I somehow read that the $200 offer for the A7 was backed, and now Parallax is offering A9's for $400. My previous posts refer to the $200 offer. If the price is $400, then I have to decline. I recognize that the boards are still given, but my pockets don't go as deep, unfortunately.
The A7's will still be available, but in a few weeks time.
They're being fixed (known minor pullup required, some ws2812 leds replaced) and 'latitude tested'.
You mean pull-down, right?
I think one of the pads adjacent to the A1 pin is actually ground. If you could get in there, it might be possible to slip an 04O2 resistor in. I don't think I could do that, but I suspect you might be able to.
Definitely I would be interested in having the FPGA loaded with the core for the P2, provided that we have a fully functional, 16 core equivalent. Is that the case? All 16 cores included?
The A7 is able to fit only a subset of a complete P2 + Pins, otherwise there was no need to move to the A9
There was a comment a while back on what fitted, but that could have changed with more recent builds.
Yes, pulldown. Actually I think all 3 neighboring balls are gnd.
The 0402 thing would probably work, if you could get and iron under there reliably.
Do you have a hot-air pencil. Maybe some flux, an 0402, and some fine stream of hot air would do it. You'd need one of those fiber-optic cameras to see if it worked out.
Do you have a hot-air pencil. Maybe some flux, an 0402, and some fine stream of hot air would do it. You'd need one of those fiber-optic cameras to see if it worked out.
The risk of a short would seem high ?
The external resistor has a convenient GND area to anchor one end to.
May not be as invisible as 'buried 0402', but it is a lower risk path, & who cares about invisible ?
to repair smd I use old fashioned solder paste (lower melting point). I would try it this way: bring some solder past to the tips of the resistor to insert and have them dried, so the flux becomes solid. Place those prepared smd to the target place and reflow with an air gun. (not like this one: thinkgeek.com/product/60b6/
The thing about the wire is you can always pull it out, as required, or if its made good contact you can leave it in and work with the other end where everything's easier
One idea I had today though, might be to use a 4 resistor resnet, soldering 1 end resistor in, but still being able to pull the slab out from the other end.
Once the batch of A7 boards turn up I'll get a feel for the range of heights. My A7 was about 0.5mm above the PCB, but there might be a bit of variation. 0.5mm really limits what you can do
Definitely I would be interested in having the FPGA loaded with the core for the P2, provided that we have a fully functional, 16 core equivalent. Is that the case? All 16 cores included?
The A7 is able to fit only a subset of a complete P2 + Pins, otherwise there was no need to move to the A9
There was a comment a while back on what fitted, but that could have changed with more recent builds.
Thanks, jmg! I'm not exactly interested in the sheer number of pins, nor if they are smart. I would be interested in the processing capability, which is hopefully far more than a P1. If I can fit 16 cores, or even if not but nevertheless they are significantly faster, I'm satisfied. I'm planning to use this for VGA applications and power processing. Hence my prime number calculation experiment.
We'll leave the test code installed and running on the A7's. The test code will either be running on top of a P1V, or a P2, depending on where Chip's images are at by then. That'll save using PX.EXE which might be an issue with other operating systems (but probably not)
If I remember correctly, in April ten or so of us signed to purchase some flavor of FPGA board (see the beginning of this thread).
Then it was discovered that they needed to go somewhere (in the southern hemisphere, perhaps) to have rework done (see the middle of this thread).
Then the thread died (see near the end of this thread).
I think twm was trying to find out if anything ever actually happened. I would like to know as well.
If I remember correctly, in April ten or so of us signed to purchase some flavor of FPGA board (see the beginning of this thread).
Then it was discovered that they needed to go somewhere (in the southern hemisphere, perhaps) to have rework done (see the middle of this thread).
Then the thread died (see near the end of this thread).
I think twm was trying to find out if anything ever actually happened. I would like to know as well.
That was Tubular that was going to (and did!) rework those boards whose PLL's didn't work. All done now. I think he's got 18 of them. If you are interested, one might be yours.
"All done now" is a bit of an exaggeration. Right now we're at 10 14 operational.
We had to change the earlier 0603 technique a bit, but I'm confident well get to at least 13, perhaps 17 operational. One board 'hiccups' and I don't hold much hope for it
Comments
They're being fixed (known minor pullupdown required, some ws2812 leds replaced) and 'latitude tested'.
You mean pull-down, right?
I think one of the pads adjacent to the A1 pin is actually ground. If you could get in there, it might be possible to slip an 04O2 resistor in. I don't think I could do that, but I suspect you might be able to.
The 0402 thing would probably work, if you could get and iron under there reliably.
There was a comment a while back on what fitted, but that could have changed with more recent builds.
Do you have a hot-air pencil. Maybe some flux, an 0402, and some fine stream of hot air would do it. You'd need one of those fiber-optic cameras to see if it worked out.
The risk of a short would seem high ?
The external resistor has a convenient GND area to anchor one end to.
May not be as invisible as 'buried 0402', but it is a lower risk path, & who cares about invisible ?
One idea I had today though, might be to use a 4 resistor resnet, soldering 1 end resistor in, but still being able to pull the slab out from the other end.
Once the batch of A7 boards turn up I'll get a feel for the range of heights. My A7 was about 0.5mm above the PCB, but there might be a bit of variation. 0.5mm really limits what you can do
Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço
PX is ported - http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/162989/lazarus-port-of-px
Have you had a chance to run it with an A7 or A9, Evanh?
Thanks
Tom
The WS2812 leds work nicely as a real-time test
Looks like get 8 cogs and full 512kB of RAM w/A7 and latest build.
Then it was discovered that they needed to go somewhere (in the southern hemisphere, perhaps) to have rework done (see the middle of this thread).
Then the thread died (see near the end of this thread).
I think twm was trying to find out if anything ever actually happened. I would like to know as well.
That was Tubular that was going to (and did!) rework those boards whose PLL's didn't work. All done now. I think he's got 18 of them. If you are interested, one might be yours.
We had to change the earlier 0603 technique a bit, but I'm confident well get to at least 13, perhaps 17 operational. One board 'hiccups' and I don't hold much hope for it
Its free DHL shipping, for Smorgasboard alumni...