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admin

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Posts by admin

New USB Gameboy Dumper

2
6 days ago
by admin in

The past year from when I first posted about my USB Gameboy dumper project, I have gotten a lot of people asking to buy boards off of me from this site and youtube. I have resigned the board, as well as changed some of the parts. The main change comes as using a Microchip PIC18F4550 instead of a Atmel ATMEGA32U4. The jump there is only do to cost. The Atmel chip would have run me ~$6.20 per chip compared to the $2.80 I can get the Microchip MCU at. I added a ICSP header and a status LED to the mix.

I will be selling these boards as a kit for $25 in about a month once I get the PCB’s in. All of the surface mount parts will be already soldered on to the board for you. The only thing you need is a broken or working Gameboy to salvage a cartridge header from and to solder it to the PCB.

Redesigning PCB

0
4 months ago
by admin in

Well it turns out I mirrored the connection header for the Genesis cartridge in my original design. This has caused some issues that should have been resolved by remapping pins in the CPLD, but things failed to work. The USB issue I have been having the past few months that I thought was a hardware issue, turned out to be a software issue after all. I had the description in the USB header info to long that was allowed. Some how it made things work, but not for very long. I am able to write to the NOR Flash and read back the information correctly now. I hope to have the board redesigned in the next few days seeing how I have some time off from work do to the holidays.

USB Issue

0
5 months ago
by admin in

Well I have been having issues lately with bulk USB transfer to the atmega8u2. Seems after a few packets, the USB controller just stops functioning. I first thought maybe the entire MCU was crashing, but after doing some tests I found out that SPI connections would still function. Thought it could be a software issue, but all transfers work fine when using a atmega32u4 on a different board. I am currently waiting on new boards to come from the fab house. I tweaked the USB lines to folow differential pair routing, as well as tweak how the device is powered. Turns out the datasheet for that device is not that clear on how to power it how I want.

Here is a picture of the current device. I took the picture before I finished adding the 22ohm resistors for the USB though.

Switching Web Host

0
7 months ago
by admin in

Going to be switching web hosts in the next few days, so hopefully everything transfers ok.

We Have A Problem

1
8 months ago
by admin in

LOL, well this is what my desk looks like after reworking everything with a soldering iron. After I reflowed the PCB I dropped it right away while it was still in the wet phase. Needless to say shit went everywhere. Reworked everything by hand, now I am having a power issue. I have a short some place on the PCB. The 3.3v power rail keeps dropping to 0.8v..

 

Got my Xilinx USB JTAG Programmer

0
8 months ago
by admin in

Today I got my Xilinx USB JTAG Programmer in the mail today. I bought it on ebay for around $42.50, and went for the faster shipping, so it came out to around $65. I was afraid I would get this after I got my PCB’s in the mail. I ordered this September 2nd and got it on the 10th. Not bad seeing how there was a holiday in there.

Gameboy Video Out

5
8 months ago
by admin in

The next few months I am going to be getting ready to sell some of the stuff I have been making the past year. I never planned on selling the USB Gameboy Cartridge Dumper, but I got quite a few people asking for it. For that I will sell it as a kit people can solder together. As for the Gameboy video out project, I am getting ready to design the boards for it. I am still wondering if I want to do both VGA and composite video, or just one or the other. If, I can fit the code to do both, I will sell upgraded version for how ever more it costs for the extra crystal I will need.

Stay tuned for further updates.

DDR Pad Controller PCB board

0
8 months ago
by admin in

While I am waiting for the PCB’s for my other project to come, I deiced I would work on a USB controller for a DDR pad my friend and I are making. I whipped up this board in about 2 hours in eagle. I normally use the CAD software at work to do my boards, but I am at home, so the free version of Eagle will have to do. Good thing with using it though, is almost anyone can view and edit my work. I still need to move around some of the silk screen values though. I fixed the silkscreen labels on the board and updated the screenshot.

Here is the current setup I have going. I am using a ATMEGA16U4 for the brains of everything. For the sensors, I will be using a square Force Sensitive Resistor from Sparkfun. The MCU will sample the current voltage from the pads to see if something is pressed down. I will have a auto calibrate feature built in. The sensors will be connected to the unit via Screw Terminals.

New Soldering Station

2
8 months ago
by admin in

Well today I picked up a HAKKO FX-888 while I was at Frys. I was planning on getting this a few months ago on ebay, but for what ever reason I did not. I heard about this iron while watching the EEVblog’s Soldering Tutorial. Frys was selling it for $84.99 and on ebay they go for around $89.99 with free shipping from China, so over all I got a good deal.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Sb21qbpEQ&w=640&h=385]

I used to own a AOYUE 937+ Soldering Station that I used for about 6 years, but the soldering handle has started to fall apart and it needed a new heating element.

Forgot to order 22 Ohm Resistors!

0
8 months ago
by admin in

So I just realized I forgot to order 22 Ohm 0603 SMD resistors for the prototype. Luckily I still have a few 0805 ones from my USB Gameboy Cartridge Dumper project. I checked if it would fit on the pad I have and there is no way in hell I can hand solder it on, but it should reflow on fine when I use the solder paste.

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