Papilio DUO - Prototype builds and testing!


Jack Gassett

Recommended Posts

Great news, I got all the parts, pcb's and stencils needed to build the first Papilio DUO prototypes. I built the FPGA side of the very first board today and recorded some video of the process.

 

Here is the raw footage captured today. (I plan to edit these down later but wanted to give everyone a look as soon as possible)

 

 

See the reply for more videos...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Testing the board

 

The FPGA side is working perfectly so far:

  • Power is providing correct voltages.
  • FT2232H is programming bit files
  • SPI Flash is working
  • A Quickstart bit file flashing pins.

Up for testing next:

  • Make a ucf for this new board so we can test all of the pins and serial communications.
  • Solder on the atmega32u4 to the bottom side of the board and see if it works!
  • Solder and test HDMI
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very cool Jack!


 


I'm looking forward to the Papilio Duo board, it seems like a nice design.


 


Thanks for taking the time to make the videos too.  That stencil system looks very cool, do you have a link where I can learn more about it?


 

(NOTE: This was also posted in another thread, but this seems the proper one). :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cool vids Jack. A little video editing would have been great to merge all 15 little videos into one single 10 minute one :) I like the stainless steel stencil system, should last you a long time. I'm surprised you haven't built a reflow oven by now, after Hamster's handy instructional.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Very cool Jack!

 

I'm looking forward to the Papilio Duo board, it seems like a nice design.

 

Thanks for taking the time to make the videos too.  That stencil system looks very cool, do you have a link where I can learn more about it?

 
(NOTE: This was also posted in another thread, but this seems the proper one). :-)

 

 

Hello Xark,

 

Here are some links for Stencil8, created by Zac Hoeken.

http://www.gadgetfactory.net/2014/03/stencil-heaven-at-hackvana-with-the-stencil8-system/

http://www.hoektronics.com/2012/10/27/super-simple-smt-stencil8/

https://www.tindie.com/products/arachnidlabs/pcb-tooling-block-full-grid/

 

You can order steel stencils from Mitch at Hackvana.com

http://www.hackvana.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cool vids Jack. A little video editing would have been great to merge all 15 little videos into one single 10 minute one :) I like the stainless steel stencil system, should last you a long time. I'm surprised you haven't built a reflow oven by now, after Hamster's handy instructional.

 

The pancake griddle is so dead simple that I've not had any reason to use a reflow oven yet. I'm thinking I'll build one for the next BGA design I make since the thermal profile will be more important.

 

In case anyone hasn't seen Hamster's awesome reflow oven tutorial, here is a link. There are even some Reflow Wings left for the asking.

 

Jack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When do you expect to ship the board ? This board have pretty much everything I had on my list except maybe a DA (?)

 

Really looking forward to this board, money on the table !!

 

Thanks! What do you mean by DA? A digital to analog DAC? If so, a Delta-Sigma DAC can be easily implemented inside the FPGA. :)

 

Once this board tests out I will get the ball rolling with Seeed Studio to get a quote and such going. I'll also start work on a Kickstarter were people can put in pre-orders. :) My target delivery date is by July.

 

Jack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Hi Jack, hey everyone!  Jack, your vids look great and no smoke!  Glad the Stencil8 system worked for you.

 

As you said, all the credit for Stencil8 goes to Zach Hoeken of Makerbot fame.  But it's proving a real hit with my customers.

 

In this case, Jack sent me the Papilio DUO files, and I added the top and bottom tooling rails, with the Stencil8-suitable mounting holes.  I can also do panelisation for stencil8, like this:

 

  http://hairy.geek.nz/2013/09/panels/

 

Jack, I'm looking forward to reading your continuing adventures!

 

Mitch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks! What do you mean by DA? A digital to analog DAC? If so, a Delta-Sigma DAC can be easily implemented inside the FPGA. :)

 

Once this board tests out I will get the ball rolling with Seeed Studio to get a quote and such going. I'll also start work on a Kickstarter were people can put in pre-orders. :) My target delivery date is by July.

 

Jack.

 

 

I was refering to a DAC, planing to build a small retro computer out of this and its not complete without a mod/xm player :)

 

Can I put down an order now for it ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Update:

 

I'm still working on verification of the Papilio DUO. I'm being tripped up with getting the USB port of the atmega32u4 to work right now.

 

I'm able to use an Atmel Dragon programmer to write sketches to the atmega32u4 using both the JTAG and ICSP ports. I'm doing so using Atmel Studio 6 and the Visual Micro Arduino plugin. 

 

When I load the Leonardo bootloader to the atmega32u4 it will run the blink.ino sketch that is embedded in the bootloader, I can see pin 13 blinking, but if I plug in the usb connector nothing shows up...

 

I have set the fuses correctly according to what is in the arduino boards.txt file. I even went as far as removing the atmega32u4 chip from an actual Arduino Leonardo board and swapping it out with the chip on the Papilio DUO. When I do so the Arduino Leonardo works correctly with both chips and the Papilio DUO runs sketchs loaded over ICSP but does not make a connection with the USB port, with both chips.

 

I think what is happening is that the bootloader never runs and the USB port never gets initialized. The user sketch runs instead... So next step is to start digging into the documentation to figure out how the bootloader gets triggered and what I'm missing...

 

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Jack

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Darn, I'm pretty sure I found the culprit... VBUS is not connected... So the USB controller never thinks that anything is connected to the usb port... Snap! 

 

post-29509-0-00833100-1396023711_thumb.p

 

Going to try to make a temporary jumper connection to make sure that is the problem. Going to require some very careful soldering to do that though... Might not be possible, but will give it a try.

 

Jack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sho' nuff, that was the problem... When I connect a jumper wire it comes right up as an Arduino Leonardo.

 

USB communications, bootloader, everything works perfect when VBUS is connected... I'm loading sketches just like it was an Arduino Leonardo.

 

Going to have to do another board run...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey guys, everything is going smashingly well with the verification of this board. I did find the one problem with the VBUS but besides that everything is testing out perfectly. :)

 

What's been done so far:

  • We have ZPUINO running out of the SRAM! Alvie was kind enough to spend some time getting this up and running so we now have a full blown memory tester and a working ZPUino that runs out of SRAM. Thanks a ton Alvie. :)
  • A customized board type for our Arduino Leonardo clone. We took some liberties with the pin locations in order to make it possible to route this board. The pins don't match the Leonardo exactly, but that doesn't matter, its the beauty of the Arduino solution. They have a sort of hardware abstraction layer that is defined by board types. So I created a new board type that makes the Papilio DUO atmega32u4 chip behave just like any other Arduino. When you access pins 0-16 it works just like any other board, A0-11, just like any other board. PWM, like any other board, etc. Every pin and every pin name has been defined and tested and it all works great!
  • Serial port communications are working beautifully, I've tested Channel A and Channel B and MPSSE mode for both channels.

What's left to test:

  • I ordered a SPI based SD ram shield and will test it with the atmega32u4 and the ZPUino.
  • Up for testing next is both chips working together. I want to run a sketch on the atmega32u4 and setup the FPGA as a logic analyzer to debug it.

 

Summary:

All major systems are looking good, there is a major bug with VBUS not being connected though. It will require a new batch of PCB's which means that I cannot build up 10 prototypes as I was planning to do. I intend to finish testing, make the fixes and order new PCB's, and then start on the Kickstarter project. If I can squeeze building 10 prototypes in there somewhere I will definitely do so, but it might be quicker to just get the Kickstarter done and take pre-orders...

 

Jack

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, the problem is that the patch wire goes to a pin on the atmega32u4 which is using the QFN footprint. I had to do a very delicate soldering job using very fine wire wrap gauge wire. It was very difficult to get it right and it is very delicate. I have my prototype suspended in a pcb rework station so the wire doesn't get jostled around. I could try to put epoxy or something over the wire, but I think that it is so difficult to get the tiny wire soldered onto the QFN pin and it is so easily messed up that it is not a good idea...

 

It is pretty cheap and fast to order another batch of boards from Hackvana. But, I want to make sure everything is absolutely tested and correct before making changes and ordering the next batch.

 

Jack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.