Preliminary documentation for creating custom PropScope Firmware

David Carrier

I have attached an early release of the documentation for creating custom PropScope firmware. All of the files can be opened and edited with either OpenOffice or Inkscape. The documentation describes all of the connections between the Propeller Microcontroller and all of the other components. It gives all of the information needed to set the input modes, clock and sample the ADC, send data out the USB port, use the EEPROM, and use expansion cards.

The documentation is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. it is not yet completed, it has not been proofed or formated, and it desperately needs some tables to describe the various modes of the PropScope and the PropScope DAC Card. The schematics also need to be integrated into the document. I wasn't planning on going much more in depth, but if anyone feels there is any aspect that needs more explaining, please let me know and I'll see what I can add.

— David Carrier

Edit: Uploaded version 0.9; the text is generally the same, but it includes formating. It does not yet include the diagrams and schematics. They will be integrated for the 1.0 release.

Post Edited (David Carrier (Parallax)) : 2/8/2010 6:24:24 PM GMT

BradC

David, great document with lots of detail, and I _especially_ like that you've used open formats for the documents.

One thing that might be worth mentioning is that the FTDI device is programmed with a vendor specific VID/PID pair, and therefore won't be recognised in Linux or OSX without a bit of jiggery pokery of the drivers (I have not looked into how to even do it on OSX yet, but I have it working in Linux - I'll push a patch upstream to the kernel in the new year to get it fixed).

I love the calibration values stored in EEPROM. Have you seen much a of a tolerance spread as you've been calibrating the boards?

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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.

Andrey Demenev

This will only become really useful when (if?) the communication protocol is disclosed

Hanno

Communication protocol is coming soon. Just too much going on right before Christmas- should have some time in next 2 weeks to finish it of.
Hanno

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Co-author of the official Propeller Guide- available at Amazon
Developer of ViewPort, the premier visual debugger for the Propeller (read the review here, thread here),
12Blocks, the block-based programming environment (thread here)
and PropScope, the multi-function USB oscilloscope/function generator/logic analyzer

mikediv

guys aside from the one word document what are you guys using to read the schematics ?? I can not seem to be able to open them I tried downloading open office but no luck I would like to see the scehmatics

Andrey Demenev

Inkscape - David did mention it in his post

ilovepi

BradC, I'd assume you'd want to use libFTDI to talk to the Propeller rather than making the kernel treat it as a serial port. As for OS X, modifying the Info.plist file in the FTDI serial driver works as you'd expect.

BradC

ilovepi said...
BradC, I'd assume you'd want to use libFTDI to talk to the Propeller rather than making the kernel treat it as a serial port. As for OS X, modifying the Info.plist file in the FTDI serial driver works as you'd expect.

Why would I want to do that? I'd want to keep it looking like a serial port to provide a uniform interface across all the platforms. It's a simple kernel patch to get the ftdi to pick up the new VID/PID pair, and I see someone else already figured it out on the Mac.

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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.

Drone

Would it be possible for someone to post the preliminary docs and schematics (including the DAC board) in jpg or pdf format. Inkscape in-particular is a 40MB download, a long haul in my country.

Thanks, David

Andrey Demenev

Here you go

hover1

Andrey beat me to it!!

Drone

Andre and Hover1, Many thanks for replys...

We can see all now in pdf, very interesting. This should probably be moved (copied with link) to the new PropScope forum. But we can't do it as users (David Carrier can?).

Regards, David

mikediv

awesome, now that was helpful. I went through the pain of downloading Inkscape but I still could not read the schematics the PDF was most useful

BradC

Hanno said...
Communication protocol is coming soon. Just too much going on right before Christmas- should have some time in next 2 weeks to finish it of.

How's the document coming?

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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.

Hanno

Here is v0.8...
Hanno

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Co-author of the official Propeller Guide- available at Amazon
Developer of ViewPort, the premier visual debugger for the Propeller (read the review here, thread here),
12Blocks, the block-based programming environment (thread here)
and PropScope, the multi-function USB oscilloscope/function generator/logic analyzer

Ken Gracey

Hanno, is there supposed to be an attachment to your post?

I think you overlooked that part on accident.

Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.

Edit: I missed the fact that Hanno's download is linked to his text. Darned forum software fooled my eyes. Remember to hover over text in this forum software to find links.

Post Edited (Ken Gracey (Parallax)) : 2/8/2010 5:23:33 PM GMT

BradC

Ken Gracey (Parallax) said...

Edit: I missed the fact that Hanno's download is linked to his text. Darned forum software fooled my eyes. Remember to hover over text in this forum software to find links.

I'm glad it's not just me that gets caught with that constantly. Turns out it's easier to see if you don't have the "Parallax" theme for the forums, but still often gets overlooked.

Hanno, that's a good start, thanks. How flexible is the auto-baud on the serial line? I mean what range of baud rates might it work with?

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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.

Hanno

Hi Brad,
It should work for 115kbaud, 1mbaud and 2mbaud.

Sorry for the difficult to see link, next time I'll just use the plain "[noparse][[/noparse]url]" tag...
Hanno

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Co-author of the official Propeller Guide- available at Amazon
Developer of ViewPort, the premier visual debugger for the Propeller (read the review here, thread here),
12Blocks, the block-based programming environment (thread here)
and PropScope, the multi-function USB oscilloscope/function generator/logic analyzer

BradC

Hanno said...
Hi Brad,
It should work for 115kbaud, 1mbaud and 2mbaud.

Sweet...

Hanno said...

Sorry for the difficult to see link, next time I'll just use the plain "[noparse][[/noparse]url]" tag...

I picked it pretty quickly, but the Parallax forum theme makes in-line links a very similar colour to normal text.

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Life may be "too short", but it's the longest thing we ever do.

DanS

In the next rev of PropScope you should use a switch or option jumpers on the Write Protect pin of the 24wc128, So we don't inadvertently overwrite our PropScope's firmware.

hover1

Where's your sense of adventure!

Not to worry. The firmware gets downloaded every time you open the PropScope software.

Jim

DanS said...
In the next rev of PropScope you should use a switch or option jumpers on the Write Protect pin of the 24wc128, So we don't inadvertently overwrite our PropScope's firmware.

blittled

Is there an error in the Propscope Firmware Specifications? Under "Reading from the LTC2286 ADC" it mentions that CTRA should be set to $20_00_00_1A. According to the manual that states that CTRA is set up for POS detection on pin 26. Shouldn't it be $10_00_00_1A which sets up an NCO on pin 26? If that is true then the reference to $24_00_1B_1A (POSEDGE Detection) for reading each ADC should also be changed to $14_00_1B_1A (NCO Differential).

jditte

Is there an updated version of the documentation of the communication protocol available? It looks like it doesn't apply to the current firmware version anymore.

Clock Loop

I could use any updated info as well.