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Shutdown controller
Hi, due to working in teh electronics industry and having quite a lot of knowledge about the subject i have decided to develop a shutdown controller more specificaly for those in the uk as they seem to be quite hard to get hold of!
this has mainly been spured on by the expense of geting a shutdown controller in the uk, the dificulty of getinghold of one and the lack of features etc on some of teh ones i can get hold of, i have an m2 atx psu in my car pc and the user selectable times are just lousy and i wanted something i could re-program myself and tweak more finely than such things as the m2 atx.
it will alow me to use any car psu and have a shutdown controller and plus it eliminates teh fact that with a combined psu/shutdown controller if one goes wrong the other one is usualy scrapped and i feel it is a better option to have 2 cheaper units together than one more expensive combined unit!
plus it also gives me the chance to muck about with some pic micro controllers.
what i am really asking is is there likely to be any interest in one if i produced one?
because basically to get them down to a reasonable price i would have to order the components to make about 100 or this is what i know so far!
and are there any features wich anyone could think they would like to be included within teh shutdown controller that i havent listed below?
i have the most part of this workin with teh features i am about to list, just a bit of de-bugging and i should be ready to go, i have my prototype built just need to program the chip and plug it in! Right, features/how it will work!
in this description any value/unit of x is a vairiable time period selected by the end user!
The shutdown controller waits for the ignition to be turned on!
after x time the power is switched on to the psu
after x time the computer is powered up and starts to boot!
after teh computer is booted if either the computer is shutdown manually the power will be once again turned off to the psu once the computer is safely shut down and wait for the ignition to be turned off (if it is still on) and back on again
If the ignition is turned off while the computer is running it will wait x time before safely shutting down the computer safely then removing the power from the power suply
if teh ignition is turned back on before the computer has initiated shutdown it will remain running until either the computer is shutdown manualy or the ignition is turned off again. (for example if you just pop into the shop and are only 5 minutes you can turn the car off and the computer will remain running unless you do not return within 10 minutes, in wich case it will shutdown but if yiu return within 10 minutes the computer will continue to run normally)
the shutdown controller will not remove power to the psu untill teh computer is fully shut down safely, however there is a user selectable time that the shutdown controller will wait for and if the computer hasnt shutdown within this period (e.g it has crashed during shutdown) to save sraining your battery it will cut the power to your psu performing a 'hard off' and willthen wait for teh ignition to be turned on again!
teh shutdown controller will be over ridable and will have teh option to have neumeros combinations of status led's!
it will be easy to wire up with even very little electronics knowledge, it will just connect to the psu input, psu output, motherboard the car battery, ground and ignition signals!
it can also be used to turn on screens and amplifiers.
my plan is to program the shutdown controller fully before shipping so it is tested and known working and i will also offer a cable to be able to re program the shutdown controller even from the computer it is connected to providing it has a usb or serial port! however it can still be programed from a different computer.
at teh moment i have tested the unit and when in standby the shutdown controller draws less than 10 milliamps wich is much less than anyting else draws from your car when it is not in use so it will not run a typical small (e.g 40Ah) car battery flat in months, you are also able to disconect it and re-connect it as many times as you want without affecting the operation of it what so ever!
liek i said, i have posted this with scope to building them, my prototype works well and is small and compact, it has still got a lot of room for expansion if it is needed, any intrest will be noted and sugestions welcome, as of yet there is no price in mond but it should be less than £40 GBP complete!
Thanks for any of your sugestions in advance, look forward to hearing from you!
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