Ternary electronics kitbiz?

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Get help, and assist others in with open source kits and running a business! Do not ask for legal advice or for consulting services in this forum, only general biz questions!
Shaos
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Ternary electronics kitbiz?

Post by Shaos »

Thanks!

Since 2004 on our forum we tried different approaches to balanced ternary electronics, including CMOS-switches 4016/4066, 4067, 4097, 4051, 4052, 4053 - the problem is that they require additional elements as optocouplers or comparators (check forum below - sorry it's automated translation from Russian to English):

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_ur ... =Translate

and optocouplers and comparators require a number of resistors around (and sometimes a few diodes to match logical levels for further use) - so result looks heavy...

Another problem is mostly "ideological" one, namely cheap CMOS switches are controlled by BINARY signals, that are created by comparators/optocouplers and digital people always may say "no, it's not real ternary, it's simply emulation of ternary by binary components"...

But last summer I came up with surprisingly simple design with DG403s:
Two DG403 used as ternary multiplexers
Two DG403 used as ternary multiplexers
dg403b.jpg (54.99 KiB) Viewed 4725 times
As you can see these switches are controlled directly by TERNARY signals and this trick is possible because DG403 has separate power pins for logic part and analog part (for example it will not work for cheap CMOS switches because 4016/4066,4067,4097 have common power pins for logical and analog parts and 4051,4052,4053 have only separate ground for logic and common positive voltage)

So yes, TRIMUX is not most cheap way to try ternary and not very optimal (in terms of quantity of CMOS-transistors), but it's definitely most simple and quick way

P.P.S. More possible TRIMUX applications:

Image

Image

P.P.S. About emulation - we tried Logisim: http://www.ternary.info/modules/newbb/v ... 81&forum=5

itcamefrommars
 
Posts: 25
Joined: Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:25 am

Re: Ternary electronics kitbiz?

Post by itcamefrommars »

Well I'm a bit lazy after 18 hours here... so tell me so I don't have to search :O) ...
Do you have a kit with all components avail yet? and if so what's the price...

- mars

Shaos
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Ternary electronics kitbiz?

Post by Shaos »

itcamefrommars wrote:Well I'm a bit lazy after 18 hours here... so tell me so I don't have to search :O) ...
Do you have a kit with all components avail yet? and if so what's the price...

- mars
no, kit is not yet available - only pcb (device is still in kind of beta-testing)
I think price for kit should not be more than $30 (with free US shipping)

Shaos
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Ternary electronics kitbiz?

Post by Shaos »

Shaos wrote: Image
Above scheme with resistors is more safe in terms of accidental short circuit on switches between positive and negative voltage on breadboard.
I did sinusoidal test with generator and oscilloscope of one half of TRIMUX connected as inverter. With 1K resistors the TRIMUX may work only below 200 kHz.
Without resistors the TRIMUX may work on frequencies up to 1 MHz (but you need to be very accurate with wires to avoid short circuit that may damage DG403):

Image

As you can see it's pretty stable on 1 MHz, but signal delay is about quarter of one period (approximately 250ns)

P.S. About another application from above: TRIMUX may work as dynamic memory even without capacitor - it will hold voltage in channel capacitance (39 pF according to datasheet) for a few seconds (if input is disconnected)

Shaos
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Ternary electronics kitbiz?

Post by Shaos »

OK, I've got 60 TRIMUX PCBs and may give a number of them for free in order to perform kind of crowd testing

Who is interested?...

itcamefrommars
 
Posts: 25
Joined: Sat Jul 24, 2010 12:25 am

Re: Ternary electronics kitbiz?

Post by itcamefrommars »

Well I'm interested but I won't have time to fool with it in much of a valuable investigative way for a while.
(although got a few buddies at the university that I told about it that like the idea.)

On that note... I wouldn't want to ask for any for free.
I really like buying what I can from makers... kinda have a collection going and I see it as kitbiz financial stimulus!

Your site says 13+10 shipping... that's through batchPCB I assume.
So how much to get a couple of boards from you - I'd much rather support ya with cash to help it all out!

Awesome it's all moving along for you!

Cheers!
- mars

Shaos
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:41 pm

Re: Ternary electronics kitbiz?

Post by Shaos »

I've just launched "official" store for TRIMUX boards and kits:

http://nedocon.com/store/trimux/

And thanks for your interest!

P.S. I'm afraid that it's my last post on this forum because all my unanswered questions are kind of accounting/tax/legal nature and it's clearly prohibited to be asked here...

adafruit
 
Posts: 12151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Re: Ternary electronics kitbiz?

Post by adafruit »

Shaos wrote:P.S. I'm afraid that it's my last post on this forum because all my unanswered questions are kind of accounting/tax/legal nature and it's clearly prohibited to be asked here...
good luck!

as we said before, the specific questions you have are really best answered by an accountant, depending on how you end up forming your company and paying taxes, your record keeping will vary only an accountant will have the experience to give you the correct answers for tax and record-keeping questions!

thanks,
adafruit

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