G30 Design Project

Archive
41

@ Mr. John Smith - We opened that schematic and it was blank.

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@ hwalker_MIWV - ping me an email if you want.

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@ Justin - hwalker@ miwv.com

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@ hwalker_MIWV - Blank?

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@ hwalker_MIWV - No, the files have information in them. Try this online viewer for the Brd file.

[url]http://3dbrdviewer.cytec.bg/[/url]

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I haven’t followed the full thread here (I’ve been on holidays) but one earlier comment about G30 vs G80 for touch displays… Here’s my general take on this.

You can run an SPI display on G30/G80 as you’ve seen, but not using the inbuilt bitmap capability. You can’t run a full RGB display on those devices - if you need that, you likely need a device with more capability (G120+).

If you want touch, you should be able to get a display that already has a touch controller onboard to work with a G30/G80, but I can’t recall seeing anyone use it. One of the 2.8" SPI displays I have used in the past on G30/G80 has touch but I have never used it - I guess that could be an interesting project if I had time but I won’t for a couple of weeks. The display I used is about US$10 in singles on eBay, so in my view great value for a 320x240 2.8" display.

In general, if your application needs memory, the G120 will be the place you want to be. G80 or G30 are intended for small-ish applications and not high memory situations. You also get better support for network and displays. But if your needs are modest and you can make do with the SPI display options and lower memory, you’d be ok with G30/G80.

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@ Brett - Thank you for the input Brett, the addition of touchscreen in my design probably will not be for a couple weeks once this first version is in production so let me know if your experiment works out - a touchscreen display that cheap would be fantastic as nothing was that low on Digikey. Basically the screen has to come from DigiKey or a similar company my chief engineer won’t order from eBay, ect for production purposes because of potential stocking and quality issues we cannot risk.

As far as something like the G120 goes - we try to stay away from modules and select single chip processors because of the reduced cost. I have a very talented electrical engineer as my supervisor who can whip out custom boards in the blink of an eye so we can make everything much cheaper. However he doesn’t know anything about controllers or displays though so that is why we are having this conversation (:

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@ Mr. John Smith - The schematic file is blank. The .brd file does not have the schematic connections we need to see to know what pins on the motor driver are the controller pins for our micro controller.

Also did you have a chance to update your driver? I am not sure how to find the reference for the “global,” object in your code. I also need to know what pins to set to busy, flag, and SPI config variables in your code - I am still a little foggy on setting up microcontroller pins. Are those MISO and MOSI pins? I see those going to motor controllers in a lot of schematics but not sure the purpose

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Think of the G120 as the same as the G30 and G80, just with more memory, different features, and a different form factor. You still need to do everything that you need to do on a custom board for a G30 as for one that has a G120 on it, you just have a different footprint and a few different supporting components. GHI have a policy to support commercial customers using their SOMs (eg published lifecycle notice periods for breaking changes, backward compatibility as G120 is same footprint as EMX and EM before that), so you should have no worries from that perspective as a commercial customer. The key thing you get from using GHI as a supplier is the netmf build running on a range of processors of different power/capability (so don’t just look at it as an LPCxxxx processor, it’s all about the software). I’d strongly urge you to speak to Gary or Gus on the phone if at all possible, it’s the best way to get a real feel for the support they offer to commercial customers. I’m not a commercial customer, like many of the contributors to this thread we’re just avid community members.

My displays were from aliexpress, but 2.8"TFT Touch Shield for Arduino w/Capacitive Touch Screen Module is similar and you can still get a capacitive touch or resistive touch option, albeit with additional cost than what I paid. This has the same display controller as my display uses (ILI9341).

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from the driver code:

    private static InputPort busy = new InputPort((Cpu.Pin)FEZCerbuino.Pin.Gadgeteer.Socket1.Pin3, false, Port.ResistorMode.Disabled);
    private static InputPort flag = new InputPort((Cpu.Pin)FEZCerbuino.Pin.Gadgeteer.Socket1.Pin5, false, Port.ResistorMode.Disabled);

    private static SPI.Configuration config = new SPI.Configuration((Cpu.Pin)FEZCerbuino.Pin.Gadgeteer.Socket1.Pin6,
            false, // Chip Select, active-low
            1, // 1 millisecond setup time
            1, // 1 millisecond hold time
            true, // Clock low on idle
            true, // Data valid on falling edge
            5000, // 5Mhz Clock Rate
            SPI.SPI_module.SPI1);

In order, that means the busy pin is connected to FEZCerbuino.Pin.Gadgeteer.Socket1.Pin3 (replace that with what pin you want); the flag pin is connected to FEZCerbuino.Pin.Gadgeteer.Socket1.Pin5 (replace that with what you want); CS pin is FEZCerbuino.Pin.Gadgeteer.Socket1.Pin6 (replace that with what you want), and the SPI port it uses is SPI.SPI_module.SPI1 (replace that with what you want).

Edit: SPI is considered a single group of pins for each module, comprising SPI CLK, MOSI and MISO.

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@ hwalker_MIWV - Trying to remove dangling code :slight_smile:

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@ Brett - Should I keep those configuration settings like set up and hold times?

Also does anyone know what the G30 footprint is as well as where pin number one is? There is no schematic or diagrams showing the pin out for the SoC square configuration, only a table in the data sheet but that doesn’t show me where pin number one is. I know usually it starts where the dot on the chip is but there’s 2 dots on this chip. I found a schematic for the rectangular (DIP?) pin configuration on the G30HD but that’s useless to me.

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53

LQFP64

Little dot is pin 1

Reffer to STM32F401 datasheet for footprint details etc.

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@ Justin - Thank you!

Does anyone know how to interface a GPIB with a G30? I have an NI7210 controller

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I have done GPIB like 20 years ago so I do not remember much but I can’t tell you that I hated it!!

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Yuck. :slight_smile:

It’s a parallel interface for a start and NETMF doesn’t have any byte wide operations on port pins and then you need to generate the DACK, ADDR, CS and read DRQ etc. Can be done, but it will require some work and unlikely any drivers will exist in C# or NETMF so you will be on your own writing this or porting some C/++ Linux driver etc.

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It was dead easy back in the days of using GPIB with HP Rocky Mountain Basic. :slight_smile:

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@ Dave McLaughlin - for me it wasn’t easy as I had to learn the standard and write embedded code to handle it from scratch. Keep in mind I didn’t have jtag back then.

… Good days :slight_smile:

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Damn that is not what I wanted to hear. I have old C code for interfacing the GPIB with a PIC but I can’t read C well and its super outdated syntax as well. I have drivers for talking to a GPIB through .Net 3.5+ that is really solid can’t I just use that NationalInstruments.NI4882.dll or does it all have to be from scratch? One of the few design requirements is to have a GPIB connection on the device. I have NI 7210 drivers and a 488.2 GPIB. Any suggestions on hardware changes that are equivalent but more up to date?

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@ Gus - Didn’t NETMF have a class that allows the setting of 8 I/Os at the same time. It was supposed to be used for CNC control. I don’t recall what it was.