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Old 20th Jul 2021, 6:31 pm   #6
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,484
Default Re: MK14 Programming Interface

A few points arising:

The fact that you've used a wired connection rather than a 'hard' one for one connection accidentally makes the PCB equally JMP-replica-compatible - you just need to make the connections differently at the MK14 key connector end.

I suppose If you'd made the layout direct one-for-one compatible with the 'Legacy' layout seen on original MK14s, Martin issue V replicas and your own issue VI you would still have the option of soldering wires to the edge connection on the interface PCB and taking them to an edge connector wired as per JMP connection order.

My prototype also has the 40-way connector coming out of the bottom of the Pi Zero - since they are usually supplied minus the 40-way male connector it's up to you how to solder one in, but I agree that the form factor chosen makes it slightly harder to use a 'big' Pi which will have the 40-way male connector already fitted and pointing upwards. My solution there was to fit a 40 way male pin connector to the opto PCB, pointing upwards, and use a short ribbon cable with 2 x [2 x 20) female connectors on the ends to connect the opto interface to any standard 40 pin Pi including a zero with the pins fitted pointing upwards.

If you do a V2 consider redesigning it as a 'hat', Raspberry's equivalent of the Arduino 'shield', so that it will fit directly on top of any Pi. If you want to get it into the same form factor as a Pi Zero though, it might have to use SMD versions of the optocouplers.

As regards the send14 'support software' I have stated several times in the past that the project is public domain and that anyone is free to improve it in any way they like - I would love to see a GUI version of send14 but I just can't get interested in TkInter for long enough to do anything with it.

Let me also state for the record that I would be perfectly OK with you selling these opto interface PCBs either as bare boards or kits, in fact I would appreciate the opportunity to buy one myself.

Re: the problem with checksum verification not working, does the uploader load the included Message.Hex and Moonland.Hex files OK? It's not impossible that I might have broken something else when I fixed the 00 checksum bug a revision or so ago.
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