Now, I am more anxious to receive mine soon..hopefully you haven't forgotten the guys north of the 49th parallel (Canada).
Thanks for sharing us the images however, the circuit diagram (schematic as I undestand) would be nice as well. I know it is probably based on the normal Parallal Propeller basic diagram.
Riz, according to my "log", yours has shipped already. It usually takes a good week or more to get to Canada, based on past experiences... Let me know if it's not there in 4 or 5 days...
Great to hear, Whit!
Rich, just FYI, I sent that "thing" you wanted along with your boards, to your email. Let me know if you can open it or not.
Well... I'm having trouble with "it." My software is a prior version, which can't open it and the FTP site for the new version just sits there and stares at me.
Not to worry... I have no time right now anyway[noparse]:)[/noparse]
There is a 6 Pin female header to the left of the power plug. When I apply power and measure voltage relative to Prop ground... I get 5.0V on the inside row and 7.67V on the outside row. This is a board that came complete except for the video, with no Prop Chip or EEPROM added yet.
Is this ok?
Rich, yes that is correct. If you look at the original post, I updated it with a schematic of everything on the board. The outside row is the input voltage access, and the row below that is from the 5V regulator to power 5V devices. The female headers are 3 holes for each voltage, and then a 4th hole in the board to be able to solder a wire from each voltage for a more permanent solution, should the need arise. So, yes, those voltages sound correct, however, 7.67V is probably a little on the low side(but should work fine), for an input voltage. My walwarts are usually 12V and I have no problems.
Hey guys got my boards very nice, I am quite pleased but does anyone have any docs at all I desperatly need the pinouts for any of the connections??? I dont have anyhting I dont even know the pinout for the edge connector
any help would be really appreciated,,, Duh found the silkscreen photo on first page with some pinouts.
anyone have anyhting else they want to share. ??? Phil very kindly sent me an extra accel chip he configured anyone have the pinout or any example programs, thanks
Phill, I hope the 2 gyro's I sent you show up Mon or Tue. Been playing with Nunchuck knockoff. I think I should get one of your boards. Keep frying prop chips! Also, do you know anything about i2c programming ?
Earl in New Mexico
In a PM, you mentioned possibly re-configuring the board. So, once everyone gets their boards, this would be a good place for
feedback.
My first impression was... "Geez golly, look at the size of those pads, how am I going to solder this?" And then I found that
a quarter inch of solder on the end of my solder gun worked like a charm. In fact, I am now inspired. It looks like you
soldered the SMTs by hand. If you would use the same size pads for the SMTs, I think you could avoid any soldering on your end[noparse]:)[/noparse] This would also allow for additional choices when it comes to powering the board.
If you would move the bottom left mounting hole over next to the capacitor, you would then have enough room for all of the pins... which would be good for some parallel processing applications. For example, right now it would be a little tough to use
Chip's PropLoader.
You mentioned moving all of the plugs over to the same side of the board... that is fine with me, but where they are is also ok.
It looks to me that if you do move the power plug, you would have enough room for a microSD card in same area the power plug is moving out of[noparse]:)[/noparse]... but when I look at your circuit, it looks like you would have to have a two layer board:?
This has nothing to do with your design... it relates to how I'm trying to use your board. I have about 3.9 Volts coming from a Sparkfun breakout board for a GM862. I am feeding the Sparkfun board 7.2Volts at 0.8amps. If I take the 3.9 volts and ground directly into pins two and one on the left side of your board...everything works fine. The Prop seems to tolerate this kind of abuse indefinitely.
But being the considerate sort, I thought my Prop would actually be happier with the 3.2 Volts it gets if I plug +V into the 5V access port... but it isn't. The Prop seems to accept instructions from the Spin Tool... and then just sits there...
Am I trying to do something your board won't do.... or do I just need more current from my walwart?
I received my boards this morning (at my office) ...can't wait to go home and get on with it. My first impression is that this was worth waiting for...
rj0_,
Can you elaborate on what you meant about Chip's Proploader....I missed this one... is this a hardware?
Thanks again Phil for coming out with this board....and hey, I will be waiting what is upcoming from the design room.
Actually I was less than helpful. The object is called PropellerLoader and
can be found here[noparse]:http:[/noparse]//obex.parallax.com/objects/61/
With this object, you can load a binary file(created in the Propeller Tool) onto another
Propeller... Your program loads directly into RAM and starts... very slick. The object has complete instructions and is very easy to use. This means that you can get away without an EEPROM and a programming port if you really want to!!! It requires two pins on each Prop.
There are several threads in the Propeller forum about parallel processing. Most of them
use the Propellerloader. Lots of info is available, including timing, clocking etc.
Mike Green's femtobasic and Oldbit's PropDos have the capacity to load a program into
RAM from an SD card.
The only thing missing is the ability to load a program directly into the EEPROM from an
SD card. This is possible using code built into your program and would be largely the same kind of logic as in the PropellerLoader.
I just spent soem time tracing the board and after comparing it with your pictorial Board schematic, I came up with following (my assumptions)
1. I/O pins P#0 to P#27 were brought out to the headers
2. For the Video circuit, I/O pins P#20, P#21, and P#22 were connected to 1.1k, 560 and 220 ohm respectively to the Video Out.
3. For the Audio circuit, I/O P#23 connected to a 220 ohm in series with the 10uf to the Audio out
4. For the PS2 , I/O Pins P#26 and P#27 are used for the Keyboard circuit. However, it looks like you doubled the value of the resistor combinations to that used in the Demo/Proto board. You used a 220/20K combination as opposed to 100/10K ohms.
5. Finally, you also doubled the value of the resistor in the EEPROM circuit using a 20K instead of the 10K
I don't question the values. All I want is some confirmation that the I/O pins are what I stated above. I always make NOTES of the circuits / projects , etc. that I use.
Thanks again Phil for coming up and sharing this project!
Post Edited (RizThomas) : 3/18/2009 6:17:49 AM GMT
Riz, that is all 100% correct. Nice job! The values are doubled because once again, futurlec screwed up on sending so.me of the correct resistors, so, I used what I had on hand. The 20K resistors are just pull ups, so, doubling or tripling the values won't make any difference. They will work fine. As for the 220 vs. 100 ohm, again, what I had on hand. These are merely current limiting resistors to interface between the 5V and 3.3V logic. Since I used a 20K for the pull-up, the resistor ratio(voltage divider) produces the same high and low logic levels, so again, not a problem. I recently updated the first post with a schematic of the board, detailing the parts, in case you were looking for some kind of documentation. Thanks again guys for ordering a board! I love mine, and I couldn't have gotten it made at that price without you guys, so really, thank you.
I'm having a minor issue with my parallax keyboard... I've tried this on two different Propboards and the results are roughly the same...
The keyboard lights up... but the lights flash. The keyboard demo fails. I have the right pin assignments. There is a slight difference ... one board is almost on... and the other is mostly off. I'm guessing that this is related to the comments by Riz?
By the way... the video is rock solid and I haven't had any other issues.
I'm using PropDos as a file loader for my ProPPhone, and PropDos uses only the lower pin in the pin-group to initialize the keyboard object...
If I use the board as it is, I would have to modify the keyboard object every time Oldbit puts out a new version or swap out my own keyboard object, which potentially creates problems for people that might want to play with the ProPPhone.
I can use the PropBoard for other projects. So, it is no big deal, but if I can disconnect and reconnect some wires to fix this, I'd prefer it. The form factor and overall functionality are great.
Nope, sorry, Rich. There isn't a way to swap the clock and data pins in hardware. I spent alot of time trying to route things like that the best way I could, using a single sided board. In the end, I didn't think that another jumper wire was worth having the pins swapped in the normal fashion, but I guess I didn't realize the trouble it would cause... If I do another version, that is definately one thing that will be "fixed" since it will be a double sided board.
I've managed to fix the problem by taking the two jumpers off and connecting the male pins in a cross fashion.
I'm still having problems with the keyboard on one of my boards, which you soldered for me... There were two places where the copper wasn't exposed at the mounting hole and the solder just collected on the part being soldered. Sort of hanging there above the board. One was on one of the traces related to the keyboard... the other on one of the large capacitors pins.
I think I fixed it...but the keyboard still doesn't work. Still looking at it.
This is a photo of ProPPhone... I wish I had taken a photo of my previous set-up to show the improvement of the total number
of wires and general messiness of it before... would have made a great before/after pic.
I soldered the male connector into the connector on the left side of the PropBoard1. Notice how nicely it fits into the breadboard.
On vers. 2 you might want to put the power and ground so that they fit right in to the usual place on the breadboard...
This will allow you to expose all of the pins on the left header and make it pin compatible with Parallax's breadboards.
Quick fix in switching the P26/P27 for Data/Clock lines on the board.
---I looked at the trace from pins 26/27 and it shows the tract from these pins are both in parallel (closely) going to their respective 100ohm resistors.
--- Just cut these 2 tracts in half and use a small wire (I use wire wrapping types in my projects) and do an "X" wiring between pins 26/27 to the resistors. This will bring pin 26 to DATA and pin 27 to CLOCK of the PS2 socket.
BE WARNED! THE ORDER for ·PIN 26/27 at the Header WILL BE SWITCHED IF YOU DO THIS...SO CORRECT THAT PART AS WELL BY MAKING ANOTHER "X" FROM THE RESISTORS TRACT TO THE HEADER..in my case, I did another "X" near the header pins (pins 26 and 27)...if you trace, you will know what I mean.
Wire Wrapping type of wires are used a lot to correct some minor tracts problems in PCBs.
BTW: I also changed the values of the resistors back to 100/10K ( I have abundance of these in my parts bin) and since this board will be in my workbench for a while, I also replaced the sockets to "round-machined gold pin" type of sockets for the Prop and i2c.
One board is using the same headers as Phil used (which is very stable once plugged into the breadboard)
Another, I use again a "round -machine gold pin" type of headers -- also from my bins. But these pins are not as long as the one Phil used...however, it does not put a lot of strain on the breadboard...
Great work Phil!
Post Edited (RizThomas) : 3/21/2009 4:12:10 PM GMT
Comments
Now, I am more anxious to receive mine soon..hopefully you haven't forgotten the guys north of the 49th parallel (Canada).
Thanks for sharing us the images however, the circuit diagram (schematic as I undestand) would be nice as well. I know it is probably based on the normal Parallal Propeller basic diagram.
Thanks again!
RizThomas
I have to admit... I was beginning to doubt you. I got my package today. The boards are beautiful.
Sign me up for whatever you want to do next.
Rich
These would not be for resale... and I probably won't order them right away.
Rich
Great to hear, Whit!
Rich, just FYI, I sent that "thing" you wanted along with your boards, to your email. Let me know if you can open it or not.
Thanks again guys!
Not to worry... I have no time right now anyway[noparse]:)[/noparse]
Tom Perkins
There is a 6 Pin female header to the left of the power plug. When I apply power and measure voltage relative to Prop ground... I get 5.0V on the inside row and 7.67V on the outside row. This is a board that came complete except for the video, with no Prop Chip or EEPROM added yet.
Is this ok?
Rich
Thanks
Rich
any help would be really appreciated,,, Duh found the silkscreen photo on first page with some pinouts.
anyone have anyhting else they want to share. ??? Phil very kindly sent me an extra accel chip he configured anyone have the pinout or any example programs, thanks
Post Edited (mikediv) : 3/15/2009 11:40:22 PM GMT
Earl in New Mexico
In a PM, you mentioned possibly re-configuring the board. So, once everyone gets their boards, this would be a good place for
feedback.
My first impression was... "Geez golly, look at the size of those pads, how am I going to solder this?" And then I found that
a quarter inch of solder on the end of my solder gun worked like a charm. In fact, I am now inspired. It looks like you
soldered the SMTs by hand. If you would use the same size pads for the SMTs, I think you could avoid any soldering on your end[noparse]:)[/noparse] This would also allow for additional choices when it comes to powering the board.
If you would move the bottom left mounting hole over next to the capacitor, you would then have enough room for all of the pins... which would be good for some parallel processing applications. For example, right now it would be a little tough to use
Chip's PropLoader.
You mentioned moving all of the plugs over to the same side of the board... that is fine with me, but where they are is also ok.
It looks to me that if you do move the power plug, you would have enough room for a microSD card in same area the power plug is moving out of[noparse]:)[/noparse]... but when I look at your circuit, it looks like you would have to have a two layer board:?
Very nice board.
Rich
This has nothing to do with your design... it relates to how I'm trying to use your board. I have about 3.9 Volts coming from a Sparkfun breakout board for a GM862. I am feeding the Sparkfun board 7.2Volts at 0.8amps. If I take the 3.9 volts and ground directly into pins two and one on the left side of your board...everything works fine. The Prop seems to tolerate this kind of abuse indefinitely.
But being the considerate sort, I thought my Prop would actually be happier with the 3.2 Volts it gets if I plug +V into the 5V access port... but it isn't. The Prop seems to accept instructions from the Spin Tool... and then just sits there...
Am I trying to do something your board won't do.... or do I just need more current from my walwart?
Rich
I received my boards this morning (at my office) ...can't wait to go home and get on with it. My first impression is that this was worth waiting for...
rj0_,
Can you elaborate on what you meant about Chip's Proploader....I missed this one... is this a hardware?
Thanks again Phil for coming out with this board....and hey, I will be waiting what is upcoming from the design room.
Riz
Actually I was less than helpful. The object is called PropellerLoader and
can be found here[noparse]:http:[/noparse]//obex.parallax.com/objects/61/
With this object, you can load a binary file(created in the Propeller Tool) onto another
Propeller... Your program loads directly into RAM and starts... very slick. The object has complete instructions and is very easy to use. This means that you can get away without an EEPROM and a programming port if you really want to!!! It requires two pins on each Prop.
There are several threads in the Propeller forum about parallel processing. Most of them
use the Propellerloader. Lots of info is available, including timing, clocking etc.
Mike Green's femtobasic and Oldbit's PropDos have the capacity to load a program into
RAM from an SD card.
The only thing missing is the ability to load a program directly into the EEPROM from an
SD card. This is possible using code built into your program and would be largely the same kind of logic as in the PropellerLoader.
Rich
Post Edited (rjo_) : 3/17/2009 11:23:11 PM GMT
THANK YOU... this is quite a big help ...I am also preparing a SD Card with this board from Phil...
Riz
I just spent soem time tracing the board and after comparing it with your pictorial Board schematic, I came up with following (my assumptions)
1. I/O pins P#0 to P#27 were brought out to the headers
2. For the Video circuit, I/O pins P#20, P#21, and P#22 were connected to 1.1k, 560 and 220 ohm respectively to the Video Out.
3. For the Audio circuit, I/O P#23 connected to a 220 ohm in series with the 10uf to the Audio out
4. For the PS2 , I/O Pins P#26 and P#27 are used for the Keyboard circuit. However, it looks like you doubled the value of the resistor combinations to that used in the Demo/Proto board. You used a 220/20K combination as opposed to 100/10K ohms.
5. Finally, you also doubled the value of the resistor in the EEPROM circuit using a 20K instead of the 10K
I don't question the values. All I want is some confirmation that the I/O pins are what I stated above. I always make NOTES of the circuits / projects , etc. that I use.
Thanks again Phil for coming up and sharing this project!
Post Edited (RizThomas) : 3/18/2009 6:17:49 AM GMT
I'm having a minor issue with my parallax keyboard... I've tried this on two different Propboards and the results are roughly the same...
The keyboard lights up... but the lights flash. The keyboard demo fails. I have the right pin assignments. There is a slight difference ... one board is almost on... and the other is mostly off. I'm guessing that this is related to the comments by Riz?
By the way... the video is rock solid and I haven't had any other issues.
Rich
I've only tried 2.
Is there a hardware fix for this?
I'm using PropDos as a file loader for my ProPPhone, and PropDos uses only the lower pin in the pin-group to initialize the keyboard object...
If I use the board as it is, I would have to modify the keyboard object every time Oldbit puts out a new version or swap out my own keyboard object, which potentially creates problems for people that might want to play with the ProPPhone.
I can use the PropBoard for other projects. So, it is no big deal, but if I can disconnect and reconnect some wires to fix this, I'd prefer it. The form factor and overall functionality are great.
Thanks,
Rich
Post Edited (rjo_) : 3/19/2009 3:13:47 AM GMT
I've managed to fix the problem by taking the two jumpers off and connecting the male pins in a cross fashion.
I'm still having problems with the keyboard on one of my boards, which you soldered for me... There were two places where the copper wasn't exposed at the mounting hole and the solder just collected on the part being soldered. Sort of hanging there above the board. One was on one of the traces related to the keyboard... the other on one of the large capacitors pins.
I think I fixed it...but the keyboard still doesn't work. Still looking at it.
Rich
This is a photo of ProPPhone... I wish I had taken a photo of my previous set-up to show the improvement of the total number
of wires and general messiness of it before... would have made a great before/after pic.
I soldered the male connector into the connector on the left side of the PropBoard1. Notice how nicely it fits into the breadboard.
On vers. 2 you might want to put the power and ground so that they fit right in to the usual place on the breadboard...
This will allow you to expose all of the pins on the left header and make it pin compatible with Parallax's breadboards.
Great board!
Rich
Quick fix in switching the P26/P27 for Data/Clock lines on the board.
---I looked at the trace from pins 26/27 and it shows the tract from these pins are both in parallel (closely) going to their respective 100ohm resistors.
--- Just cut these 2 tracts in half and use a small wire (I use wire wrapping types in my projects) and do an "X" wiring between pins 26/27 to the resistors. This will bring pin 26 to DATA and pin 27 to CLOCK of the PS2 socket.
BE WARNED! THE ORDER for ·PIN 26/27 at the Header WILL BE SWITCHED IF YOU DO THIS...SO CORRECT THAT PART AS WELL BY MAKING ANOTHER "X" FROM THE RESISTORS TRACT TO THE HEADER..in my case, I did another "X" near the header pins (pins 26 and 27)...if you trace, you will know what I mean.
Wire Wrapping type of wires are used a lot to correct some minor tracts problems in PCBs.
BTW: I also changed the values of the resistors back to 100/10K ( I have abundance of these in my parts bin) and since this board will be in my workbench for a while, I also replaced the sockets to "round-machined gold pin" type of sockets for the Prop and i2c.
One board is using the same headers as Phil used (which is very stable once plugged into the breadboard)
Another, I use again a "round -machine gold pin" type of headers -- also from my bins. But these pins are not as long as the one Phil used...however, it does not put a lot of strain on the breadboard...
Great work Phil!
Post Edited (RizThomas) : 3/21/2009 4:12:10 PM GMT