A new smart platform for designing a custom portable instrument, the Mosaic Handheld is ideal for prototyping and manufacturing portable instruments for industrial control, robotics, instrumentation, data logging, data acquisition, and sensor calibration.
The Mosaic Handheld integrates a graphics display, keypad with customizable overlay, processor, memory, analog and digital I/O, serial communications, an expansion I/O bus, rechargeable batteries, power conditioning and battery charger circuitry in a rugged handheld enclosure. A DB-25 connector at the bottom of the instrument allows the user to connect external signals. A built-in Personality Board makes it easy to route internal and external I/O and data signals inside the instrument, and includes a prototyping area to simplify the addition of custom circuitry. Up to 4 I/O expansion modules called Wildcards can be plugged inside the instrument to customize the Handheld for a particular application. The rugged plastic enclosure is small enough to fit comfortably in a hand but large enough to hold custom circuitry, sensors, and actuators.
Combining a high-contrast 3.4 in. diagonal display and 4 col x 8 row keypad, the Mosaic Handheld comes with software that makes it easy to control your application using menus, graphs, and bitmapped images. The Processor Board inside the Handheld hosts a 16 MHz Motorola 68HC11F1 microprocessor, 512K Flash and 128K RAM (expandable to 1 MB Flash and 512K RAM), and 320 bytes of EEPROM. Onboard I/O includes 8 digital I/O lines with counter/timer capabilities, 8 analog inputs, a fast synchronous SPI serial interface, and dual RS232/485 ports. An optional real-time clock tracks the calendar and time of day and battery backs the 128K RAM.
The Handheld can operate up to 10 hours on its six rechargeable batteries. For non-battery applications it can be powered with 15 to 26 Vdc via the power jack or through the DB25 connector on the bottom of the unit.