Alt. firmware and GUI for Thanos's AMC1.5 & AMC1.6

[speedy]

I did ... and still restarting ... also noticed that the LCD fast blinks before this error ...tested with the old FW one and with the one that says x-xim.com on it's startup for atmega8535 ...

Do me a favor if it is easy for you ... and compile your firmware for a 10.240Mhz or 20.000Mhz or a 24.000Mhz crystals I have about 4 of them write now ... and unluckily I don't have any 22.1184Mhz for test replacement right now ...

I have tested Thanos 24.000Mhz & 20.000Mhz previous FW's on these crystals and they are restarting too ... can I test it with your FW on 10.240Mhz crystal first please

thanks and best regards


speedy

[prilad]

Hi,speedy!

Let me make a brief review of the facts known to me
1 - You write to AMC different version of FW: the original from Thanos and alternative from me. Results is equal - AMC was restarted when received data from PC,
2 - You write FW to different Atmega... The same result.
3 - You changed the quartz... The same result.
4 -You changed the PC... The same result.

Only one thing was constant in all attempts - AMC board.

May be there are some errors on you board? Can you check all wires, capasitors, contacts? What power supply are you use for AMC board?

Regards.

[speedy]

Hi prilad :
actually with all these faces ... you made me think why not ?

So I went back to my work bench "Squeezing the error more till it comes out ":

Boards reworking :
-reworked the AMC1.6 board for all parts and soldering points that added or replaced in the past month, cleaned and made a new copper isolating layer using a permanent marker .Really there was nothing up normal or not satisfying me.

-reworked the FTDI232RL USB UART DIY circuit and fixed a small track that was not fair good enough for me .Soldered the FTDI chip again cleaned every thing and made copper isolating layer.

-reworked the MAX232 small RS232 interface that I'm using "cut out from old AMC1.5 board" and found a small copper base crack of a capacitor is removed and is not connected " Fixed and cleaned .
these are the three suspected boards ... and The USB cable is confirmed working, LCD working .



Testing phase :

Test one :
On the laptop, Attached the AMC1.6 board with ATMEGA8535 and FTDI serial converter to the USB port of my laptop "that as power source to AMC no external power " and running the xSimCTRL program with the 22.118Mhz crystal and a fresh FW [ x-sim_AMC_22118kHz_v21_resistors ] By ALE downloaded to the ATMEGA 8535 .adjusted the com port in program as the USB com# and for 115200,8,1,0 and selected display and receive the data ... working AMC and data on screen ... selected send data ... restarting AMC and garbage on screen .the same results is for x-sim software.
that's our searching case ... same video as before . sorry my friend .



Test two: here comes the light ...
Moved to the tower computer. Attached the AMC1.6 board with the same All above BUT with the fixed MAX232 small RS232 interface Rx ->Tx and Tx ->Rx of the ATMEGA8535 and made a dummy USB power socket on this board just to supply +5v and Gnd power to the AMC and is connected from the tower computer and connected the DB9F connector to com1 Of this tower computer ... running the xSimCTRL program ,comport adjusted ...selected display and receive data ... working AMC and data on screen ... selected send data ... DATA SENT AND DISPLAYED WITH WORKING AMC ...
I couldn't record video from that computer cause I didn't install yet this screen capture program . So moved to use an old prolific USB RS232 adapter I previously had and connected it to my laptop USB and the serial DB9F board and did this small video ... for your consideration only .




Obviously no the error was not the AMC , the ATMEGA , the crystal ,the FW ,the SW , all of the above ideas are good loop for other users to go through it automatically from now ... but as my bad luck shines like the sun ... it's the USB module .!!!
Do these steps spark any Ideas how to get the FTDI232RL to work with FIFO ?

FTDI232RL configuration.jpg (278.91 KiB) Viewed 5617 times

prolific configuration.jpg (249.35 KiB) Viewed 5617 times

if you have a spark fun USB module maybe you can run the FT_Prog v2.6.8 on it and see how they configured it ...!

many thanks for your patience and efforts .
best regards
speedy

[prilad]

Hi! speedy.

Hi prilad :
actually with all these faces ... you made me think why not ?

It is very interesting effect

DATA SENT AND DISPLAYED WITH WORKING AMC ...

Oh! The good news !!!

if you have a spark fun USB module maybe you can run the FT_Prog v2.6.8 on it and see how they configured it ...!

Unfortunately I do not have sparkfun . May be Thanos can help you with this question.
But I have one more idea - may be there is a problem with power_from_usb on you laptop? Some times I had same problems, because USB controller on PC reduce the power on USB connection in power_save mode.

Regards,
Ale

[vicpopo]

Hi Prilad Hi Speedy,
@Speedy : congratulations my friend , your pugnacity is paid back!!
I several times tried to run the FW and SW and I never reached to have good results as Thanos!
But I'm happy because I said before that the problem would be came from communication !
Look at an old post :http://www.x-sim.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=132&start=50#p1227
I stoped using ale's SW FW because I was at the end of my knowledges.
Recently I tested one more time with ac motor and amc1.6 ale's SW and FW without good results (reactivity problem , overshooting problem)
@ Prilad: As I said in old posts I noticed that the amc fixed but I couldn't find why .
I did not make as Speedy for finding the problem .
I will continue to follow this post and try to test when the solution for this problem will be solved.
I will give feedback obviously!
Thanks to Speedy and thanks to Prilad
best regards

[prilad]

Hi, Gilles.

Recently I tested one more time with ac motor and amc1.6 ale's SW and FW without good results (reactivity problem , overshooting problem)

Hm... It may be a problem due to the fact that I could not properly explain how to configure my software? Oh! Sorry for my English.

On the one hand Alt.FW has more options than the original one. On the other hand - a visual representation of graphical information should greatly simplify the configuration AMC...

Unfortunately, as I say, I haven't AMC1.6 or AMC1.5 board for testing. And in my own board (with FT232R) there are not any problem with communication.

And many thanks to speedy for his persistence in solving problems I hope vicpopo will do it too.

Regards,
Ale

[vicpopo]

Hi Prilad ,
If I right understood what noticed Speedy ,that there is a problem with the communication.
I have the same configuration as Speedy (amc1.6 with sparkfun usb module) and the same problems.
With the same configuration Thanos has no problem.
Like Speedy or you suggest it would be usefull that Thanos spend a little time with you and Speedy to investigate more deeper to solve this problem.
amc1.6 with Thanos FW work very well .I don't understand neither why the usb module works whithout problem in this configuration.
All the tests I made with your SW and FW were on win XP with a laptop and always powered.
Best Regards

[prilad]

Hi, Gilles.
I understand you. And I understand speedy. I understand that there is the problem on AMC1.6 with my FW. And there are not problem on AMC1.6 with Thanos FW. But I do not understand - WHY . And it breaks my brain

But one thing I want to clarify:

(reactivity problem , overshooting problem)...

What do you mean? The same communication problem or another problem?

Best Regards,
Ale

[tronicgr]

For the FTDI problems you might want to have a look here... http://www.x-sim.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=322&p=2420#p2420


Thanos

[vicpopo]

Hi, Gilles.
I understand you. And I understand speedy. I understand that there is the problem on AMC1.6 with my FW. And there are not problem on AMC1.6 with Thanos FW. But I do not understand - WHY . And it breaks my brain

But one thing I want to clarify:

(reactivity problem , overshooting problem)...

What do you mean? The same communication problem or another problem?

Best Regards,
Ale

Hi Prilad,
I say that there was communication problem and the consequence is that´s the motor overshoot its position sometimes.
If there is delay between the given position and the real position the motor had overshoot the position given from the amc.
What's happen , the motor make a full turn.
I noticed that last time I tested your FW.
But it's obvious if the communication is not in real time (such miliseconds)
Best Regards