avatar_JonB

Who wants IDE drives on the PCW?

Started by JonB, 12:43, 22 January 17

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Bryce

That's a pity. What exactly was the error?

Bryce.

JonB

#76
@Bryce, I'm waaay too embarrassed to say.


But since you ask..


I imported a mounting hole footprint but the hole was not on the normal layer for vias and pads, so KiCad produced two .drl Gerbers; one for the mounting holes, one for the vias and pads. When I uploaded the Gerbers to the maker's site, it errored out, saying there were too many .drl files (should be one), so I deleted one. Bad luck that I chose the pad/via .drl file! To completely not help matters, their web site generates a board render with a caveat that if you see any errors, you shouldn't contact them because the render is provisional. I spotted the missing holes immediately but assumed it was a problem with the rendering.


So anyway, these boards can be mounted, but not populated with any parts. Maybe I will mount them on a picture frame with "Fool" written below them!


Bryce

That's why I prefer manufacturers that create the Gerbers for you. That way nothing gets lost.

Bryce.

JonB

Care to list some?


Preferably those that take the KiCad .kicad_pcb file (which has everything in it, much safer). OSH Park accept these files, but they're too expensive.

Bryce

Quote from: JonB on 23:14, 09 February 17
Care to list some?


Preferably those that take the KiCad .kicad_pcb file (which has everything in it, much safer). OSH Park accept these files, but they're too expensive.

PCBPool will accept almost any format, including: Eagle .brd, KiCAD .brd/kicad_pcb, OrCAD .max, DipTrace .dip and many others. You don't need to make the Gerber yourself, they create it from your board file.

Bryce.

JonB

But they are shockingly expensive (even more than OSH Park, which I thought I would never see)...

Bryce

#81
They are relatively expensive, but after being burnt by manufacturers that delivered really shit quality after waiting weeks for the parts to arrive, I prefer to pay a little bit more for top quality and 8 day delivery.

They also offer features that many others don't, such as flexible PCBs, blind/buried vias, Aluminium Core, embedded RFID, etc.

Bryce.

Audronic

@JonB


Please change mine to UnAssembled  Thanks




Ray
Procrastinators Unite,
If it Ain't Broke PLEASE Don't Fix it.
I keep telling you I am Not Pedantic.
As I Live " Down Under " I Take my Gravity Tablets and Wear my Magnetic Boots to Keep me from Falling off.

JonB

Quote from: SteveH on 20:34, 08 February 17
Nice on Jon  :)

Could the BOMs be added to the Wiki page?  Seeing as you've kindly added the Farnell part no.s for lazy so-n-so's like me.  ;D

Cheers
Steve


Done, and I updated the status section. I basically took a bit of a punt and ordered a load more boards (including the as-yet unprototyped uIDE-16 boards) so I should have enough to go round.

JonB

Latest uIDE-8 render. Note the cool logo...  :P


[attach=2]

Sebastian Blanco


austindan

hi,
I would be super excited to have an IDE interface for my PCW. Let me know how i can help make this happen! More than happy to pre-order etc.
Dan.

JonB

No help needed Dan, the boards are on order and the driver written.


All you need is a bit of patience. :)


I'll add you to the list. In the meantime, please review the uIDE wiki page, which was updated today.


http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/UIDE_Universal_IDE_adapter_cards_for_Z-80_computers


Which reminds me, I need to add a section about the driver, and a download...

JonB

Very quick update.


Prototype boards arrived today from OSH Park £££££££


[attach=2]


These have one of the connectors back to front but otherwise should work. I'm about to build one, so we will soon find out!

JonB

#89
Well, some good news at last.


I assembled one of the boards and connected it to a PCW8512 via a Z80 shim. So:


[attach=2]


The ribbon cable is a standard 40 way IDE cable which came from a PC (hence "MOTHERBOARD" label, presumably for novice system assemblers).

At the other end of the ribbon cable, we have the uIDE-8:

[attach=3]

The DOM is connected via the coloured jumper cables because this being a prototype card, I have the IDE pad back to front / upside down. A proper uIDE will allow you to plug the DOM straight into it, so don't worry!


Also, because I have not received any of those little jumper blocks for setting the I/O address range, I have had to use wired jumpers for now.

JonB

The hardware side of things looks good. I ran the XTEST.COM program to retrieve the DOM's IDE Drive Identification data.


[attach=2]


This is a good test, because it demonstrates that the drive is sending data and the PCW is receiving and interpreting it correctly. Hurrah!


So, that's the good news. The bad news is that my version of CP/M Plus on the 8256 (v1.4) is not loading the FID driver file at boot, so I've started another thread to ask about this.


Nearly there...

JonB

...and now, we arrive!


[attach=2]


Nice...  :D

robcfg


JonB

#93
Build 2, looking better.


[attach=2]


Because this board has a plug on the IDE socket that is correct, I can test some CF cards that I have lying around. The results are:


Kingston CF 16GB 266X - not compatible, will not identify
STEC 128MB CF SLCF128MM1U - not compatible, will not identify
Verbatim 64MB CF card - works
Dane-Elec 512MB CF card (C1 512 D-SA) - works (this card identifies as a Samsung)








Bryce

Wouldn't soldering the header underneath the PCB have solved the pin swap problem for you?

Bryce.

JonB

Nope. To fix it you need to have one half on the top of the board and one on the bottom.


I discovered this morning that it is do-able as you can see from the picture I posted of build 2. Tricky and time consuming. Fortunately it is only the first three boards from OSH (OMG how much??) Park that are affected, and I always intended to keep those for my own machines.

IanS

Quote from: JonB on 11:12, 19 February 17
Nope. To fix it you need to have one half on the top of the board and one on the bottom.

Really?

You originally had this:- (apolgies for crappy ascii art)
           ------ a  \  wires / b       
          |   --- b  /        \ a
          |  |     
==============
          a  b


And you you now have:-
             --- b
==============
          ------ a                 
          a  b


Why couldn't you just have:-
          a  b
==============
          |  |     
          |   --- b
           ------ a   


All "pics" edge-on to the pcb (shown as "==")

JonB

#97
Yeah, well - obviously I didn't think it out, did I? D'oh!  :picard:

Never mind, I'll do it better next time.  ;D


I only lost a bit of time, and the end result works and looks OK.


I wonder if all these guys who asked me to build it for them still want me to build it for them?  :P

JonB

Ok, you can all stop laughing now...


[attach=2]


Thanks to my desoldering station, I've sorted it...  :D

GeoffB17

Jon,

Just looking at your notes on the Wiki.

Saw one thing, where you were explaining about copying files and user areas.

I hope this will still apply to your device, but note that any files in User 0 that are marked as 'System' should be visible to ALL user areas.   This is how CP/M normally operates.   I do this with disks normally.

Apart from that, I don't usually use the USER command, there is no need to.   If you're in A:, and you want to swap to user 1, you just type A1:.

The VERY handy NSWP utility will take care of a lot of these issues, maybe that should be part of your little software package.   Makes it easy to set the attribute for SYSTEM as well?

Geoff

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