Portable USB powered Prop test board
BradC
Posts: 2,601
Someone on IRC at some point asked me about my portable prop thingo I carry with me when I travel, so having excavated my camera from the depths of my desk I thought while I remembered I'd post a picture of it.
It certainly violates most of the USB specs. It causes the odd overcurrent error when plugged in. It has a USB HID bootloader built into it, and an undocumented feature of bst on Linux and Windows is it will automatically detect and download to the board over the USB port if you manually reset into the bootloader first. Once I've got it properly working on OSX I'll release the USB bootloader code and get it cranking.
It's got three leds, a 16x2 display with the backlight driven from a port pin and transistor (to allow brightness control using a cog timer), a DS1307 with 10,000uF cap providing between 2-3 hours backup and a newly added SD socket (for some stuff OBC has been asking for). It allows me to do proper development and testing at 38,000 feet without having to worry about my prop-plug or other power sources.
@rokicki your fsrw code is a stroke of brilliance (I've only just seen it work the first time an hour ago)
@Mike Green your various basic variations (particularly those that allow save and load to SD) are just fantastic. They allow very easy testing of the various bits and pieces of the hodge-podge hardware I've been playing with.
Cheers lads!
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Pull my finger!
It certainly violates most of the USB specs. It causes the odd overcurrent error when plugged in. It has a USB HID bootloader built into it, and an undocumented feature of bst on Linux and Windows is it will automatically detect and download to the board over the USB port if you manually reset into the bootloader first. Once I've got it properly working on OSX I'll release the USB bootloader code and get it cranking.
It's got three leds, a 16x2 display with the backlight driven from a port pin and transistor (to allow brightness control using a cog timer), a DS1307 with 10,000uF cap providing between 2-3 hours backup and a newly added SD socket (for some stuff OBC has been asking for). It allows me to do proper development and testing at 38,000 feet without having to worry about my prop-plug or other power sources.
@rokicki your fsrw code is a stroke of brilliance (I've only just seen it work the first time an hour ago)
@Mike Green your various basic variations (particularly those that allow save and load to SD) are just fantastic. They allow very easy testing of the various bits and pieces of the hodge-podge hardware I've been playing with.
Cheers lads!
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Pull my finger!
2816 x 2112 - 902K
Comments
Ever have any issues boarding the plane with this?
(The Protoboard was featured as a bomb on TV recently.)
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Getting started with a Propeller Protoboard?
Check out: Introduction to the Proboard & Propeller Cookbook 1.4
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card connected? - PropDOS
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What electronics need - MORE POWER!!!!!!!
OBC
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New to the Propeller?
Getting started with a Propeller Protoboard?
Check out: Introduction to the Proboard & Propeller Cookbook 1.4
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card connected? - PropDOS
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Timothy D. Swieter, E.I.
www.brilldea.com - Prop Blade, LED Painter, RGB LEDs, uOLED-IOC, eProto for SunSPOT, BitScope
www.tdswieter.com
It's actually got one in addition to the cap being powered in series with a green 3mm led (to indicate charge current and drop the peak voltage somewhat). It takes about a minute and a half to charge that cap. It's the servo power cap that causes the USB overcurrent spike.
@Tim, you have half an amp! How much current do you need?!? Even with all the leds turned on, 8 cogs running, the LCD backlight and an SD card operating the thing only gets to about 250mA. I try and conserve power as it eats a considerable portion of my laptop battery budget when its all lit up.
@OBC, No problems with planes. The USB cable is 2.5M long and wraps up neatly into a little spool. The whole lot pops into a lunch box about the size of the board with the lid held on with PVC tape. As there is no organic material mass, most screeners recognise it as a bundle of electronics. The times I have been asked I just said it was a prototype USB security device and was waved on through.
I did forget it has a Dallas DS18S20 on it also.
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Pull my finger!