ERSKYTx (was ersky9x) Questions

[Rob Thomson]

I am sure you could squeeze another 100 or so parts on there?

[Reacher10]

I'm curious about what every else's thoughts are on the SD card. The model memory on this thing is for the most part unlimited (in the 1000's), correct?

What purpose would the SD card serve? Transfer stuff from one radio to another, at the field? Between the USB and bluetooth it's not needed to interface with a PC.

I don't know if this would help with the space on the board but would it help free up some cpu resourses if it not included?

I'm prolly overlooking something the SD card is needed for but I don't see it. Interface with your phone?

The board is looking awesome, Ive been telling anyone that will listen how this radio is make some other expensive raadio's look stupid.

[MikeB]

I have a question, are the two screen addressable seperately? Can each one display different data if desired? If you had both hooked up? It's just a question...

No, they share the same 'select' signal. We did have a spare select signal, to allow for different makes of display. I'm not sure if it got used or not for another purpose though.
Physically, I'm not sure the cables on the LCDs would allow you to mount 2 anyway.

Brent, If (big if) there are 2 select lines, one could be routed to each of the LCD connectors, we can customise the make operation to drive the correct one depending on the LCD selected.

Mike.

[MikeB]

What purpose would the SD card serve?

The most likely use is to store audio files to allow voice output. We have a DAC, just need the data to make the correct sounds.

Mike.

[cre8tiveleo]

Sd is great, For those of us who don't want to lug a laptop around, or use our phones when flying. (personally I hate my phone, I turn it off and leave it in the glove box). To use the sd card to store model data, sound files, record telemetry, and other things.
The SD card is a wonderful thing, just think, you could store photos of your models, and when you do model select, you can see a bw representation of your model, instead of just the name... (or if a colour lcd was every supported, a nice photo of the model)

Would be fun to have telemetry trigger sounds.. too low , 'pull up' ... 'pull up' .. eratic flight... 'are you sure you know what you're doing?',, signal loss... 'oh, oh... did someone forget to charge their batteries?'

[SkyNorth]

You cant run both screens at the same time , because they share the Voltage boost caps.

This is nice little screen 160 x 100 x 16 grey scale , uses a I2C interface.
NHD-C160100DIZ-FSW-FBW-ND
This could be made to work as a second display.

-Brent

[Rob Thomson]

As card could be used to store telemetry or gps co-ordinates.

Infact... You could use it for anything that 'thrashes' the epprom!

How about...

Undo history for mix changes?
Splash screen library loaded from the card?
Etc.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SkyNorth]

The ARM chip has a specific hardware interface for memory cards.
It allows for a 4 bit HS data transfer. Most memory cards are hooked up in SPI mode (1 bit)
But since the chip can handle this with built in hardware, I thought it was worth using.
The radio could also be reprogrammed through the SD card

This version of the board now has 12 more inputs / outputs
Is has a small AVR micro that can be setup to read encoders , read switches , Read Pots, drive LEDs , Serial port , Talk to your car (LIN)

The board will mount into the 9x without making any holes in the bottom of the radio...
Most people will want to make a hole for the USB connector for programming.
If you want access to the Micro SD card socket ,then you need to cut a slot for it.
You will also need to drill holes for the headphone , and telemetry jacks if needed.

The radio can also be programmed through a serial port , so the board could be used with only having to drill one hole in the bottom
of the case.

All the external jacks have spots on the pcb for wire connectors , so all the jacks and even the SD card can be moved to some
other location.

-Brent

[Rafit]

I see one problem, connector for PPM2 is parred with GND, PA5 and 3.3V. But it should be with parred with switched battery voltage (all radio modules require >5V).

+1 for SD card. It should be possible to store full telemetry with every frame send to model (like black box ).

[Reacher10]

+1 for SD card. It should be possible to store full telemetry with every frame send to model (like black box ).

Thats a good one!

[SkyNorth]

My idea was to give you a second PPM-output , 3.3V power , gnd , and spare port pin, There is no Battery voltage near this connector.

The RF power can come from J19 , this is a direct connection from power switch , after the current sensor.

-Brent

[cre8tiveleo]

This is nice little screen 160 x 100 x 16 grey scale , uses a I2C interface.
NHD-C160100DIZ-FSW-FBW-ND
This could be made to work as a second display.

-Brent

Nice! That would be perfect... Hmmmmm

[SkyNorth]

Here is the latest schematic , and board layout.
-Brent

ERSKY9x_Rev_B_SCH.PDF

ERSKY9x Schematics

(565.89 KiB) Downloaded 647 times

ERSKY9x_Rev_B - 3D.pdf

ERSKY9x 3D board

(851.24 KiB) Downloaded 593 times

[MikeB]

As soon as I have a moment I'll double check everything will match up to the internal peripherals, it's an odd chip for pin placement and peripheral allocation to the pins.

Mike.

[SkyNorth]

Here is were all those 100 pins go to.
-Brent

PIO ALLOCATION-Rev B.pdf

ARM PIO Pin Allocation

(38.5 KiB) Downloaded 552 times

[Rafit]

It is possible to have stereo audio?

I know that it may looks a bit silly, but:
- we wants to use headphones (stereo of course:))
- there are easy way to connect FrSky telemetry (probably almost every board will have one)
- GPS, tilt/pan ... are providing 3D data

use headphones, and check this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXm6SuUigI

This is example, but you know what I have in mind...

[SkyNorth]

Mono only......

It was designed for sound cues , not hi-fi , sound is rolled off at 10 khz.

There is a spare DAC output...but we are not using it.

-Brent

-

[MikeB]

Brent, just seeing the reference to DAC1. You have this pin brought out to a header, but you also have a 0.1uF cap to ground on it. This might make using it as a DAC output tricky.

Mike.

[SkyNorth]

Yes , I set it up for a switch input....
I will not fit the cap when the boards are built up.

-Brent

[pmackenzie]

This version of the board now has 12 more inputs / outputs
Is has a small AVR micro that can be setup to read encoders , read switches , Read Pots, drive LEDs , Serial port , Talk to your car (LIN)
-Brent

More I/O, I like it

I assume it talks to the ARM via the SCL/SDA lines?
How will the AVR itself be programmed, via the I/O connector?

Thanks,

Pat MacKenzie

[cre8tiveleo]

Might have to re-design the case a little for the added components with the extra 12 in/out lines... time to warm up the vac form table.. muuuhahahahahahahahaaa

[SkyNorth]

Yes , the AVR will talk to the ARM through the I2C port.

The chip can be programmed through the expansion header , Though it may be possible to
use the I2C port ...

-Brent

[MikeB]

More progress on the software (in between er9x upgrades!). More menus added, the main mixer processing added, and the mixer output is now going to the PPM pulse generator. Plugged a POT in to a stick input and we get a pulse width change in the pulse stream. I'll put the latest code up on the ersky9x site later. A few more menus, and I'll be putting the board into a 9x for further testing.

Mike.

[SkyNorth]

Sounds great Mike,

I want to check a couple SMT parts for fit .. and Order Boards this week.

Are we good on everything?

-Brent

[MikeB]

I'll make a check on the circuit next then. Been busy on the various software, fortunately our customers have been quiet, not needed to do any 'real' work since before Christmas. Got to visit one customer tomorrow, shouldn't take long, then back to the interesting stuff.

Mike.

[pmackenzie]

Yes , the AVR will talk to the ARM through the I2C port.

The chip can be programmed through the expansion header , Though it may be possible to
use the I2C port ...

-Brent

Can it self program?
If so then perhaps a boot loader so everything would be done through the main USB connector by passing the firmware through the ARM.

[MikeB]

I think it will self program, with a bootloader. Got to get the bootloader in it first though. The USB is interesting, I don't think we want to put a USB driver in the ersky9x code. With the ROM based USB, we need to write some applets to be loaded to carry out various operation like reading/writing the EEPROM, writing to the AVR etc. Needs someone to spend a bit of time finding out how to do it. Once we have one done, others can be done easily.
The USB actually looks like a serialport to the PC, with simple commands to read and write memory, an xmodem protocol for large sized reading and writing, and a method of executing an applet loaded using xmodem. So far I've just used SAM-BA to load programs directly.

Mike.

[cre8tiveleo]

or a boot loader from sd card. (or selectable, power on with left menu- boot load sd, right button, bootload from usb.. etc.etc.etc)

I don't know what I am talking about.. just blabbering..

[SkyNorth]

The chip has a built-in programmer ...says it will work with the serial ports...

This is the only AVR tiny that had a low-power mode , that kept the RTC clock running.
Its a little different than most ...designed for Auto use....

There are chips with their own boot loader space that would have worked better ..but did not have a low power RTC timer...

You could also use the I/O port on the ARM to drive the SPI signals on the AVR , through a small connector cable.

IT would be really cool if the ARM could re-program the AVR...

-Brent

[MikeB]

Just checked the datasheet. it can definately self program, so could have a bootloader in it, it just does not have specific bootloader support. At the moment, the circuit shows a ATTINY87, 8kbytes flash. There is a ATTINY167, same device, just 16kbytes flash, may cost more, but may allow a fancy bootloader. It just depends what exactly we want to do with it.

Mike.