I've gotten my v3 to work with urJTAG under Windows, but I think it would be more productive to use it directly with the Xilinx tools (impact, etc.). I know there is some open source driver for Linux, but is there any solution for Windows?
I have been lusting over the Nixie Tube Driver that Ian brought to the 2012 World Maker Faire. When I met him there I asked about board production, but he explained it was a one-time thing. Fair enough.
Well it's 2014 now and DirtyPCB exists. I grabbed the design off the forum, and shot it off to DirtyPCB for fabbing. Attached you'll see the first build driving some old nixies I had in the vintage drawer.
I dropped the PCB design in the DirtyPCB store. (Of course, I take no credit for the design - it's all Ian). If you want some, go buy some!
Thanks Ian! Thanks Open Source Hardware! Thanks DirtyPCB!
Filip - great progress - look forward to the boards. I was getting really excited about this project, then I realized you're using the 100-pin version of the XC95144XL. I need a CPLD with 5v tolerance and ~100 I/O pins and the XC95144XL-144 is what I had decided to start with. (The project is to emulate a DEC PDP-8 front panel). I guess I could use your design as a basis for a board with more pins.
So, I was beginning to despair of this prototype version of Bus Blaster ever fully working. None of the several JTAG-compatible devices would be detected in any tool I tried, not even my OpenBench Logic Sniffer.
But, I started buzzing out the JTAG connections and buffers, and guess what? The TDI pin and the TMS pin are reversed, that is, connected to the wrong pins of the FT2232 ! Grr! Arrgh! (Note that I am not bitching about a board I got for free on PCB Sunday, just the time it took me to find this).
After a simple swap of the TDI/TMS wires, the OpenBench, the AT91SAM7S board, the Coolrunner x-board, they all detect now.
So, this perhaps begs the question: Is there a simple wire-back test (not unlike wiring Tx to Rx in rs-232) to test out the connectivity of the board? There are 2 ports on it... (I know this is probably overcome by events with the CPLD version).
So, some more time with the magnifying glasses, and checking around the ft2232 with the needle probes (check the pins *and* the lands) showed that 1.8V was not getting to all of the pins. Re-soldered all the pins just to be sure, checked for shorts, and volts (all there now!).
Plugged it and an it enumerated! FTDI drivers loaded on win7, and it looks good (COM4 & 5 now present).
(I did solder in the eeprom just for fun, know it's not needed).
My Target Present LED fades in and out on occasion with nothing plugged in (I think I just guessed at the SOT23 transistor for that circuit).
I'm just getting 'unrecognized USB device' and it's not enumerating.
At first I thought that it might have been the loading caps on the oscillator. I had no 27pF caps so used 22pF. Later I remembered my basic electronics and soldered 5pF in parallel (on top of actually) the 22pF's to get 27pF...
Still no go. I printed out the schematic on 11x17 inch paper so I can read it and start checking the pins of the FT2232. I did walk around it with the ohm-meter for shorts earlier, but guess I need to go deeper.
Small correction - i have the flash rom, but didn't install it, but did install all of the caps and resistors for it. At this point it would be easier to put in the flash chip than take the other things out. Maybe I'll try that first.
@Ian thanks for the tips of what to look at first.
OK, so my Bus Blaster is built. This is a 'white board' prototype board.
No magic smoke released on the power up test, so, I plugged it into the shop PC (win7 x86), to see if enumerates. Well, it doesn't, and I vaguely recall that I need to program the raw FT2232 chip with something (MPROG, IIRC). There are some parameters that need to be put into the chip.
Question 1: So what are the parameters, please? Question 2: IC6,7&8 are covered with solder mask on my board, so I didn't populate them. Do I need to do so, and if so, how?
