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Comfile Technology
During my stint as a consultant with General Dynamics years ago I was working on part of a payload ground station telemetry
transport project for NASA and needed to come up with a way to transport discreet (on/off) states between the remote ground
station and the NASA payloads atop the booters at the launch complex. After some research I found a nice line of
microcontrollers that could be programmed in a combination of ladder logic and BASIC languages, one of which turned out to fit
the needs of my part of the project well. The company, Comfile Technology was super helpful with technical support also which
was very valuable in several instances where I needed specific microcontroller questions answered. But I was able to build the
product (and software) and several spares that worked well within specifications and my project partner and I had ourselves a
working ground station telemetry transport system which was used for several Delta II NASA launch programs at Vandenberg
AFB.
Below are a few photos of the project and some of my personal collection of Comfile hardware - click on the photos to see larger versions.
This is one of my prototype
"discrete control processor"
units with the Comfile DB290
micro controller at its core. It
controlled the input and
output boards seen under
the wide ribbon cables.
Here is the custom core board
to replace the prototype board
in the production units. the
CB290 is actually a PC board
under a plastic cover but in this
modular form it's easy to use.
This was a CB280 on a prototyping module
that was configured and programmed to
test the above units prior to installing them
into the mobile ground station cabinets.
This is a small form factor uC module that's easy
to use on a standard breadboard. I got this one
just to experiment with at home. All of the Cubloc
line run ladder logic and BASIC simuntaneously
using their proprietary multitasking. They have
expanded quite a bit over the years and MANY
more products are available. They are worth a
look.
If you are at all interested in trying your hand at ladder logic I recommend trying one of these Cubloc modules out. They also
have a module with the same board form factor as the Arduino Uno board although it still runs the BASIC/Ladder Logic system.
If you really like the Arduino approach they do have a small line of arduino compatible modules.
You can check the whole Comfile Technologies site out here. You might be able to find some deals on ebay if you look around a bit and are patient for the right deal on what you're looking for.
You can check the whole Comfile Technologies site out here. You might be able to find some deals on ebay if you look around a bit and are patient for the right deal on what you're looking for.
These are actually a variation of a PLC (programmable logic controller) with the interesting twist of BASIC added in. If you
already have a handle on BASIC this would be a great device to experiment with and see how the two interact within the
devices. In my case I actually wrote an error handling protocol in basic to check the communication stream (also enabled via
basic).