Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 861v4 with ID40 & IA08

Hello everybody!

I have an 861v4 ... if I buy the ID40 and OA08 cards will it work together?

Or it is only ok with the v6 hardware?

Hi,

ID40 will work, needs a modification to the CO00 card. AO08 won't work, you would need AO03 or AO13

What is the hardware modification to get the ID40 to work with 861v4?
I thought it would work when card is installed and updated via Mconfig.

There is a detailed 2013-04-02 post on this subject which contains a picture of the mod and description. Google search the forum for ID40 and 861v4.

Here is the link to that post ID40 card & 861v4 CO00 Mods

Regards,
Carl

Thanks for the link and clarification!

Hi Carl,

I want to use OA08 card. Do I need to update the firmware to v6?

Do need add any cards?

The OA08 card is for the 861v6 and v8 machines. Your hardware is unlikely to support it nor will Mconfig allow it in programming. There are significant hardware changes between a 861v3 and the v6 or v8.

The 861v6 is defined by the following core cards as standard:

CO00: Control computer card. Complete with Flash memory, RS232 port for control and status, 3x configurable trigger outputs and 2x Meridian Comms.

CD20 & EF20: Internal (no rear panel) 48-bit DSP cards each containing two Motorola 56367 chips running in dual precision mode, each card offering 300 MIPS (million instructions per second) capability.

These 3 cards and the Z8 backplane are carried forwards from the 861v4.
The hardware is the same, v6 and the v4?

If the hardware is the same, why cannot a v4 be upgraded to v6 without the unprecidented step of a tradein program?

Iirc that backplane is similar, but v6 works to much higher specification which changes the way that cards needs to be terminated. Some v4 cards are compatible with this, some are not.

The backplanes are similar but not the same. The v4 in most configurations has to use terminator cards of resistors (internally) on the backplane to suppress unwanted reflections of signals across the backplane that can cause audible clicks or pops. The revised backplane presumably has a better geometric design (and may have some resistors integrated on the backplane - not sure about that) such that terminators seem no longer to be required. Also, the better design allows reliable operation at higher frequencies.

In principle, you could use later cards in a v4 but they would not be reliable (clicks and pops or worse because of higher frequency signals) so I assume M, quite rightly, inhibit that in firmware to avoid all the complaints that would ensue.

Changing a backplane, which is not an expensive item to make, is a very time consuming thing to do (I have done it on an 800 DVD machine when I was adding a blu-ray drive). So, although in theory you could upgrade a v4 to a v6 by changing the backplane, no dealer could do it economically - hence the trade-in programme as the way to get to v6 when the latter was first introduced.

Thank you for making this so clear. I was always under the impression that if it were a simple task or financially feasible, then the 861v4 cul de sac would not be so densely populated.

It seems that theoretically, if you had enough spare parts and time, you could upgrade from v4 to v6.