-8=32). And close enough on the large hole diameter (better slightly bigger than too small). The 2.8 mm screw hole diameter was based upon using a M2.5 screw which has a small enough head to clear anything such as the PCB overlap on one side and the 90 degree edge on the other. When I get the fan (already ordered one) I'll see if I can go bigger without issues, and perhaps increase the screw size since the fan itself can accommodate something bigger.

[Panther]

2 hours ago, mytek said:

So I pretty much nailed the mounting hole centers (40-8=32). And close enough on the large hole diameter (better slightly bigger than too small). The 2.8 mm screw hole diameter was based upon using a M2.5 screw which has a small enough head to clear anything such as the PCB overlap on one side and the 90 degree edge on the other. When I get the fan (already ordered one) I'll see if I can go bigger without issues, and perhaps increase the screw size since the fan itself can accommodate something bigger.

Great!  Normally I use screws that bite into the plastic of the fan instead of using nuts, but that's probably not going to work well for this.  For the large opening, that was just the diameter of the minimum width of the opening, but the opening has rounded edges and for less turbulent airflow a larger opening is better.  That would not only allow for better airflow, but less noise.  Laminar airflow!

 

[+mytek]

8 hours ago, Panther said:

Normally I use screws that bite into the plastic of the fan instead of using nuts, but that's probably not going to work well for this.

Just for reference in case it's possible in this application, what size screws would do so for this fan?

 

8 hours ago, Panther said:

For the large opening, that was just the diameter of the minimum width of the opening, but the opening has rounded edges and for less turbulent airflow a larger opening is better.  That would not only allow for better airflow, but less noise.  Laminar airflow!

Yep that was my feeling as well.

[Panther]

2 hours ago, mytek said:

Just for reference in case it's possible in this application, what size screws would do so for this fan?

They come with fairly standard course fan screws, 5.00mm outside thread diameter.

 

[Marek]

On 7/24/2024 at 1:03 AM, mytek said:

 

 

 

EDIT: I just did a 3D print of the Fan Shroud with Silver graphics and text.

Filaments used: Overture SILK PLA Color = Copper, Bambu Lab PLA Basic Color = Silver

3D Printer: Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D Printer with AMS Lite and stock PEI textured bed plate

 

Isn't PLA too fragile for this job? It will get soft around 50-60C and will start to deform.

Perhaps some more temperature resistant filament would be better? I would use ABS or ASA (even PETG is more resistant).

 

[+mytek]

3 hours ago, Marek said:

Isn't PLA too fragile for this job? It will get soft around 50-60C and will start to deform.

Perhaps some more temperature resistant filament would be better? I would use ABS or ASA (even PETG is more resistant).

Indeed if the Fan Shroud were actually touching the chips it might pose a problem, but there's about 1/2" of clearance with air flowing past it, and that air temperature was within 3°C of the 31°C (88°F) ambient temperature of the room at the time of my test. You're maybe not the first one to think that just because I gave it fins and made it look like a heat sink that it actually was a heat sink (it's not, all cosmetic). So in other words the PLA will rarely if ever see anything much above 40°C (104°F), and more likely it'll stay below 35°C (95°F), well within the heat tolerance for PLA. Personally I don't like my work space to be over 25°C (77°F), and that's where my thermostat for the A/C is set. I only tolerated a higher temperature on the day of the test to see how well the air cooling was working.

 

I'd also prefer to use PLA over those other filaments you mentioned, since it's far more forgiving of moisture or warping that other filaments have issues with.

[Marek]

7 hours ago, mytek said:

Indeed if the Fan Shroud were actually touching the chips it might pose a problem, but there's about 1/2" of clearance with air flowing past it, and that air temperature was within 3°C of the 31°C (88°F) ambient temperature of the room at the time of my test. You're maybe not the first one to think that just because I gave it fins and made it look like a heat sink that it actually was a heat sink (it's not, all cosmetic). So in other words the PLA will rarely if ever see anything much above 40°C (104°F), and more likely it'll stay below 35°C (95°F), well within the heat tolerance for PLA. Personally I don't like my work space to be over 25°C (77°F), and that's where my thermostat for the A/C is set. I only tolerated a higher temperature on the day of the test to see how well the air cooling was working.

 

I'd also prefer to use PLA over those other filaments you mentioned, since it's far more forgiving of moisture or warping that other filaments have issues with.

In this case I fully agree - no need to use anything else.

Regarding other filaments - it helps to have enclosed printer and here I'm a bit spoiled having Voron 2.4 which prints ABS as easy as PLA

Anyway, can't wait to be able to upgrade my NUC+  

[+mytek]

1 hour ago, Marek said:

In this case I fully agree - no need to use anything else.

Regarding other filaments - it helps to have enclosed printer and here I'm a bit spoiled having Voron 2.4 which prints ABS as easy as PLA

Anyway, can't wait to be able to upgrade my NUC+  

Thanks for watching out for me.

 

Never heard of Voron, I'll have to look that up.

[Marek]

10 minutes ago, mytek said:

Thanks for watching out for me.

 

Never heard of Voron, I'll have to look that up.

It’s a very capable and fast printer (there was a controversy that bambulab took some Voron designs making their flagship printers - which they actually confirmed themselves). It’s not an out of the box printer- you have to build it yourself (and in most cases also source yourself, although some manufacturers sell the kits). There are tons of community made upgrades. Look at Www.vorondesign.com and their discord. I have the v2.4 300mm version, but there’s also as mini one (v0.2) with the 120x120mm print bed

Edited July 28 by Marek

[+mytek]

New fan shroud and fan, based upon @Panther's suggestion.  Works great!  And it's whisper quite, with noticeably more air flow.

Noctua NF-A4x10-5V

 

The fan comes with a choice of screws or rubber mounts (I chose the screws). And it comes with adapters, one of which converts it to a standard 0.1" 2-pin header connection, which works well for the 576NUC+. I also moved the /CCTL jumper connection to the underside of the NUCplus4 daughter board so that I didn't need any slots or holes to get it over to the 576NUC+ mother board connection.

 

 

This was a very tight fit, but it worked! Look at the clearance between the FujiNet module and the fan.

 

[Panther]

They built that fan for this!

 

[massiverobot]

On 6/18/2024 at 5:33 PM, mytek said:

This one's for you @Panther

 

 

 

I finally got everything working properly on my prototype, so now it's just a matter of finishing up docs such as the BOM.

 

This diagram has been updated to reflect changes that were required to have a happy system. You can see the "4" different aspects in brown numerals that make up the plus4 system.

 

 

If there is no immediate interest in FujiNet, then that board can be left off or installed down the road when it's needed. Without FujiNet it defaults to the SDrive for SD card storage and retrieval, and still incorporates disk rotate functionality. With the FujiNet board installed, you can switch back and forth between either SDrive or FujiNet via the keyboard function keys F8 and F9. The boot-up will always default to the A8 Pico Cart, but to access the other drives simply type "X" at the Pico menu to exit (booting into the Pico Cart upon power-up is extremely fast).

 

This is going to be released later this Summer of 2024

 

Wow I'm just reading this now. I can't wait to play with the A8Pico.

[Marek]

Can't wait for it to be released! I hope you will share the gerbers like for NUC? Shipping from USA to EU would be too expensive (+customs).

Edited August 21 by Marek

[+mytek]

9 hours ago, Marek said:

Can't wait for it to be released! I hope you will share the gerbers like for NUC? Shipping from USA to EU would be too expensive (+customs).

Yes everything needed to build it and house it will be released

[Marek]

Great! Waiting patiently then

[Panther]

I'm waiting patiently too, for a change, but that's only because I've been traveling.  😁

[+mytek]

This will be a first for me, since I often times leave it up to other people to create documentation after the fact on what I release. But since I stretched out the development time on the NUCplus4 expansion system, I worked on creating a datasheet for it whenever I had a snippet of time available. So here it is.

 

NUCplus4 DataSheet V01B.pdf

 

No guarantee that it won't get revised when the product does release, but at least it'll give a bit more transparency into how this system works and can be applied.

 

The V01B actually refers to the firmware being run on the TK-II chip, which does so much more than just translating a PS/2 keyboard to speak Atarieze. It's at the heart of the control system.

Edited September 1 by mytek
Major update to attached document - added schematics

[Marek]

Forgive me a dumb question

Mentioned NUCplus4's FujiNet board is not the same as the one from NUC+, correct?

Luckily, I have one spare ESP module (ordered 2 for the FujiNet board back then)

[+mytek]

9 hours ago, Marek said:

Forgive me a dumb question

Mentioned NUCplus4's FujiNet board is not the same as the one from NUC+, correct?

Luckily, I have one spare ESP module (ordered 2 for the FujiNet board back then)

That is correct. In fact it's not only considerably smaller, but also has a much better serial interface for firmware updates (FTDI USB-C built-in with auto program circuit). It's also a switch-less design controlled via PS/2 keyboard commands. However it does use the same ESP-32 module as the former version, so you're good to go with the one you have.

 

Keep in mind that this is an entirely new approach to expanding the 576NUC+ system, and does not rely upon or support previous expansion boards.

 

EDIT: There's some more info about this on my blog. Keep in mind that the design was evolving so there are multiple changes that occurred while I was blogging about it.