Diamond Systems Pandora

Introduction

Pandora is an enclosure system designed by Diamond Systems for use with our PNL-EAP panel I/O board mated to a Athena II. Helios or Rhodeus CPU board. (When mated to an Athena, the upper temperature limit is reduced.) It features fast and easy assembly due to the fact that most or all internal cables can be eliminated. Rather than requiring the installation of special corner mounts or forcing the stack into a set of corner guides, the entire stack is bolted directly to the front plate of the case, forming a rugged, easily-handled assembly.

The PC/104 Pandora case measures 5.5" wide by 5.75" high. It comes in three lengths:

• The 1.7"(43.18mm) case accommodates the CPU, the panel I/O board, and an optional notebook hard drive.
• The 3.0"(76.2mm) case accommodates the CPU, panel board, up to two additional PC/104 boards, and an optional notebook hard drive.
• The 5.0"(127mm) case accommodates the CPU, panel board, up to five additional PC/104 boards, and an optional notebook hard drive.

Case lengths accommodate PC/104 boards with stackthrough configuration (long pins on the bottom side) at the bottom of the stack so no special effort is required to obtain non-stackthrough boards or to cut the connector pins. The length is also sufficient to enable mounting a notebook hard drive below the bottom board and attaching it to the rear end plate.

The 3.0" length is designed with the intention of accommodating two additional boards. A typical configuration might include a VGA board and a DC/DC power supply for use in mobile applications. However any two boards can be installed.

The interior cavity is wide enough to install any PC/104 board with almost any I/O connector, including pin headers with ejector latches.

Each Pandora case includes case body, front plate to accommodate the panel board, rear plate, and all mounting hardware (screws and spacers). Additional end plates are available separately.

Assembly Method

Installation of boards inside Pandora is as follows. The panel board first mounts on top of the CPU. Spacers are installed between the two boards and above the panel board. The panel board is then fitted to the case front plate and attached using 4 screws driven into the spacers as well as screwlocks driven into the 7 Dsub connectors on the panel board. In this fashion the entire CPU assembly is mounted directly and securely to the end plate. This assembly can now be easily attached to the front of the case body using 8 flathead screws. (All necessary hardware is provided with the case and/or the panel board.) The rear plate can now be attached with 8 more screws, and the assembly is complete.

Panel I/O board

The unique Panel I/O Board system is offered on most of the Diamond Systems' PC/104 single board computers and provides industry standard I/O connectors for the I/O, including CRT, Ethernet, USB, Serial, Parallel, PS/2, and data acquistion. Status LEDs and PC speaker are also included. For use with Athena II is the PNL-EAP-01 panel I/O board. The PNL-EAP-01 can be used with Athena II models ATHM500-256A, ATHM500-256N, ATHM800-256ALP, and ATHM800-256NLP (when mated to an Athena, the upper temperature limit is reduced).

For use with Helios SBCs is the Helios panel I/O board, PNL-HLV-01. The panel I/O board can also accommodate I/O output from one or two add-on PC/104 modules without requiring costly and time consuming custom enclosure design. One pin header can be used with any PC/104 board with a 50-pin I/O connector.

For use with Rhodeus SBC is the Helios panel I/O board, PNL-RDS-01. The panel I/O board can also accommodate four extra serial ports and digital I/O without requiring costly and time consuming custom enclosure design.

Pandora Cross Section Drawings

The following cross-section drawings illustrate the relative positions of the components inside the 1.7" and larger cases. These can serve as a quick overview of the proper assembly method. We recommend you start with the face plate and work your way down to ensure that all the mounting hardware aligns properly.

End Plates

Multiple end plates are available. The standard package includes a front end plate containing cutouts for use with the PNL-EAP board, (models with and without the data acquisition cutout are available). The rear end plate contains PC/104 mounting holes that may be used to attach to the bottom of the stack using additional spacers if desired for extra rigidity, although for a 2-board system these are not needed. The lengths of the cases have been selected to allow the use of standard PC/104 spacers, such as Diamond Systems' SPC-104, in this configuration.

Each Pandora case includes case body, front plate to accommodate the panel board, rear plate, and all mounting hardware (screws and spacers). Additional end plates are available separately.