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As many of you know, my career in the paintball industry begun as a business installing boards in markers they weren't designed for. At the time there was a great board called the Morlock which was a very well-designed multi-purpose controller that could be installed in virtually any marker. After that came the Mini-Morlock boards which were even better but smaller. These boards made great additions to markers from around the turn of the century, such as Impulses and Shocker Sports, which had low to no aftermarket board support.

There was a catch with these boards, though. They were initially well designed, but after using them for a few years it became apparent that they could be a lot better in terms of the hardware. One limitation was the single LED used for all operation and programming. Another limitation was the existing multi-purpose boards had one huge connector leading to the marker's components. The problem with this large connector was that it lead to components on both the frame and body, so even when the frame was removd it would still be tied to the body via the wire harness. This meant you were FORCED to splice a second connector into the wire harness someplace, which made no sense considering all markers could take advantage of a broken-up wire harness attached to the board, instead of one huge harness.

After toying around with all these ideas, and after the success I was having with my prototype Shocker/Nerve Euclid board, I decided to design the hardware around a multi-purpose board of my own. I will ruin the surprise for you by saying I never mass produced this board nor do I have any plans in doing so. However, having said that, let me also say that to this day I believe my Proclus board would be the one ideal board in terms of hardware design. All other multi-purpose boards out there still fall victim to the same problems. oh well.

I had a few requirements for the board to even be worthy.
· Ability to control up to two solenoids independantly.
· Separate connectors for the battery, trigger, solenoids, and eyes.
· Input voltage up to 18 volts (so the board can be used with E/X-Mags).
· Non-volitile memory EEPROM saves settings while battery is disconnected.
· On-board tournament lock switch.
· At least two separate LEDs for board operation and settings adjustment.
· Board mounting screw hole.

Version Alpha & Gamma:
These were my earliest designs, one of which I actually had produced. This is what the original board looked like, and a schematic to go along with it:

This Alpha version had all the circuit components located on one side of the board. This would leave a nice flat surface on the bottom, but the board was not as small as it could be, due to wasted space on the bottom side. Because of this I quickly jumped into a revision called Gamma. The Gamma boards had components on both sides, which were "balanced" in height as best I could make them. I also chose better components for items such as the solenoid transistors. The new transistor was smaller since it was two transistors in one component, saving quite a bit of space. However, I ended up choosing a better diode (also used in the solenoid's circuit) which was larger than the Alpha one. I needed two of them since I couldn't find a suitable double diode.

I actually had this Gamma version prototyped but I made a mistake in choosing very small resistors, so I had a very hard time actually assembling the circuit. Instead of bothering with it, I just made a redesigned version instead.

Version Delta: This was my most successful version of the board. I had it prototyped and quickly assembled two of them for testing.

As you can see this board is very small and still has all the hardware features of other multi-purpose boards, plus the added benefit of dual LEDs and multiple connectors. This is ultimately as far as my Proclus project ever advanced, since I never produced the later versions. Since this time I have assembled several more Proclus boards, and even used one in an Automation contract I performed in 2009, running off 24 volt instead of typical 9v like a paintball marker.

Version Theta:
Two revisions followed the Proclus Delta boards. Eventually I arrived at what I believe is the ultimate multi-purpose board, the Proclus Theta. Here's the changes I made and final list of features:
· 3mm tri-color LED (red-green-blue)
· Multiple power switch options. You now have the option of using a two position disconnect in the battery wires as the power switch, or you could use a momentary pushbutton to tell the board on or off. No other board has ever offered this as a built-in option!
· Input voltage range of 6-26 volts DC.
· Power saving circuit draws minimal power while the marker is not in use.
· 20-MHz microcontroller (not that important, but nice to have anyway)
· Larger microcontroller offers exapnded abilities for OLED displays, USB interfaces, etc. There isn't currently room for these on the board surface, but I could easily make them in future versions.
· Analog eye signals, suitable for either reflective or beam-break eye systems.

This is what the proposed layout looks like:

As mentioned, I never ended up producing this board. The components it used (mainly the microcontroller) were a little on the small side, so it would be very difficult for me to populate one of these even if I did get a prototype producd. This doesn't necessarially mean it can't be prototyped, since I can always pay a board house to assemble it for me, but I just never bothered with it. At one point an individual approached me wanting to get the board produced and sell them through Tadao, but the individual in mention never got back to me about it. oh well, his loss.

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