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- An Automatic Re-Booter for your Board
-
- by Matthew Lewis
-
- Sysop of Media Shack PCBoard
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- (416) 699-1846 ■ 300-2400 bps
-
-
- Background:
-
- This came about because of a couple of events that for
- some reason didn't successfully complete, and the board
- failed to reload, leaving my board down for most of the
- day until I retured home from work.
-
- I originally connected a telephone answering machine to
- the board's phone line, and set it to answer on the
- fourth ring. As the board normally answers on the first
- or second ring, under normal conditions, the answering
- macnine would do nothing, but if the board failed to
- answer the phone, the machine would answer on the fourth
- ring, play a tape to the caller advising him to wait
- about a minute and call back, and reboot the computer.
- The last commands in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file would reload
- and start the board program.
-
- After some proding by some other sysops who heard about
- this, and wanted one themselves, I designed the circuit
- described below. I have designed this circuit so that it
- can be built from parts which should be available at any
- Radio Shack store, not because of any particular fondness
- for Radio Shack, but just because this will virtually
- guarantee availability of the parts anywhere. The total
- cost for all required parts should be less than $20.00.
-
- Parts List:
-
- You will need the following parts.
-
- 2 - Opto-isolators similar to Motorola 4N36
- 1 - Operational Amplifier or Comparitor IC (741, 1458,
- TL082, LM358, etc.) (I used an LM358J)
- 1 - Silicon Diode - Virtually any will do (D1)
- 1 - 100 nF (0.1 uF) capacitor - min 100 volt rating (C1)
- 1 - 470 uF capacitor - min 16 volt rating (C2)
- 1 - 680 ohm 1/4 watt resistor (R7)
- 1 - 1,000 ohm 1/4 watt resistors (R2)
- 1 - 10,000 ohn 1/4 watt resistor (R1)
- 2 - 100,000 ohm 1/4 watt resistors (R4 & R5)
- 1 - 22,000 ohm 1/4 watt resistor (R3)
- 1 - 20,000 ohm multi-turn trimpot (R6)
- 1 - piece of perf-board to build it on
- misc wire and hardware for mounting
-
-
- That's it for the parts you'll need. Now on to my
- attempt at a schematic diagram.
-
-
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-
-
- Schematic Diagram of Auto Re-Booter
-
-
- + 12 v
- │
- Line 1 ┌───────┐ ┌──────────┐ │
- ─────────┤ C 1 ├─────┬───┤a c├───┘
- └───────┘ ┌─┴─┐ │ │
- ├───┤ │ Opto- │
- │D 1│ │ isolator │
- │ │ │ │
- Line 2 ┌────────┐ └─┬─┘ │ │ ┌────────┐
- ─────────┤ R 1 ├────┴───┤k e├────┤ R 2 ├───┐
- └────────┘ └──────────┘ └────────┘ │
- │
- │
- ┌───────┬───────┬────────────────────────────────────────┘
- │ │ │ ┌─┐
- ┌──┴──┐ ┌─┴─┐ │ │ └─┐ + 12 v
- │ C 2 │ │ │ │ ┌───────┐ │ └─┐ │
- │ │ │R 3│ └───┤ R 4 ├──────┤ + └─┤
- └──┬──┘ │ │ └───────┘ │ └─┐
- │ └─┬─┘ │ Op-Amp ├──────┐
- G G ┌───────┐ │ ┌─┘ │
- ┌─────┤ R 5 ├──────┤ - ┌─┤ ┌─┴─┐
- │ └───────┘ │ ┌─┘ │ │ │
- │ │ ┌─┘ G │R 7│
- + 12v │ └─┘ │ │
- │ │ └─┬─┘
- │ │ │
- ┌─┴─┐ │ ┌───────────────────────────┘
- │ │ │ │
- │R 6│ │ │ ┌──────────────┐
- │ │<─────┘ │ │ │ to Reset Switch +
- │ │ └──┤a c├───────────────────
- │ │ │ │
- │ │ │ Opto- │
- └─┬─┘ │ isolator │
- │ │ │
- G │ │ to Reset Switch - (G)
- ┌────┤k e├───────────────────
- │ │ │
- G └──────────────┘
-
- Notes: Opto-Isolators
- a = anode of LED
- k = cathode of LED
- c = collector of transistor
- e = emitter of transistor
-
- G = ground connections
-
- Op-Amp
- + = non-inverting input
- - = inverting input
-
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-
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- Theory of operation:
-
- When the phone rings, a voltage of about 80-90 volts,
- peak to peak, aproximating a square wave, is placed on
- the line. This signal is passed by capacitor C1 and
- resistor R1 to the LED of the first opto-isolator causing
- it to light on one half cycle. Diode D1 is there to
- conduct on the other half cycle. During the time that
- the LED is forward biased, and lighted, the
- photo-transistor will conduct, charging capacitor C2
- through resistor R2. When the phone is not ringing,
- capacitor C2 will discharge via resistor R3, at a slower
- rate that it is charged at while the phone is ringing.
- The voltage on C2 is coupled to the non-inverting input
- of the op-amp via resistor R4, and when it becomes more
- positive (by just a couple of microvolts) than the
- voltage at the wiper of R6, then the output of the op-amp
- will rise to about 10.5 volts, causing the LED of the
- second opto-isolator to be forward biased, and lit,
- causing the photo-transistor to conduct, and the computer
- will re-boot just as if you pressed the reset button.
-
- Trimpot R6 is adjusted for the Op-Amp output to go
- positive after the desired number of rings. In my own
- case, I found that when the voltage at the wiper of R6 is
- set to 7.5 volts, with respect to ground, the computer
- will reboot on the fourth ring. The higher the voltage
- on the wiper of R6, the more rings it will take before
- the computer reboots.
-
- CAUTION:
-
- I am using this device on an XT clone, but have been told
- by someone else who tried a similar idea on an AT, that
- if the reset button is pressed a second time before DOS
- gets loaded, it will go into the CMOS setup, and wait for
- input from the keyboard. I have no way to test this, so
- if you're using an AT or clone, try hitting the reset
- button again before DOS gets loaded to see what happens,
- BEFORE INSTALLING THIS DEVICE!
-
- DISCLAIMER:
-
- I make no guarantee what-so-ever that the above described
- device will work for you, or meet your phone company's
- acceptance. Furthermore, I will not be responsible in
- any way for any loss of any kind that you may suffer
- because of using this device.
-
- The ONLY claim that I make is that I have used the above
- described device on my own system, and it works for me.
-
- Closing Statement:
-
- I hope that you will find this device usefull, and if you
- do, I would appreciate a note in either the InterLink or
- CanConfMail/SmartNet Sysop conference.
-
- Matthew Lewis - Sysop - Media Shack PCBoard
- Toronto, Ontario - (416) 699-1846
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