fabricating is easy 1; draw schematic in Kicad 2; route board. 3; send G. files to Osh Park. 3 boards for $5.00/square inch.
I also learned to unzip zipped files.
Autoroute? Looks like it but it doesn't do well with grounds, just connects them up as if they were signals with thin tracks etc. Expect problems.
But nonetheless why don't you just do the boards then test out the software so that you are not juggling not knowing if the bug is in hardware or is it in software?
I didn't realize that it was necessary to learn how to unzip files though. But if there was learning required then PCB design must be thousands of times more.
fabricating is easy 1; draw schematic in Kicad 2; route board. 3; send G. files to Osh Park. 3 boards for $5.00/square inch.
I also learned to unzip zipped files.
Autoroute? Looks like it but it doesn't do well with grounds, just connects them up as if they were signals with thin tracks etc. Expect problems.
But nonetheless why don't you just do the boards then test out the software so that you are not juggling not knowing if the bug is in hardware or is it in software?
I didn't realize that it was necessary to learn how to unzip files though. But if there was learning required then PCB design must be thousands of times more.
See how easy it was! You don’t need to understand anything about electronic design either.
We’ve wasted all those years learning for nothing
[/quote]
...We’ve wasted all those years learning for nothing [/quote]
I feel sorry for you , guys but...you're not alone. Looks like I've wasted mine too and intend to waste some more.
In fact, I am going to waste all of the years that I have left learning. Stupid me.
well it's been awhile since my system failed. I purchased several new chips and rewired the chips. My new test boards are finished and here are the pictures. Now I have no money left and no jobs.
We've all said about all there is to be said and done about all there is to be done, and we have had barely an acknowledgement, let alone you applying and following through. Truthfully, we just don't know if you are "fair dinkum" about getting this running or not. If you were, you would just follow any one, and just one, of the recipes to the letter and within an extremely short time you would have it working. Remember the dead simple binary (so you couldn't mess with it) that I sent you that you haven't even bothered to load up on both units?
I don't know what you are trying to say at the moment though. You've sent through a very poor blurry photo of a mess of boards without even saying anything about whether it works or not, or what does, and what doesn't. Work on taking a better photo (or several different shots with good lighting but no flash) with just a tiny amount of focus (pun) and effort, and then when you can get that right, then apply that same tiny amount of focus and effort into getting your boards right too.
The boards are arduino matrix boards similar in design to a bread board section . Board on the lower left is a power supply producing 5 and 3.3 volts the upper left is the 40 pin DIP chip the supporting circuits(from propeller lab). The upper right board contains the UDN2993 plus a 74HC04 hex inverter for the indicator leds and four switches to act as the auto guider inputs. The lower right is the 4p4cmodular phone connector attached to the hand box . That's all for now.
the auto guider circuit works good and the hand box checks out but have yet to check the serial, will do that today. I don't understand the need for a foot doctor though.
the auto guider circuit works good and the hand box checks out but have yet to check the serial, will do that today. I don't understand the need for a foot doctor though.
(A foot, assumed to be yours, is prominent in your photo.)
the auto guider circuit works good and the hand box checks out but have yet to check the serial, will do that today. I don't understand the need for a foot doctor though.
@bbrien, that sounds great! Hopefully the serial will work OK as well. You may need to tweak a few things in the code once you're able to test it with the telescope. I'm assuming that the sidereal rate will need to be adjusted. Please keep us updated on how things are progressing. You can always PM me if you want to avoid the sarcastic remarks from some of the people that have posted on this thread.
I have 2 serial monitor screen shots for you to look at Dave H. these are taken when I touch the rx wire from the hand box and the second is the tx wire from the hand box. The rx wire from the handbox is not connected. Other than that still no action on the motors. Think mabye a 10K resistor to ground on rx will help.
I would suggest a 10K pull-up resistor to 3.3V instead of a pull-down to ground. Without the resistor the RX line is floating, and when you touch it you add 60 Hz noise to the input pin. If you pull it to ground the serial driver will continuously detect NULL characters, so it's better to pull it up. The mount code does reject characters below ASCII "0" and above ASCII "o", so a NULL doesn't really cause anything to happen, but it's best to avoid it.
Touching the TX wire shouldn't cause a reaction, but the RX wire must be picking up noise from having your hand close to it.
The motors should be working, unless you have a hardware problem. Make sure you are running version dh12 of the mount program. Try typing characters on the mount's console terminal to see if that does something. Measure the voltages on the motor pins. You should see voltages similar to the ones I reported in an earlier post.
I am using DH9 in my hand box and DH12 in the mount and when I power up the system the ra motor starts rotating and if I press any of the four switches in the auto guider circuit the corresponding rotate in the corresponding direction However when I press the direction switches in the hand box there is no movement in the motors. when I check the ser. monitor on the hand box I get a responce like" B 3 SOUTH ".
It's puzzling that you've never gotten the serial link to work between the handbox and the mount. The connection between the two boxes is pretty simple. You just need a common ground between the 2 boxes, and a wire connecting P20 from the handbox to P11 on the mount.
EDIT: I wonder if the P20 pin on the handbox is blown. Can you check the voltage on this pin to see if it is 3.3 Volts? It might also be worth while to try another pin for the TX output. You'll have to change the handbox Spin file to match the pin you are using.
@bbrien and @Dave Hein! - That was a marathon run.
Congratulations on you both seeing it through- lesser mortals might have given up and thrown in the towel- me included... but you both stuck at it to the delicious end!
@bbrien and @Dave Hein! - That was a marathon run.
Congratulations on you both seeing it through- lesser mortals might have given up and thrown in the towel- me included... but you both stuck at it to the delicious end!
Dave
It was a sustained team effort from the start and although it looked hopeless, somebody was bound to eventually score a goal!
I can't say I even know the OPs answer though. It is so terse and vague as if words were an effort.
It was more like a marathon relay race. I just happened to pick up the baton at the end of the race. The code was actually written by Chris Gadd, and I only added some debug prints, and made a few tweaks to it.
One of my jobs in the past was to maintain legacy code, and work with customers to fix problems that they encountered. I basically took the same approach here by asking lots of questions, and trying to interpret the answers from the customers point of view. I would send customers modified code with extra debug prints, and they would send me back log files. I never actually needed to travel to the customer's site.
The final solution was to change the tx pin(20) on the hand box to pin16 because pin 20 was dead. I want to thank everyone who gave assistance on this project. I believe this will be the last project I will attempt. I will leave my last version of the schematic which incorporates a propeller mini, incase someone wants to copy this project.
THANKS AGAIN
The final solution was to change the tx pin(20) on the hand box to pin16 because pin 20 was dead. I want to thank everyone who gave assistance on this project. I believe this will be the last project I will attempt. I will leave my last version of the schematic which incorporates a propeller mini, incase someone wants to copy this project.
THANKS AGAIN
Well, it certainly was an undertaking for you(and all) I'll admit, but, look how much you LEARNED! Glad you got it working. Have fun with it!
Comments
Autoroute? Looks like it but it doesn't do well with grounds, just connects them up as if they were signals with thin tracks etc. Expect problems.
But nonetheless why don't you just do the boards then test out the software so that you are not juggling not knowing if the bug is in hardware or is it in software?
I didn't realize that it was necessary to learn how to unzip files though. But if there was learning required then PCB design must be thousands of times more.
We’ve wasted all those years learning for nothing
[/quote]
...We’ve wasted all those years learning for nothing
I feel sorry for you , guys but...you're not alone. Looks like I've wasted mine too
In fact, I am going to waste all of the years that I have left learning. Stupid me.
I don't know what you are trying to say at the moment though. You've sent through a very poor blurry photo of a mess of boards without even saying anything about whether it works or not, or what does, and what doesn't. Work on taking a better photo (or several different shots with good lighting but no flash) with just a tiny amount of focus (pun) and effort, and then when you can get that right, then apply that same tiny amount of focus and effort into getting your boards right too.
Are you fair dinkum?
(A foot, assumed to be yours, is prominent in your photo.)
Touching the TX wire shouldn't cause a reaction, but the RX wire must be picking up noise from having your hand close to it.
The motors should be working, unless you have a hardware problem. Make sure you are running version dh12 of the mount program. Try typing characters on the mount's console terminal to see if that does something. Measure the voltages on the motor pins. You should see voltages similar to the ones I reported in an earlier post.
EDIT: I wonder if the P20 pin on the handbox is blown. Can you check the voltage on this pin to see if it is 3.3 Volts? It might also be worth while to try another pin for the TX output. You'll have to change the handbox Spin file to match the pin you are using.
@bbrien and @Dave Hein! - That was a marathon run.
Congratulations on you both seeing it through- lesser mortals might have given up and thrown in the towel- me included... but you both stuck at it to the delicious end!
Dave
It was a sustained team effort from the start and although it looked hopeless, somebody was bound to eventually score a goal!
I can't say I even know the OPs answer though. It is so terse and vague as if words were an effort.
One of my jobs in the past was to maintain legacy code, and work with customers to fix problems that they encountered. I basically took the same approach here by asking lots of questions, and trying to interpret the answers from the customers point of view. I would send customers modified code with extra debug prints, and they would send me back log files. I never actually needed to travel to the customer's site.
THANKS AGAIN
Well, it certainly was an undertaking for you(and all) I'll admit, but, look how much you LEARNED! Glad you got it working. Have fun with it!
BRAVO!!!!!!
Congrats to all concerned
Dave