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Industrial Design & Ergonomics

A project log for PortableSDR

Fully stand-alone HF (Shortwave) Software Defined Transceiver & Vector Network Analyzer. Designed for rugged portable use. Highly hackable.

michael-r-coltonMichael R Colton 07/17/2014 at 05:240 Comments

So I am starting to feel like I want to start moving on to designing the next revision of the PSDR. The PSDR1 was a test bed, this would be an attempt at actually making it look and work like it will in it's final form (though with so much uncharted teritory, I imagine it will take a few more revisions before I'm completely happy with it.

Here are some drawings I've been doing (there are TONS more) that show some of my thought processes on how I came up with the interface and how I want to do the industrial design.

One thing I notice about a lot of radios is they do something like this when talking about the size: "3x5x1 inches (not including knobs and antenna connectors and Morse code paddles, etc.)" Not how I want to do things. In the above designs, you'll notice that most have the antenna and VNA connectors on the left (usually with guards) that's also where the USB and earphone (smart phone compatible, with their built in microphone and a call button that will work as the PPT) will be. On the right is the knob, and that little rectangular protrusion will be a Morse code key. (It won't be super friendly for lefties, not sure sure how I want to address that yet...) I like the idea of capacitive touch, so there aren't moving parts, but I can't do Morse yet, so I don't know if that would actually feel right. I may do a mechanical one.

I like the idea of this thing being waterproof, but I am not sure I'll make that a high priority yet. I am planning on milling the perimeter out of aluminum and then using lexan for the top and bottom, I think.

Enjoy! P.S. These are all done on my Galaxy Note 2. EXCELLENT phone for jotting down ideas when you are waiting in line or otherwise board. Highly recomended!

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