NE ELVIS Mk 1 Proto-system - Anyone got one?

[HarryDoPECC]

I picked up one of these - it has decent proto area, power supplies, basic fn gen and  I thought it would be a nice little stand alone proto system.  No power pack but it said +/- 15v and I though "how hard can it be to work out the pins"

HaHa - no useful silkscreen, Google-fu finds nothing.  One pin is zero ohms to the proto board gnd, but two others are not quite zero..?  And no continuity to the 15v on the proto-area because of course there are current limit and protection circuits in the way.  Multilayer SMD board is not immediately easy to trace.

So, before I get out the magnifier and try to reverse engineer where those power pins go - does anyone have one of these and can you tell me the pinout of your power supply?

Thanks soooo much!

[ChristofferB]

Cool unit! looks great for low freq stuff!

The circuit between the input connector and the rails are probably very straightforward. I think it will be self evident once you've had a look at the board inside + a quick probearound with a continuity tester which pin is what.

-Chris

[Caliaxy]

Never got my hands on one of these, but always wondered how they work. According to a connection diagram on the NI website, it seems to me that in order to be able to use one of these with Labview (DMM, scope), you also need a NI acquisition board in the computer (and a nasty 68-pin NI cable). Is that right?

Once you figure the power supply, please let us know.

[HarryDoPECC]

It’s not straightforward....  the power rails on the protoboard are not connected to the power input, there is current limit circuit in between I am guessing. I have examined the internal board closely, there is no helpful silkscreen and it’s multilayer with no easy fat power traces to follow. Power input circuit is all SMD so not so easy to trace and reverse engineer.

The unit can do lots of measurements etc with PC interface and software but there is switch selectable Local mode which is standalone and will still be very useful.

But first I have to figure out the power.  And before I dive into the reverse engineer I am hoping that someone here may have the answer readily to hand.

[Caliaxy]

Check this out:

[HarryDoPECC]

Bingo!  You're gold, thanks so much.

The power of the interwebs.....