@Cluso99, I just pay-pal'ed you $$ for two microMAT boards. Also if it makes things easier for you, you can leave off the flash part and or wiring to enable it for my board, as SD is probably sufficient based on the convos that have happened here. With that in mind, don't worry about any "overage" of $$, as you've put so much into this I definitely owe you tons more than what you're charging
I have 21 RetroBlade pcbs built and passing the shorts/open tests
Tomorrow I'll be adding Flash and testing it for those that require flash.
And I have another test to run which verifies all pins are soldered correctly by checking the I/O pins on the pcb edge.
All the connectors etc are packed. Note the 1x20 0.1" female headers arrived so you'll be getting 3 of these per board too.
This morning I’m going to try my luck soldering the WSON8 package Flash on my board.
Didn't work Could be it requires the mod but doing that with the WSON8 is going to be harder
Meanwhile, resorted to using the limited number of SOIC8 Flash chips that I have.
Sorry guys...
There will be a wire mod on the Flash chips
/Hold and/or /WP requires being tied to 3V3 (or pullups) so I’m adding a wire to tie both pins to 3V3. Unfortunately i cannot find my blue kynar wire so i have to use red
Looks better after hitting with black texta;)
I tried the Spansion WSON8 which has internal pullups but it didn’t work and I don’t have time to look into it without delaying shipping.
All boards to the USA via Publison are tested and ready to go tomorrow
Boards to other countries will have flash fitted and fully tested. Hopefully those who have paid will be shipped tomorrow too
All boards have the VGA fitted into the pcb, but no soldered. This helps with packaging as our overseas mail needs to be <20mm thick. It is easy to remove, just slightly squash the mounting lugs together (I use my finger nails) and ease the VGA out of the board.
You will need to solder a link to select either the onboard transistor reset circuit, or bypass it. There are 3 tiny holes/pads which needs the center pin connected to one o the outers. The transistor link is marked as "Q-Reset" on the overlay. Note that you can download code using fastspin and loadp2 without this link, but do remember a second download may not work without repowering the board because you will not have any reset ability. I test the board this way! You will need a piece of 28-30 AWG kynar wire-wrap wire or an offcut from some wire or thru hole component. It would be best to let it sit a little above the board so you can hook it if you decide to remove it later. Sorry, should have made it suit 0.050" headers but originally I didn't have space until I widened the board.
For those with Flash, there are two 0.050" header holes marked "Flash". A pair of 0.050" male pins are provided together with a 0.050" shunt. A pair of 0.050" (1.27mm) pins and a shunt is provided, so you can solder these if you want the option to boot from Flash. The link is not required for programming the flash.
The microUSB sockets are reflow-soldered under the sockets with large smt pads and solder paste. However, you might like to solder the mounting lugs (the pair of slots) with solder to help secure the sockets. The lugs are recessed down in these slots so you'll need to work some solder down the slot to be effective.
I've given you a few options for the Serial interface. I plug a USB-TTL 6-pin CP2102 dongle into this, so I fit the little 1x6 0.1" female header to my RetroBlade. I remove the header on the CP2102 board and replace it with the 1x6 0.1" long pin male/female header (remove the spacer first) with socket up and pins down. This also provides the RetroBlade2 with 5V and GND from the PC via the USB. If you decide to power it separately, then use the additional 1x6 0.1" long pin male/female header to sit between the CP2102 board and RetroBlade2 board after cutting the 5V pin. Beware, don't power the RetroBlade2 from multiple 5V sources because they are all just joined together in parallel !!!
Note your regulators and the P2 can get quite hot. This is due to the linear regulators used in my design. Most P2 users will not have problems with this design. However, you can push the P2 beyond the design limits of this board, so do be warned. I expect you'll be safe if the current is less than 500mA and you have some ventilation around the board. Each of the regulators have pads on both sides of the board to dissipate heat, as does the P2.
Your board will boot from a microSD SDHC/SDXC card - it is built into the P2 ROM boot code. Preferably it should be formatted as FAT32 with a cluster size of 32KB (or more). If there is a file in the root directory called "_BOOT_P2.BIX" or else "_BOOT.P2.BIY" (capital letters) then on power up, the P2 will load and run this file. This is the simplest way to boot from a microSD card.
I'll post some pics later. You can also search thru the older posts for some pics and discussions too. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask here.
All paid boards will be shipped today
Those in the USA have another week to pay as your boards are on the way to Publison who will post locally.
BTW I still need a few addresses (GHarris, nchlor, K2, Ahle2, Mickster, Ramon).
Sorry guys...
There will be a wire mod on the Flash chips
/Hold and/or /WP requires being tied to 3V3 (or pullups) so I’m adding a wire to tie both pins to 3V3. Unfortunately i cannot find my blue kynar wire so i have to use red
Looks better after hitting with black texta;)
I tried the Spansion WSON8 which has internal pullups but it didn’t work and I don’t have time to look into it without delaying shipping.
Looks like a nice tidy bodge, but wouldn't it be better to go around the chip instead of going over so it isn't the lowest thing on the bottom of the board and risking getting ripped off.
Sorry guys...
There will be a wire mod on the Flash chips
/Hold and/or /WP requires being tied to 3V3 (or pullups) so I’m adding a wire to tie both pins to 3V3. Unfortunately i cannot find my blue kynar wire so i have to use red
Looks better after hitting with black texta;)
I tried the Spansion WSON8 which has internal pullups but it didn’t work and I don’t have time to look into it without delaying shipping.
Looks like a nice tidy bodge, but wouldn't it be better to go around the chip instead of going over so it isn't the lowest thing on the bottom of the board and risking getting ripped off.
1. Kynar wire is pretty tough.
2. IMHO, going around the IC makes it more likely to get hooked on something because it is loose. Over the top is tight.
However, on the boards that did not already have the Flash soldered on, I routed it as per the old days with thru hole ICs (pic below) but it takes a lot longer to do.
For those of you who might be interested in build stats...
To date I have built 24 boards...
1 is faulty - 1V8 was on VIO - killed/dead P2? (writeoff)
3 had shorts on P2 pins (fixed) - apply solder paste better else redo
1 had ~6 pins on P2 lifted (fixed)
1 is my test board (now with Flash only to test it)
1 dead (writeoff)
15 shipped to the USA (11 with Flash)
6 shipped to other countries (5 with Flash)
1 tested and waiting for order/payment
I have 2 more orders waiting payment and I will have to build more to cover these.
I'm quite happy with these results for a first run. The shorts were on the first few boards, and since I've been taking more care to apply the solder paste, and rejecting those less than perfect, I have had no more shorts. And I have adjusted the solder paste consistency.
Here is a modified test program that displays messages via the serial on pin 62, tests for shorts between pins 0-57 and then pulses (250ms) all pins 0-57 if successful, else pulls all pins 0-57 high via 1K5 pullup if there is a short. This program can be loaded onto a microSD card to boot on power up to run the tests. I use an LED tied via a resistor to GND to test all I/O pin pads around the edges of the pcb. Booting from the SD also tests the SD pins 58-61.
Hi Ray, I got a Sunday morning delivery from you! I soldered the connectors onto your board and my uPORT for serial and booted TAQOZ from ROM. So far so good. Next I inserted an SD card with TAQOZ RELOADED and it booted. I tried switching to 360MHz and as expected it shutdown due to LDO limitations. Good so far. I also double checked the Flash and it is fine although I can't backup to it with the SD in place. Did you use a series resistor from the SD output?
TAQOZ# .SF --- $0102_194D $FFFF_FFFF_$FFFF_FFFF ok
Now I will check the VGA. Just need to find the pinout..
P.S. Looks like your VGA pinout is 31R 30G 29B 28H 27V ?
Hi Ray, I got a Sunday morning delivery from you! I soldered the connectors onto your board and my uPORT for serial and booted TAQOZ from ROM. So far so good. Next I inserted an SD card with TAQOZ RELOADED and it booted. I tried switching to 360MHz and as expected it shutdown due to LDO limitations. Good so far. I also double checked the Flash and it is fine although I can't backup to it with the SD in place. Did you use a series resistor from the SD output?
TAQOZ# .SF --- $0102_194D $FFFF_FFFF_$FFFF_FFFF ok
Now I will check the VGA. Just need to find the pinout..
P.S. Looks like your VGA pinout is 31R 30G 29B 28H 27V ?
No. There is no series resistor as the SD should be shutdown correctly to release DO and avoid contention.
Yes, that's the VGA pinout - 4 pin grouping with VS moved to before the block.
Yes, this it the flash id i get too with the wson 256Mb part (C914933 S25FL256SAGNFI00) - this part should not require hold and wp tied or pulled up high as there are internal resistors i this part.
I cannot successfully perform SFERASE tho. It dumps ok but when repowering the old data comes back. Tying doesn't make any difference either.
Have you tried SFER to ease the whole chip or <address> SFER4 to erase a 4k page or SFER32 SFER64 for the larger pages? It worked for me and after power-up but I will check again.
I have had problems with getting the SD to release sometimes. Bear in mind that you have only been using single block reads whereas I use the multi-block modes.
This is how we did wire mods to mini computers back in the 70s when everything was thru hole. You routed wires under the 74xx chips (between the body and legs) from one chip, via others, to the final chip. We used bright coloured kynar wires so that field engineers could easily determine what mods had been done, in addition to the rev level marked on the pcb. There were dozens of large boards in a computer. The ECO (Engineering Change Order) would describe where the cuts and wires would go. The 80s pcb versions were often up to 12 layer pcbs. IIRC the 70s pcbs were only 2 layer pcbs with no solder masks or overlays. The 80s generation pcbs had vertical metal plates/bars supplying power and ground. These skills are almost lost today.
Comments
Let me know your paypal and I'll send you $100 USD.
Paul
We are going to split the $45 shipping from OZ between North America customers. US shipping will be about $1.00. First class Mail.
PayPal tries really hard to convert the currency so they can max their commission!
Tomorrow I'll be adding Flash and testing it for those that require flash.
And I have another test to run which verifies all pins are soldered correctly by checking the I/O pins on the pcb edge.
All the connectors etc are packed. Note the 1x20 0.1" female headers arrived so you'll be getting 3 of these per board too.
Hoping to ship Friday
Didn't work
Meanwhile, resorted to using the limited number of SOIC8 Flash chips that I have.
There will be a wire mod on the Flash chips
/Hold and/or /WP requires being tied to 3V3 (or pullups) so I’m adding a wire to tie both pins to 3V3. Unfortunately i cannot find my blue kynar wire so i have to use red
Looks better after hitting with black texta;)
I tried the Spansion WSON8 which has internal pullups but it didn’t work and I don’t have time to look into it without delaying shipping.
Boards to other countries will have flash fitted and fully tested. Hopefully those who have paid will be shipped tomorrow too
All boards have the VGA fitted into the pcb, but no soldered. This helps with packaging as our overseas mail needs to be <20mm thick. It is easy to remove, just slightly squash the mounting lugs together (I use my finger nails) and ease the VGA out of the board.
You will need to solder a link to select either the onboard transistor reset circuit, or bypass it. There are 3 tiny holes/pads which needs the center pin connected to one o the outers. The transistor link is marked as "Q-Reset" on the overlay. Note that you can download code using fastspin and loadp2 without this link, but do remember a second download may not work without repowering the board because you will not have any reset ability. I test the board this way! You will need a piece of 28-30 AWG kynar wire-wrap wire or an offcut from some wire or thru hole component. It would be best to let it sit a little above the board so you can hook it if you decide to remove it later. Sorry, should have made it suit 0.050" headers but originally I didn't have space until I widened the board.
For those with Flash, there are two 0.050" header holes marked "Flash". A pair of 0.050" male pins are provided together with a 0.050" shunt. A pair of 0.050" (1.27mm) pins and a shunt is provided, so you can solder these if you want the option to boot from Flash. The link is not required for programming the flash.
The microUSB sockets are reflow-soldered under the sockets with large smt pads and solder paste. However, you might like to solder the mounting lugs (the pair of slots) with solder to help secure the sockets. The lugs are recessed down in these slots so you'll need to work some solder down the slot to be effective.
I've given you a few options for the Serial interface. I plug a USB-TTL 6-pin CP2102 dongle into this, so I fit the little 1x6 0.1" female header to my RetroBlade. I remove the header on the CP2102 board and replace it with the 1x6 0.1" long pin male/female header (remove the spacer first) with socket up and pins down. This also provides the RetroBlade2 with 5V and GND from the PC via the USB. If you decide to power it separately, then use the additional 1x6 0.1" long pin male/female header to sit between the CP2102 board and RetroBlade2 board after cutting the 5V pin. Beware, don't power the RetroBlade2 from multiple 5V sources because they are all just joined together in parallel !!!
Note your regulators and the P2 can get quite hot. This is due to the linear regulators used in my design. Most P2 users will not have problems with this design. However, you can push the P2 beyond the design limits of this board, so do be warned. I expect you'll be safe if the current is less than 500mA and you have some ventilation around the board. Each of the regulators have pads on both sides of the board to dissipate heat, as does the P2.
Your board will boot from a microSD SDHC/SDXC card - it is built into the P2 ROM boot code. Preferably it should be formatted as FAT32 with a cluster size of 32KB (or more). If there is a file in the root directory called "_BOOT_P2.BIX" or else "_BOOT.P2.BIY" (capital letters) then on power up, the P2 will load and run this file. This is the simplest way to boot from a microSD card.
I'll post some pics later. You can also search thru the older posts for some pics and discussions too. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask here.
Enjoy
Those in the USA have another week to pay as your boards are on the way to Publison who will post locally.
BTW I still need a few addresses (GHarris, nchlor, K2, Ahle2, Mickster, Ramon).
* download code
* shorts between pins 0-57
* connections to pins 0-47 on pcb edge pads
* boot from microSD card
For those with Flash (using TAQOZ from ROM)
* .SF
* 0 $40 SF DUMP
* @WORDS 0 $100 SFWRS
* 0 $40 SF DUMP
* SFERASE
* 0 $40 SF DUMP
Looks like a nice tidy bodge, but wouldn't it be better to go around the chip instead of going over so it isn't the lowest thing on the bottom of the board and risking getting ripped off.
2. IMHO, going around the IC makes it more likely to get hooked on something because it is loose. Over the top is tight.
However, on the boards that did not already have the Flash soldered on, I routed it as per the old days with thru hole ICs (pic below) but it takes a lot longer to do.
To date I have built 24 boards...
1 is faulty - 1V8 was on VIO - killed/dead P2? (writeoff)
3 had shorts on P2 pins (fixed) - apply solder paste better else redo
1 had ~6 pins on P2 lifted (fixed)
1 is my test board (now with Flash only to test it)
1 dead (writeoff)
15 shipped to the USA (11 with Flash)
6 shipped to other countries (5 with Flash)
1 tested and waiting for order/payment
I have 2 more orders waiting payment and I will have to build more to cover these.
I'm quite happy with these results for a first run. The shorts were on the first few boards, and since I've been taking more care to apply the solder paste, and rejecting those less than perfect, I have had no more shorts. And I have adjusted the solder paste consistency.
Thx.
Now I will check the VGA. Just need to find the pinout..
P.S. Looks like your VGA pinout is 31R 30G 29B 28H 27V ?
Yes, that's the VGA pinout - 4 pin grouping with VS moved to before the block.
Yes, this it the flash id i get too with the wson 256Mb part (C914933 S25FL256SAGNFI00) - this part should not require hold and wp tied or pulled up high as there are internal resistors i this part.
I cannot successfully perform SFERASE tho. It dumps ok but when repowering the old data comes back. Tying doesn't make any difference either.
I have had problems with getting the SD to release sometimes. Bear in mind that you have only been using single block reads whereas I use the multi-block modes.
'+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ '+ /CS=1, Release SD Card DO pin, tristate SD CS/CK/DI/DO + '+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ _releaseDO ' if "NC" & "Z" = success call #_sendFastFF ' releaseDO bith sdx_bitout, #sdx_cs ' prepare /CS=1(disable) call #_sendFastFF ' releaseDO again to be sure! flth #sdx_cs ' tristate /CS fltl #sdx_ck ' tristate CLK flth #sdx_di ' tristate DI if_nc_and_z mov sdx_status, #0 ' $0 = "NC" & "Z" = success if_c_or_nz neg sdx_status, #1 ' $ffff_ffff = "C" | "NZ" = fail RET ' '+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+Wow. You got skilz!