Re: Starting with my first SBC Project, Plans and Confusions
Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 7:13 pm
Ok so finally i got the parts from Mouser and was able to get soldering.
Yesterday i only had enough time to solder my breakout board for the ATF1504. but that was already since it gave me the rest of the day to experiment with JTAG...
and man, JTAG Programming is so easy, why did i never use CPLDs before?!
Today i was able to solder the SBC, and i was atleast able to verify that a PC recognized the FT240X when plugging it in. which is already better than last time.
here some pictures of the finished boards: also, side note, what's with this site liking to log me out when i upload a file?
i refresh the site before i post a reply to make sure i'm still logged in but as soon as i upload a file i get logged out...
maybe i just forget how long i take to get pictures off my phone before actually uploading them? but that would be weird timing since it happend atleast 3 times already.
anyways i was excited to test the SBC out, so i got my small Hello World Program, put it on the flash chip and let it run...
aaaaand like expected, nothing happend.
after a bit of debugging i found 2 problems, and both are so stupid i want to punch myself.
just take a look at the current schematic: there are (currently) 2 obvious mistakes i somehow didn't notice before ordering the PCBs...
1. at the bottom middle, notice the Oscillator... and that very distant Vcc to the right of it? yep, i forgot to move it back before routing, leaving the Oscillator without power
2. at the top right, that little circuit for the RDY pin, it connects to that "/RDY" network.... and that's it. there is no counterpart, it doesn't connect to anything. not even the large connector in the top left... leaving the RDY pin floating...
this means 2 botch wires will have to be soldered tomorrow. dammit, i hoped i would get through this one without mistakes!
though i'm not 100% sure where to solder the RDY pin to, i could just connect it to Vcc, or the CPLD, in case there somehow is a RDY circuit that can fit into there that i could use.
but i'll probably just solder it to Vcc.
man i want to do an FPGA based VGA card for this thing after this but i cannot even get the base PCB correct... (btw that will be it's own thread)
oh well, tomorrow i will report back with a hopefully working SBC...
Yesterday i only had enough time to solder my breakout board for the ATF1504. but that was already since it gave me the rest of the day to experiment with JTAG...
and man, JTAG Programming is so easy, why did i never use CPLDs before?!
Today i was able to solder the SBC, and i was atleast able to verify that a PC recognized the FT240X when plugging it in. which is already better than last time.
here some pictures of the finished boards: also, side note, what's with this site liking to log me out when i upload a file?
i refresh the site before i post a reply to make sure i'm still logged in but as soon as i upload a file i get logged out...
maybe i just forget how long i take to get pictures off my phone before actually uploading them? but that would be weird timing since it happend atleast 3 times already.
anyways i was excited to test the SBC out, so i got my small Hello World Program, put it on the flash chip and let it run...
aaaaand like expected, nothing happend.
after a bit of debugging i found 2 problems, and both are so stupid i want to punch myself.
just take a look at the current schematic: there are (currently) 2 obvious mistakes i somehow didn't notice before ordering the PCBs...
1. at the bottom middle, notice the Oscillator... and that very distant Vcc to the right of it? yep, i forgot to move it back before routing, leaving the Oscillator without power
2. at the top right, that little circuit for the RDY pin, it connects to that "/RDY" network.... and that's it. there is no counterpart, it doesn't connect to anything. not even the large connector in the top left... leaving the RDY pin floating...
this means 2 botch wires will have to be soldered tomorrow. dammit, i hoped i would get through this one without mistakes!
though i'm not 100% sure where to solder the RDY pin to, i could just connect it to Vcc, or the CPLD, in case there somehow is a RDY circuit that can fit into there that i could use.
but i'll probably just solder it to Vcc.
man i want to do an FPGA based VGA card for this thing after this but i cannot even get the base PCB correct... (btw that will be it's own thread)
oh well, tomorrow i will report back with a hopefully working SBC...