Need help with sd card

Ravenkallen

Hey, guys. I was wondering if anybody knows a really simple demo program to read and write from a uSD card. I am going to use the·uSD adapter that Parallax sells(i have to wait for it to come through the mail). I tried looking at some of the sd objects and they look kinda difficult. FAT-16 and all that lingo can drive you nuts. ANYway, if anybody knows a demo please share.

Cluso99

I can think of 3

* FemtoBasic has them in seperate routines
* fsrw2.6
* Kye did some routines that should be really well documented

ZiCog was (is?) using fsrw2.6 and previously used FemtoBasic
PropDos & PropCmd uses FemtoBasic

Sphinx uses it's own version and may have a corruption bug?

PropDos, PropCmd & Sphinx are a sort of O/S for the prop, so you should look at these.

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz

Post Edited (Cluso99) : 4/21/2010 3:22:13 PM GMT

Leon

I didn't have any problems getting fsrw2.6 to work with a simple home-made SD card PCB mounted on a Proto board.

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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM

Ravenkallen

Thanks for the quick reply. Do you guys have some links to the things you are talking about.

Ravenkallen

I wonder if it is possible to hook up a sd card without the card holder? Could one just carefully solder on wires or do you need external components?

Leon

I've just tested some code that uses fsrw2.3 on my Proto board. You can download the archive from here:

www.leonheller.com/Propeller/test%20-%20Archive%20%20%5BDate%202010.04.21%20%20Time%2018.12%5D.zip

The other code I have is for a different board, and uses VGA. The above should get you started, anyway. It's very easy to use as it writes stuff to the PC via the Prop Plug, as it runs the tests, which you see with the Parallax Serial Terminal software.

I've heard of people soldering directly to the card contacts, so you could try it. If you put it in one of the adapters that are often supplied with them and solder to that, you'll still be able to use it when you get your PCB. I have a 10k pullup on CS (11).

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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM

Post Edited (Leon) : 4/21/2010 7:38:04 PM GMT

MagIO2

Don't you have an old card reader?

Rayman

If you have something like Hyperterminal, you can use this YMODEM code to look at your SD card...

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=718391

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WBA Consulting

Here's how I started with my uSD card adapter:

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=843250

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Andrew Williams
WBA Consulting
WBA-TH1M Sensirion SHT11 Module
Special Olympics Polar Bear Plunge, Mar 20, 2010

ElectricAye

Ravenkallen said...
Thanks for the quick reply. Do you guys have some links to the things you are talking about.

In general, objects are stored in the Object Exchange, aka OBEX.

obex.parallax.com/

obex.parallax.com/objects/92/


obex.parallax.com/objects/28/

Rayman

Ravenkallen said...
I wonder if it is possible to hook up a sd card without the card holder? Could one just carefully solder on wires or do you need external components?

Check out this photo:
http://www.rayslogic.com/propeller/Programming/SD_Card/uSD_direct.jpg

There, I soldered (carefully) onto the SD adapter that my uSD came with...



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Cluso99

Some of the links are in my signature.

A very simple way to add an SD card is to buy the SD to microSD adapter and glue and solder the SD adapter to the pcb. A 10K pullup is required on the -CS pin. You may get away without the pullups on the other 3 pins. Place a cap across the power supply pins (1uF Tant may do)

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz

Ravenkallen

Hey, thanks guys for the help.

Magio2..... No i do not have a card reader. I am new to sd cards.

WBA consulting...... Thanks for the demo. It looks like the easiest one that i have seen yet. I just don't get the whole "Root directory" thing or the "append file" thing. I wish the protocol was more like i2c, cause that is really easy to use. I2c may be slow and have limited address space, but it works great. So the demo will work just by hooking up the sd card the right way? Do you need to format it or something?

Electricaye..... I checked out the femto basis thing and i think that it would take a lot of work to figure out( Correct me if i am wrong).

Rayman..... That is cool. So you just soldered wires onto the adapter. Looks easy enough.

Leon..... Thanks for the bit about the 10k resistor. Is that the only one you used? And you said it was a pullup?

Leon

I just used the one pullup, as Cluso99 does. It should be all that is needed, although other people seem to have used one on each line. Perhaps older cards needed them.

You will need to format the card first.

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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM

Post Edited (Leon) : 4/22/2010 3:12:55 AM GMT

Rayman

I don't use any pullups anymore and have had zero issues... Bean told me that new SD cards have internal pullups. Also, I've seen a commercial product with no pullups.

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Ravenkallen

So to format the card you will need a card reader or something? Or can you format a card from within a device, like a digital camera? SO do most cards come with a adapter?

Rayman

Yes, you need to format the card with a PC before using it... Well, I suppose a camera could format it too.

The uSD cards used to pretty much always come with an adapter, but lately I see them without an adapter. But, the new PC card readers sometimes have a uSD port...

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My Prop Products:· http://www.rayslogic.com/Propeller/Products/Products.htm

Ravenkallen

So to format a card all you do is stick it in a computer/ Camera and press a format button or something. I have not used sd's yet for anything, could you tell?

Leon

I used a little SD card reader/writer with a USB interface to format the card I used. It was quite cheap. My new laptop has an SD card socket built-in, but I haven't tried it. I'm not sure if a camera will give the right cluster size for the fsrw software, though; it's a bit fussy about that.

BTW, I tried fsrw2.6 yesterday with my hardware, and it worked OK, after I realised that I had to press enter on the PC keyboard to start it. I thought it had a problem, initially, which was puzzling as fsrw2.3 worked straight off. Forget my previous post about the latter, and download fsrw2.6 from the Obex when you want to do some testing.

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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM

Post Edited (Leon) : 4/23/2010 7:19:00 PM GMT

Whit

@Ravenkallen,

Take a look at this. http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-DIY-SD-card-breadboard-socket/

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Whit+


"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

Cluso99

I still use 4 pullups but everyone now seems to be gettig away without them or only the -cs pin.

Windoze is able to format with the uSD card plugged into an adapter of some kind to the pc. My laptop has an SD connector. I also have a uSD to USB tiny plug adapter which also works on the pc. I think most cameras and phones will also format SD/uSD if they use them. Getting your files on them may be more difficult with a camera or phone - I have never gone this route.

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz

localroger

It's a very bad idea to try SD programming on the Prop without another SD reader/writer. You can get an adapter to do this for under USD$10 at places like Office Depot. Put the SD or uSD in it and it becomes a USB drive. Then you can run chkdsk to see if you corrupted it or reformat it if necessary. This can be invaluable when you are trying to figure out why your prop program isn't doing what you expect or you need to fix the mess it made of your filesystem.

Ravenkallen

So i got the sd card adapter from parallax in the mail yesterday. And my sister's computer has a card reader, so i stuck it in there and it said that the device drivers were installed and ready to use. I don't know if that means it is "Formatted" but, i will try to hook it up to the prop and run a demo. If you guys know anything else, please let me know.

Ravenkallen

Okay, i tried the demo and IT WORKS. WHOOO. I still have no idea how to take the code apart and use it in one of my programs , but it worked. YESSSSS. Thank you everybody so much. Like i said before, if you guys/girls still have any info on the file structure and other stuff, please share. Oh, yeah.,This is just the tip of the iceberg, baby. WHOOO

Dave Hein

Whit said...
@Ravenkallen,

Take a look at this. http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-DIY-SD-card-breadboard-socket/

Whit,
That link was very helpful.· I have been wanting to try out the FSRW object for quite a while, but I never got around to getting an SD socket.· I have a few microSD cards, and each one has its own SD adapter socket, so I decided to solder a header to one of them as described in the link.· I was puzzled by the website describing the use of two headers and bending the pins on one of the headers.· I found that it was very simple to file off the extra plastic at the end of the connector and just use·one header that laid flat on the connector fingers.
It only took me about an hour from the time I started soldering the connector to the adapter card to when I ran a successful test using FSRW 2.6.· During that hour I had to find a diagram that showed the SD card pinout, find another diagram that showed how to wire up the four signal pins to the Prop, wire it up on my proto board, download FSRW 2.6 from the OBEX and run it.· BTW, I didn't use any pullup resistors.
Dave