Can anyone point me to the schematics for the all FEZ Domino Starter Kit boards and the electrical specifications for the ‘USBizi144 Chipset’?
The schematics are in the “design files” Just look the FEZ Domino listing and you will see it. http://www.tinyclr.com/hardware/1/fez-domino/
For details on USBizi chipset see http://www.ghielectronics.com/product/116
Thanks,
I actually found the ‘design files on the ‘http://www.ghielectronics.com/product/116 page.
I am interested in testing the I2C functionality of the FEZ Domino and have found the coding examples. Is there an example of how to electrically hook up an I2C device or devices? I have purchased the ‘FEZ Domino Starter Kit.
You only need to connect SDA and SCL pins of I2C to your I2C chip. See Domino documentation on where these pins come from.
This is a project that uses I2C too (link removed)
Thanks,
Are the ‘design files mentioned above available in PDF?
No but EAGLE is free and you can use it to make a PDFs as well.
http://cadsoft.de/download.htm
If you tell me what is it that you are trying to do then maybe I can help you better.
I ultimately would like to make a simple temperature controller using either a DS1620 I2C or a Wheatstone bridge RTD on an ‘analog in’ pin for the temperature. The control of a heater was to be accomplished via the I2C BiPOM RELAY-4REED (BiPOM Electronics - RELAY-4REED Peripheral Board). In addition, the project will need a couple of buttons and an LCD.
This is not what I mean…So you are trying to make your own board using USBizi? See this schematics. It is already in the SDK under USBizi documentation http://www.ghielectronics.com/downloads/USBizi/USBizi-DevSys_sch.pdf
I am not ready to build a board just yet. However, I would like to get a better feel for how to electronically interface to the FEZ Domino.
I am looking for examples on how to handle various IO on the board. For instance, I searched on Google with the following ‘analog input basic stamp and quickly found the web page ‘http://www.tigoe.net/pcomp/stamp/stamp-analogin.shtml with both circuit diagrams and code samples.
I appreciate your input.
Basic stamp doesn’t have analog input but FEZ has 8 off them…you have real analog inputs not reading analog though RC like in the link you saw…that was a bad example for FEZ
Where can I find a good example?
Example of reading analog input? I am assuming you didn’t read the free ebook and didn’t look at documentation of analog input?
Hi Nicholas,
welcome to the Fez world !
If you’re asking simply what electrical connection do you need to make for an i2c device to work on Fez, then the project that Chimpanzee pointed out is a good reference.
Basically, the configuration there was appropriate connect the PWR and GND to the i2c device. Connect SDA connection on Fez to the SDA on the device, and SCL on Fez to SCL on the device. SDA is pin 2 (third one from the non-USB end of the board) and SCL is pin 3 (fourth one from non-USB end). There were no other components in this circuit (no resistors capacitors etc needed).
The image in the project shows these four connected to the headers on the Fez Component Shield, but you could connect them to the appropriate input/output pins on the shield but this would be harder unless you had lots of JST connectors. just FYI, the way I’m doing this is to leave the shield aside at the moment, and simply insert pin headers into the female header on the Fez Domino, and use the same kind of clip used in the project’s image to clip to them. Where I’m still using breadboard to prototype something, I’ll use the breadboard wire straight into the female header on Fez.
hope that helps, and good luck with your project !
Thanks for the info Brett. Sometimes answering questions is not easy if you do not know what level does the person asking have.
So, I ways assume that the person coming here for questions did “at least” read our book and tutorial
Interesting assumption. Actually I know how answering questions like this is best handled once you know what a person does or does not know, which in an impersonal forum like this is extremely hard. Often I see posts here and read into it that the person actually has a simpler question than you assume, but who knows, we’re probably both wrong !
More often than not I reckon people read the book but can’t see the direct applicability to their immediate need. Honestly, no offence intended, the guides provided are a bit thin on the ground around the “connection” stuff, and when using a shield it’s all dealt with for you. The guides also are a bit “random” with lots of getting started/hello world content but then not so much if you then want to do anything other than connect a standard shield or push button/LED. So anyone trying to “do it alone” might struggle on some of these parts - which is where I reckon this site and community support can help greatly by filling in the gaps for people when they come up against something different. [as an aside I’m still scared off trying to self-interface my 5v LCD to Fez ) ]
Fez is still pretty new in the scheme of things. This means there’s not a wealth of built up knowledge published based on people’s use of the technology. Look at Arduino or Basic Stamp or even 8-bit AVR/PIC and there are huge tracts of previous experience that a novice can leverage. This will come in time, so right now people have to rely on others to help coax them to where they need to be.
Given Fez is targetting the beginner market and arduino users, the balance of information vs assumed knowledge will take some time to get used to I think. For me for instance, when I saw I2C I had to grab the ebook and look at the project to tie back the pins in use to the hardware (mental note: I need a better “pin map” like the silkscreen shows) because it’s not something I can assume I know, let alone anyone else.
Anyway, hopefully the OP has some valuable information now and can move forward on their project, and they can document and share their lessons for the rest of us to learn from !
Yes the book/tutorial is meant to give you tools to get you started but it doesn’t show you how to do your final application…that would be impossible as we do not know what you want to make! When I say “you”, I mean any user not Brett
You are right again about this is being a new technology (best technology ever happened to embedded in my opinion) and not many articles are available online. We are trying to fill this gap as much as we can…a free book, project website, superior support…etc.
I would comfortably say that this will catch on very quick and there will be a gazillion article everywhere on the web. Just give it a year and you will see amazing things being done by users, from beginners to experts.
Hello guys,
Thanks for the postS. I have a two year electronics degree (from way back) and an am an intermediate Visual Studio C# user. I think I can set up some experiments to figure out the analog input and I2C. For discrete outputs I cant seem to find the current capacity USBizi output pins. Also, I thought I read that the USBizi is TTL (5v) tolerant. Is this true?
Yes the IOs are 5 volt tolerant.
USBizi chipset is based on NXP LPC2388 chipset. You can take a look at this chipset’s data sheet to have a clear view about electrical characteristics.