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WOC II aka TuxVest?
(wearable outdoor computer)
This is a new system I am building for everyday outdoor-usage. It must withstand rain while not in use, sweat, allow me to run and jump and be light and next to unnoticable. It weights nearly nothing (aside from the kilograms of other electronics that fills my pockets anyway) and is washable (if you take the computer out first ;) ).
_2002-08-28_
It works! Touchscreen repaired, PCMCIA works with 5V, can boot a Debian_arm off my 1GB microdrive! Just did a power-meassurement
The power-supply should be a 5V and a 3.3V switching-voltage regulator with a Dell-laptop-battery.
The case is a light vest with a new padded inside-pocket for the display and the dual-pcmcia-slot accessible in one of the breast-pockets. (is practical, looks good and is unsuspicious). The computer can be taken out for washing. An inner layer of cloth hides the components and can be taken out of the way for maintenance and washing.
The cpu-core is a taken apart TuxScreen. I did not separate the boards (thin enough) but am planning to extends the display-cable and do some other modifications later.
The display is the 7.7" touch-screen from the TuxScreen with the case removed (too much air in it) and I am building a new case with a plexi-glass back and I plan to cast the sides out of epoxy and glass-fiber.
There is also an IR-keyboard comming with the TuxScreen. The receiver will have a small hole somewhere on the front. I'll experiment how to conceal it first.
I meassured voltage once directly on the battery (between battery and dc-regulators) and then the current continously.
with backlight:
- booting up from flash: 0.5A
- normal operation: 0.4A
- non-exxessive microdrive-access: 0.6A = 9.432W
- non-exxessive 32MB-CF-Flash-access: peak 0.54A
- no microdrive, sitting for a while: stable at 0.35A = 5.502W
without display nor backlight
- bootup from flash: 0.16A
- doing nothing for a while: 0.08A = 1.2576W
- microdrive-insertion: peak at 0.3A = 4.716W
- 32MB-CF-Flash-insertion: peak at 0.14A
29.04.2002 - the Phone is there and I flashed it with Linux. Nice.
30.04.2002 - www.TuxScreen.org reports Microdrives to run (only 3.3V) but somehow my swystem resets when I insert one. :( Tried to build a new root with a newer kernel but my linker or libc is broken. Cannot create x86-executables (illegal memory access). why???
01.05.2002 - I took apart the phone, build the "case" and a temporary case for the display. Later the display somehow broke(backligt stays off) and I took apart that case while searching frantically for the reason.
02.05.2002 - still no sign as to what caused the backlight to fail. :( Wanted to present the system tomorrow.
03.05.2002 - PCMCIA does not work despite a new tuxscreen-root and kernel. No 5V hack yet but a microdrive should work.
09.05.2002 - An working on the vest again, cut the cloth for the inner layer. I'll move the display-pounch to the other side, it's not comfortable this way. Next will be the power-supply.
09.05.2002 - the vest id done. Got a nice cloth for the inner side and made a padded pounch for the display with an extra-large opening (required for easy use).
20.5.2002 - redid some seams on the vest with a pocket-sewing machine, looks much better then by hand. ;)
23.05.2002 - Found the time to test why the backlight does not activate with a borrowed screen. Bad news: the thing does not boot up at all anymore. Even though it just lay here doing nothing. Confirmed that it has 3.3V and 5V, circuit-breaker is intact, no mechanical damage. Guess I did it. :( I'll try if it's just the bootloader by using my (with reat foresight bought) JTAG-board but I don't see a chance.
04.06.2002 - The tuxscreen boots again. Thank's to hours of line-tracing, hunting data-sheets and multimetering around. Next stop: Display.
05.06.2002 - The screen works again. Thanks Mr.Ackermann, I would not have found it w/o a screen to compare against. Work continues. Only the voltage-regulator and display-case+cable are left. I hope to present everything working at Linuxtag this weekend.
06.06.2002 - found the problem in the 3.3V-supply this morning, I expect everything to work this night.
06.06.2002 - 5V-supply now working too, first tests at making the display-cable longer failed but I'll try again.
06.06.2002 - Extending the display-cable works and the mobile-power-supply can boot up the vest from a battery! Temporary display-case holds (some plexi-glass and lots of tape), I'll need to
make a better display-cable later but this will do for the time being.
07.06.2002 - postponed going to LinuxTag? until tomorrow, IR-keyboard works again and has a hole in the front, hid all the cables from view, first usability-tests showed I need to route the display-cable another way (they have no 1.35mm 40wire cables in the local electronics-shop anymore so that will happen after LinuxTag?) but otherwise very robust. Definately rain-proof (the hard way). X-winows is running. touchscreen will work when the final display-cable is done.
02.07.2002 - Got around to work on it again. Found the problem with the touchscreen, it works now but is totally uncalibrated. IR-keyboard broke during LinuxTag? due to mechanical stress in real world usage but is long since repaired and reinforced with resin.
20.07.2002 - finally done with the first tests at the university I got to solder again. Replaces the wire+hotglue power-plug with a real mini-din-plug (They finally had them in the local electronics-shop). Still have to compile xcalibrate against ulibc to calibrate the screen.
25.07.2002 - touchscreen-cabvle broke off. :( I'll have to find a better way to connect to the mylar. Local electronics-shop says soldering to it is not going to work, like I didn't know.
27.07.2002 - did the 5V-pcmcia-modification to the tux.
28.07.2002 - pcmcia works! Finally more then 4MB!
27.08.2002 - repaired the touchscreen by making a better cable and using the right plug instead of soldering directly to the mylar-cable.
28.08.2002 - just meassured the power-draw
- WOCII-402.jpg:
Thos board that presumably poweres the backlight. I damaged the case of the small inductor but it still worked after that.
- WOCII-403.jpg:
- WOCII-404.jpg:
I lengthened the cable for the backlight-power. It works and makes the case smaller.
- WOCII-405.jpg:
- WOCII-406.jpg:
The vest from the outside. Nothing to notice it there? ;)
-- MarcusWolschon - 02 May 2002
- finished Vest inside-out:
- again, better angle:
- display-pounch, extra large, no sharp edges:
- CPU-pounch on the inside:
- easily accessible from the underside:
- me, myself and the finshed vest.:
- touchscreen-connection:
- touchscreen-cabe to 40wire display-cable:
- 2cables because they invert front+back row :(:
- 4 new contacts to display-connector:
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