As the story goes, my career in the paintball industry begun as a small business installing custom boards in markers. At the time there was a great and powerful Morlock board 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, with smaller physical size. These boards made great additions to electronic markers from between 1995-2003, since they had virtually no aftermarket 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 some hardware improvements could be made to their design. 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 was that the single connector attached to components on both the frame and body, so the frame/body would still be tied together during disassembly. This meant you were forced to add a secondary connector into the wire harness to facilitate disassembly.
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 mentioning I never mass produced this board nor do I have any plans in doing so. I don't have the resources to get my own boards produced. However, 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!
I had a few requirements for the board to even be worthy.
· Ability to control one or 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 (more LEDs or a single multi-color LED would be nice)
· Board mounting screw hole.
· Potential future expansion connector??
· Maximum width of 0.700 inches (allowing the board to slide into a marker's grip frame).
Versions Alpha & Gamma:
These were my earliest designs, one of which I prototyped. The original board is below, along with a schematic for its circuit:
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 wasted space on the bottom side meant the board was not as small as it could be. 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 that fixed a couple other issues that I found at the same time. Costly mistake!
Version Delta:
This was my most successful version of the board. I had it prototyped and quickly assembled two of them for testing (seen in the pictures below). 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, because 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: (concept only)
At this point in development, I performed a few changes to the boards that branched off the previous "Delta" version. Eventually I arrived at what I believe is the ultimate multi-purpose board. Below is a list of the changes I made, and final list of potential features:
· One 5mm tri-color LED (red-green-blue)
· Multiple power switch options. The first choice is to use a two-position switch in series with the battery wires to cut power. The second choice is use of a momentary pushbutton to toggle the board on/off (sending the board into a "sleep mode"). Most modern markers use momentary pushbuttons now, so this allows you to re-use their hardware or add your own power button for older markers. You can always fall back to using a basic two-position switch. To me, this was a HUGE feature since no other paintball marker board offers the choice.
· 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 too important, but nice to have for certain features)
· Larger microcontroller offers expanded abilities for future hardware such as OLED displays, USB interface, etc. There isn't currently room on the board surface, but they could be added for future versions.
· Analog eye signals, suitable for either reflective or beam-break eye systems, with potential for eye adjustments.
· Battery power level meter circuit.
· DIP switch 1 = toggle tournament lock (same as previous boards).
· DIP switch 2 = toggle between using the momentary power pushbutton.
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 by hand. This was a deterrant for ever getting it prototyped, so I just shelved the idea. 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. If anybody wanted to use this design on their own boards, please be my guest. I would appreciate receiving a message about it should that ever happen!
In 2012, another individual expressed desire in producing the boards. He prototyped the design and was working with an electronics engineer on the programming. However I haven't heard any updates from him, so I assume the board was never released. :(