The long way round…

I’ve been playing around with FPGA’s, and using Xlinx Spartan 3 from Digilent, I mainly wanted it for the Sump Logic Analyser, but now branching out with it a bit, lets ignore the nightmare install that ISE Webpack is, then the fact that Digilent boards don’t work with the ISE programming tools and focus on the rest of the oddness..

First off VITAL, this is a library that ought to be in the IEEE lib’s, but for some reason ( possibly being a cut down version of the software,  but if so wouldn’t it be nice if it said so ) . I managed to get this up and running by installing some software that had a VITAL2000 source code ( vhd’s) and adding them to my project as a new library, changed the USE and LIBRARY options to use VITAL2000 and VITAL_timing_2000 ( the lib i have appends _2000 to all of them ) , then its a case of marking some of the functions IMPURE, they’re just warnings so not really needed. XIinx’s website is no good, and their support forum didn’t turn up anything either.

I even switched to Altera Quartus at one point, but that had similar issues, seems they only have VITAL95 support, and I ran into other issues with it too.

After that the FMF library needs to be updated to use the new LIBRARY and USE settings… So i finally get to the point where the FMF library compiles, the VITAL2000 compiles, and off it goes to compile the model I’m using, brrp! nope, some mysterious error about ‘Port being unsupported in  a Block concurrent statement’  over on the FMF site someone’s noted it from an old build and the admin is wondering if ISE WebPack is indeed a crippled version.

As much used to cross development toolsets and so on, the FPGA has been the most difficult and painful route I’ve ever taken, and I’ve worked on some bizarre stuff, the programming itself is easy enough but the dev tools and support are horrible, I guess you just get spoiled by Microsoft’s level of  devtool’s and support.

 

Anyway my ‘allotment’ for FPGA time is up for today, so I figured jot down a note that i can fill in later., and hoping that the FMF admin will have a solution..

Re-laid out, changed SOIC-16 to SOIC-16DW

For some reason, which i haven’t checked yet the mill line routed around it, instead of through it, which caused it to be larger. I had this issue once before, last time i used the rectangle tool and this time the line tool, since i wanted a gap, which I set to two 0.05” grid spaces, that was slightly too much. I also cut it a bit deeper when doing the isolation routing.

 

I built the tool table this time. Which means you get something like this –>

However I did notice that it refers to T0 which is the bit number in the specific tool list, there are three 1. Isolate 2. Drill and 3. Route. So instead of getting the index from the master tool table, you get the one from the subset. It also counts from 0 for the tool change prompt, but the master Tool Table counts from 1. Also on the isolation rubout, it adds the isolate size to your set, so if you define 3 bits in the drill tool table, it’ll add one ( if its not already included ) and that one will be the isolate bit, usually the V90/60/45

Working Board? Accurate CNC 560

Though its got some funky routing   and i didn’t quite drill all the way through, this board seems to be right.

 

 

I redesigned it a bit and recut it, a small error in one of the rubout tool changes. The main thing i wanted to get rid of was the trace in the middle left, that cuts through an 0603 package, though on the new one one of the transistors traces is going back under itself. I also scanned this one at  2400DPI, seemed to work better..

Peek – Target $4.99

I just saw this on a shopping trip to target with the parents, A small keyboard/sim card/LCD bearing device for $4.99 … So I bought it, I paid more for the cup of coffee I had waiting for the folks to shop. It’s meant to be an email reader over 3g, subscription service.

 

This is what I’ve found after a few minutes with Google, Spansion memory, USB but serial to reflash,  TI LoCosto TCS2310/ARM7TDMI + TMS320C54x 104Mhz

Yet I haven’t seen any actual hacks on it yet, Peek seem to have a closed development list, but i see no further info on it.

 

company blog

http://www.geekypeek.com/

 

make

http://forums.makezine.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=5609

 

teardown by ‘the hammer’

http://forums.makezine.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=5609

http://hackaday.com/2008/09/15/peek-email-reader-teardown/

Datasheet link for the Spansion memory ( link from previous link is wrong)

http://www.spansion.com/Support/Datasheets/s71ns-n_00_a9_e.pdf

 

TI LoCosto

http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/wtbu/wtbuproductcontent.tsp?templateId=6123&navigationId=12774&contentId=15407

 

Interesting TI development device, OMAP though ( $1,299.41 ! )

http://omapzoom.org/

uses this 3,6” QVGA

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=460-3470-ND

AccurateCNC PCB after cut/routing, stretched pulley belt

 

 

Hand held video of it doing the cut, guess which part of the cut I forgot to switch on the vacuum for?  Now solved by adding the automatic vacuum switch.

I stretched the rubber pulley belt, so replaced it, at 60,000 RPM it goes wild, I just wish changing our supercharger pulley belts was as easy as this one.

Accurate CNC , Drill / router bits

 

 

 

Accurate CNC 560 H

The first video I made of the machine cutting a PCB. The sharper eyed might notice the bit is the wrong type ( 18 mil drill vs a V bit!)

 

Cut testing, Pictures of the fiducial registration mode.

  The double sided PCB’s are helped out by the camera, you basically find two drill holes, align the camera to one, find the drill hole that matches on the gerber , centre the cursor on that , right click and it moves the Gerber’s to match, second hole does the rotation.

 

Drill Test, trying different depths with the V90 bit, the software has a couple of extra modes to help get rid of the bits that come loose if different drill paths are too close, one is an extra isolation remove. This one I haven’t tried yet, it cuts away a little extra isolation to help with potential shorts, the second mode is rubout, you define a rectangle in the mech layer, or in PhCNC and the software calculates which areas to remove leaving just the tracks, this is heavy on the drill bit usage and takes a lot longer, you end up changing tools maybe 3 or 4 times. The good thing is you can try out nearly everything the machine can do with the demo version of PhCNC (Except camera), it does a cut simulation too.  http://www.accuratecnc.com/download.html

 

Not deep enough, These next images are after the double sided cut , checking alignment, the blue areas are the drill path, the black is the copper left, as you can see they match up pretty good.

 

 

 

 

 

Find and align the first drill hole. I just did a rough guess watching where on the PCB the camera was and then used X<> Y<> to find it, make sure you focus the camera first

Then just match up the red circles as close as possible.

First double sided board and first router cut

I’ll post more details on this, but it looks like a great success.

 

The routing of the circuit isn’t yet complete, its just a quick 10mil auto trace in eagle.

NinjaBadge take #3 drilled, and realisation, AccurateCNC

 

So this came out pretty good, there are still a few traces connected that ought not to be, the drills are slightly off to the right, and didn’t realise it was a double sided board!  whoops ( single sided pcb material)

 

But I’m happy with the progress. This is a fairly complex board with some small traces and it had some DRV’s so its not unexpected that it failed in some parts, and i did run it through twice.

 

Changing the drill bits isn’t that hard, and I still dislike imperial, the software shows things in inches, and not mil’s or cm and not mm’s, the drill bits are marked in mils, so just shift it left so not a big deal, its just annoying switching back and forth, I didn’t realise AccurateCNC offered a metric version, wish I’d realised beforehand, though its just really the micrometer.

The Z axis/depth setting for the bit seems to be sticking a little bit, so I have to watch that when I’m setting a depth.

 

For drilling depth, I kept a piece of PCB that is the same as the one mounted, and just measured the depth from that.

 

It’d be nice if the Z went up during the tool change, but i think its like that since it’d be really slow to change the tool out. Other things I’ve noticed as just small things

 

1. Camera chase mode, be nice if it automatically switched on the video feed if its not on.

2. DRC/DRV, if there any it warns you with a popup box, especially about the forced isolation mode being off, I’ve missed it a few times and the board will likely not cut properly. Probably a good reason, but I don’t see it yet.

3. USB camera doesn’t work well if there are two cameras on the same hub ,even on 2.0, haven’t tried it on a separate bus yet. Really not that big a deal, remote monitoring the CNC. Likely nothing to do with the PhCNC.

3. Resizable video window, it gets in the way, you can make go away altogether, but I’d like it smaller sometimes.

4. Video viewable in CAM mode, i use mplayerc.exe for this (Media Player Classic), you just have to keep switching and it doesn’t do the light/autofocus.

5. Ability to record/remember each of the previously captured camera locations, that way you can build a larger area or refer back to it when you’re elsewhere with the camera, so a bitmap layer.

 

I also noticed that when I did the thumbtacks for the mounted PCB boundary to lay the cut in CAM mode, when flipped to CNC mode, the image mirrors horizontally but its no longer inside the thumbtacks, not sure why yet.