Closed PCB Design Help Request

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lyonadmiral

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I'm looking to solicit the work of a designer or engineer who can help me design and get to fabrication a replica IBM Expansion Unit Extender Card. There is a group of people who would buy them (mostly on the vintage-computer.com forum).

I understand these sort of tasks are not quick and/or cheap and I'm willing to deal with that if you are.

Thanks,
Daniel
 
@lyonadmiral

Hello there, if you have schematics, I am sure I can help =)

If its a community project that will benefit a lot of people I don't mind giving my time for free.
 
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@Bryce, I believe I have posted what you've asked for in an answer to Zetr0, pending moderators approval of course.
 
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@lyonadmiral

Hello there, if you have schematics, I am sure I can help =)

If its a community project that will benefit a lot of people I don't mind giving my time for free.

This should be what you are looking for:
* An eBay sourced photo of the extender card is at [here].
* The circuit diagram of the card is on pages 18 to 20 (PDF pages 22 to 24) of the document at [here].
* Card dimensions are per page 1-35 (PDF page 54) of the document at [here]. The extender card will be shorter than that shown, per note 2 on the referenced page.
 
@lyonadmiral

Sadly as a new user, to stop spam bots the post with the links was sent to the moderation que as at the time you didn't have enough posts.

To be honest, that doesn't seem overly difficult, but I do have a question -

Q: Would you want this in SMD packages (cheaper) or would you prefer DIL (allows for kits built at home)?



@Bryce

If this project is in your wheelhouse then please by all means crack on =)

If not then I would be happy to help where I can.
 
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@Zetr0
The people over at VCF who are dying for this would prefer completed cards but beggars cannot be choosers so anyway is better than no way.
There is a gentlemen over at VCF by the name of Sergey (that's his handle) who also can contribute and I'm trying to connect all the people together.
Also, do you think this would be something that would be appropriate for a Kickstarter?
 
@lyonadmiral

Once a PCB has been developed from the schematic, it would then need to be tested in operation. Once you have the results of that, you can adjust the design accordingly and then mass produce.

How many units do you think would be wanted?
 
@lyonadmiral

Once a PCB has been developed from the schematic, it would then need to be tested in operation. Once you have the results of that, you can adjust the design accordingly and then mass produce.

How many units do you think would be wanted?

10 max.

Edit: Although if there is a minimum, I guess since we want/need this functionality bad enough we'd have to go for it.
 
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I can highly recommend Bryce. He is a genius and provides customer service that puts Rolls Royce and American Express to shame. :)
 
I can highly recommend Bryce. He is a genius and provides customer service that puts Rolls Royce and American Express to shame. :)
\

@Peter
That is one very good recommendation.

@Zetr0 & Bryce
If there is anything you need/want please bring it to my attention and I look forward to working with everyone on this project.
 
That's quite a big card / big project and the end product wouldn't be cheap. Are they really that hard to find?

Bryce.

Edit:
I just had a chance to properly look at the schematics. The components wouldn't cost very much, although some are difficult to get these days (the 7417 is no longer produced and the resistor networks would need to be improvised). The big cost is going to be the PCB because it's massive. There are several solutions to reducing this: (A) improve the layout (B) use SMD parts where possible (C) Replace most of the logic with a CPLD.
(A) will only slightly improve the situation (B) improves the situation more and isn't too much work (C) would involve a lot of work and extensive testing to get it right.
 
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That's quite a big card / big project and the end product wouldn't be cheap. Are they really that hard to find?

Bryce.

Edit:
I just had a chance to properly look at the schematics. The components wouldn't cost very much, although some are difficult to get these days (the 7417 is no longer produced and the resistor networks would need to be improvised). The big cost is going to be the PCB because it's massive. There are several solutions to reducing this: (A) improve the layout (B) use SMD parts where possible (C) Replace most of the logic with a CPLD.
(A) will only slightly improve the situation (B) improves the situation more and isn't too much work (C) would involve a lot of work and extensive testing to get it right.

@Bryce
They are that hard to find, almost impossible. We've even taken to start looking at IBM PC's and XT's on eBay just to see if one might be installed and the seller is unaware of it. There are a few people over on VCF that have two cards, one in production the other one as a spare, and when it comes to letting go of those spares they treat them like guns. You can have it when you pry it from their cold dead hands. So what do you think is the best approach? Use SMD parts where possible?
 
I've made a parts list from the schematics, but I'd need to check each part individually to see if SMD is available. I pretty sure some parts (such as the 7417) never made it to SMD, others I'm not sure.

Bryce.
 
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