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PCI kit or CB PCI card

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:22 pm
by Roach III
Hello,<p>I'm new to electronics so please bear with me.<p>
Are there any kits out there that allow you to create a PCI card project with specs and all?<p>I need a CB card. If there are none, I would love to build one. Any links? I've already google searched. Thankyou.

Re: PCI kit or CB PCI card

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:27 am
by haklesup
THere are plenty<p>Don't know how new you are to electronics but thats a big first bite to chew. If you are a C programmer, you have a good chance though.<p>We are about to start a similar project using a development board from this company http://www.plxtech.com/ but there are surely other competitors. Altera makes a slick looking kit too. Kits generally come with driver software and require both hardware and software skills.<p>Search on "PCI development board" or kit and you should find lots more. <p>Unlike ISA (where it was possible using only 74xx logic), you will need a PCI bridge chip which usually comes in a high pin count QFP or BGA package. Be ready for surface mount assembly. This route is not exactly cheap. Are you sure you want PCI? USB is generally easier and cheaper to develop but is unsuited to real time high speed hardware apps. A lot depends on how smart the peripheral device is.<p>Looks like a lot of the vendors are putting out PCI express stuff but plain old PCI should still be available. PCI slots should still be around for another year or two but expect them to go the way of ISA as PCIx rolls out (faster and different slot connector)<p>Perhaps you can describe your application (peripeheral you are trying to interface to)and we can help you decide how much interface you really need.<p>Also check out www.beyondlogic.org for lots of good stuff on interface protocols<p>CB? what is that?

Re: PCI kit or CB PCI card

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:37 am
by Roach III
What I'm needing is a CB radio on a PCI card. I was unable to find any vendors selling such a device. Perhaps there is a learning kit or such. If not, I would like to design one and build it myself. Thanks for the links. Perhaps a USB or ISA solution would be better if I have to build.

Re: PCI kit or CB PCI card

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:44 am
by dr_when
Not sure if I get this. Do you want to be able to monitor CB radio through a PC? What advantages would this give you. If you want a full tranceiver, what would be the purpose?<p>I have an Optronics scanner that is controlled though the serial port that brings some advantages like logging most used frequencies, etc. <p>Just curious why a PC controlled CB would be useful (unless maybe tranceiving data packets????)

Re: PCI kit or CB PCI card

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 3:06 pm
by haklesup
seems like you want to do it the hard way. I would take a stock CB radio and re-build a digital interface (probably USB) for the controls (channel, volume and squelch) and interface the audio to a sound card.<p>In radios I have examined, the controls are on a seperate PCB from the rest of the tranciever. One could extensively modify this module without effecting the rest of the radio.<p>THe channel selector switch can probably be replaced by a 8 or 16bit register and the volume and squelch can be replaced by digital pots.