I finally got back to the case for the Super-PID. When I last left the build, I’d finished wiring up the G540 and had put the PC back together.
At this point, I needed to start getting serious about getting the case put together. I had to do a little chisel work to cut out the holes for the AC outlet and DB-9 port.
With that complete, I started gluing the case together. I did it in 2 sections to make sure that everything lined up as well as I could make it.
While the glue was drying, I started scratching my head about how to hook up the DB-9, perfboard, and Super-PID all together. There are a lot of wires in there, and so it took a bit of head-scratching to remember where I had left off, and get everything laid out.
The perfboard is set up so that half of it is inside the case (with the Super-PID) and half of it is outside the case (to provide an interface to the home switches and Super-PID RPM sensor). I’m no perfboard expert — the back side of my builds always looks like a mess — but I eventually got it all put together. There’s a nice big power rail with extra spots to provide power and ground to various accessories (I might need some more of these later, who knows?), and I have the 3 accessible pins from the DB-9 (inputs 2 and 3 to the G540 which are currently unused, and the home switch which is on G540 output 1) broken out. I also broke out the LED and Output from the RPM Sensor — I’m pretty sure that I could have just hooked the LED pin to +5v, but I exposed it just in case. Externally, I made 3 “servo” style connections (albeit +5v,0v,Output to match the Hall Effect chip) for the home switches, and a second “servo” style connection (a more standard 0v,+5v,Output) for the RPM Sensor.
That was quite a bit of soldering, but once it was done, I realized that I was pretty much done with the build! All that was left was to start making the actual connections.
I also installed the AC outlet and DB-9 and the AC plug cable.
The Super-PID case is really starting to come together — I think that with a few crimped ends, I might be ready to roll!