Meet a novel modular electronics system for prototypes and real-life!

[Asaad]

Thanks I appreciate the honest feedback..

Working with your advice I changed the title and first post.

Secondly, "electronics" encompasses much more than a bit of messing about with microcontrollers. Any RF modules - no, any analogue modules - no, in fact nothing more than LEDs, power sources, serial lines and relays, not even any general purpose digital input modules or output modules. With the existing modules you've basically got to "we have blinky" or "we have blinky at AC mains voltages" and no further, which is a shame as the basic idea for interconnecting modules has real merit even if it is not a general electronics system solution as you have claimed.

I didn't say the project is complete. The project page clearly says it's experimental and work-in-progress. I have many more modules to post that cover wider range of applications but explaining the concept is easiest with simple ones.

Firstly people with longer memories have seen modular electronics systems before so they take objection to "world's first truely[sic] modular".

I was only referring to first in being used for prototypes and in-field environments. It was mentioned in the first post but the title didn't fit.

Anyway appreciate your comments above!

[TomS_]

Page no longer loads?

[Asaad]

Fixed

[hexreader]

Thanks for listening to feedback and acting upon it.

Now that the hype is reduced, it actually looks like a fun product.

Might buy a selection of boards to try when they are ready.

[RandallMcRee]

Jeez-- cheat? bombastic?

He is just naive.

[iampoor]

Interesting idea.

I would like to see some finished products assembled out of this stuff. Right now this seems like more of an educational tool rather than a tool for designing finished products. I do low volume production and cannot really imagine this system being useful, but I think the idea is pretty cool!

[max_torque]

- Solder joints are more robust than wires and connectors

They really aren't! 

A crimped wire joint is robust, as the crimp cold welds the parent metal of the wire to the terminal (hence old skool wire wrapped pcbs for high reliability applications (Aviation, space, Defence etc) and modern full crimped wiring harness in for example a typical mass produced passenger car)  A soldered joint can be affected by a large number of effects, from corrosion to diffusion and of course mechanical strain (solder has a very low creep resistance indeed)

Without suitable, validated mechanical support and load sharing, simply soldering together pcbs is a very low reliability solution, which is why you generally don't see it done (often, mechanical fasteners will be used instead, for example the mounting of a ceramic hybrid module to another pcb using spring clips)

[TerraHertz]

https://hackaday.io/project/28419-hexabitz-modular-electronics-for-real
gives  a 404 not found.

Pity, the concept sounds interesting. Want to see it.

[Asaad]

Sorry doing some maintenance. Will post back when it's online again

[ez24]

What are your plans to market this?

FYI  Good job

[Asaad]

No clear plans yet. Basically I just wanted to start by collecting feedback and I got enough feedback already. I have work to do and it's not just technical but finding a compass as well.

[Neomys Sapiens]

I need to clarify that by "real life" I certainly don't refer to commercial mass-produced products. "Real-life" means application outside your lab bench where you are constrained in volume and weight and want to replace a custom PCBAs with something reconfigurable and reusable. It also refers to applications where you need more robustness and rigidity than what you get when stacking shields together with cables and wires running around, e.g. on a drone/robot, road-side equipment, factory floor, etc.

The slightest shock or vibration will rip the pads off the PCB where those modules are joined together. Even faster on the non-orthogonal arrangements.

[Neomys Sapiens]

On modular electronics:
anyone knows SEMs (USN)? Or their precedessors (lost the name)? Sigmatronik by BBC?

[ez24]

The slightest shock or vibration will rip the pads off the PCB where those modules are joined together. Even faster on the non-orthogonal arrangements.

How about using pins (about 10mm long) made from 12ga pre-tinned wire?

[Neomys Sapiens]

The slightest shock or vibration will rip the pads off the PCB where those modules are joined together. Even faster on the non-orthogonal arrangements.

How about using pins (about 10mm long) made from 12ga pre-tinned wire?

If I had to build something like it, I would try to avoid solder on the inter-module connections.
I would give the little 'snap balls' from Oxley a try. Or those 'chaotic wire ball' connectors, if you know what I'm referring to.

[TomS_]

Sorry doing some maintenance. Will post back when it's online again

I have to say, this is very annoying. Twice now Ive tried to look at it, and I just get 404s.

Surely you can do your maintenance without taking the entire thing down? Or dont announce it until you are happy with the content and wont take it away for days at a time.

If youre trying to get people interested in a product, this is not the way to go about it.

</rant>

[Asaad]

Hey guys,

Finally we're back online! Sorry for the delay. It took MUCH more time and effort than I thought.
Previous format was limiting so I made a custom demo website:
https://www.hexabitz.com/

All technical details are still on our hackaday page:
https://hackaday.io/project/76446-hexabitz-modular-electronics-for-real

There're some demo projects there but it still very work-in-progress. We're working our way slowly through new modules and demo projects as time permits

Your feedback is very welcome! Also we're applying for Hackaday 2018 competition. If you find the project interesting, a LIKE is very much appreciated.

Cheers and sorry again for taking the site down!

A.K.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

I find the concept very interesting, and the website looks quite good, though a bit too "consumer marketing" to my taste.
I can't comment on it's usefullness or feaseability. However, for RF applications there are similar prototyping systems in place, X-microwave comes to mind. I've never used them though since they don't go up high enough in frequency.

However, I always have my doubts about modular products and their feasability. Especially outside of one-off productions for custom experiments and industry, I think any modular product has to trade in too much other requirements - size, cost, reliability, flexibility, etc. to be viable.
And those where that isn't a problem is where you will probably find FPGAs or industrial PLCs. You really need to look for the differentiator that sets you apart from these systems, and play up on those advantages.

Good luck!

[Asaad]

I find the concept very interesting, and the website looks quite good, though a bit too "consumer marketing" to my taste.

Thanks! That's why I ended up doing two websites. The custom website presents the topic in layman terms for the general public and the hackaday one is full of technical details for us (geeks). If you show the hackaday website to normal people they runaway and feel overwhelmed (the domain name and black background is enough to scare people off!)

I can't comment on it's usefullness or feaseability. However, for RF applications there are similar prototyping systems in place, X-microwave comes to mind. I've never used them though since they don't go up high enough in frequency.

One of my inspirations for this design was actually the phased-array radar antennas

However, I always have my doubts about modular products and their feasability. Especially outside of one-off productions for custom experiments and industry, I think any modular product has to trade in too much other requirements - size, cost, reliability, flexibility, etc. to be viable.
And those where that isn't a problem is where you will probably find FPGAs or industrial PLCs. You really need to look for the differentiator that sets you apart from these systems, and play up on those advantages.

Agree you always have to make trade-offs. But this is a prototyping system at the end, so you're not very constrained in cost, size, etc. This exactly was thesis for this project. Right now, you either need to make a custom board, use a mess of prototyping solutions that are not scalable or go to the very high end to use modular PLCs. I think there should be something in the middle that gives you modularity, better formfactor and still being prototype-ale. The tricks we use with MCUs + DMAs + Serial ports in the mesh architecture are actually meant to emulate FPGAs (albeit at a lower bandwidth) but with a much cheaper off-the shelf solution (the kind that you can put in each board)

[tooki]

Marketing. With little fragments. Is so. 2005.

(No seriously, it was cute the first time. By the time every ad agency started with "Innovative. Dynamic. Holistic. [companyname]." it just got tired and sad.)