Rod Stewart posted:gunrunnerjohn posted:As long as you have the same number of similar LED's in each car, that will work. You don't actually need an LED in series with the meter, this is a constant current design, so you can just measure the current with a direct connection across the output.
Ted, the reason mine come assembled is it would take me a LONG time to hand solder a thousand modules!
I hadn't considered this John; great idea. I will likely just do it that way. My head is so engrained with the notion that an ammeter always needs to be in series with the load; couldn't see the forest for the trees.
BTW, that reduction in size of the newer Super-Chuffer board is really impressive. I am thinking the ones I bought a few years ago must be the older style because I recall the pcb material was green. Thinking I should order a couple of the newer ones; do I buy those direct from you, or through Hennings? Too bad the 8 pin DIP couldn't be rotated 90 degrees; that would have allowed even more of a reduction in width by the look of things.
Rod
Rod, Stan does make a good point about the type of ammeter. The LED is very good at showing you the decay of the light to verify the cap is doing it's job. You can also put a resistor in parallel with a standard diode to split the load while providing a greater load on the board output for testing.
The S-C board reduction really helped in putting into places it wouldn't fit before. However, any potential savings by rotating the DIP socket is an optical illusion, the socket measures 10mm in either dimension. As I've stated previously, the reason for the DIP part is ease of programming. If I didn't have a removable part, I'd have to provide a programming socket, so there would be no board area savings. The removable part also makes it easy to do a code change in the field as you don't have to unsolder the board, just pop the new chip in.
