Controller Troubleshooting

Barry_D · Post by **Barry_D** » Wed May 26, 2004 1:21 pm

Hi All,

I still haven't found the cause of my board not communicating with my PC...

I need a little help troubleshooting. It's not my com ports, they work fine. And the board is getting power. The two chips and the crystal have been oriented correctly from the start, voltage regulator is fine, the map sensor is not a concern right now, the serial port contacts are all soldered fine and not bridging any other circuit, what does that leave?

Transistors, Zener Diodes, resistors, capacitors, and what else??? Where could a communication breakdown occur on the board with the serial port?

What about the orientation of resistors? I noticed Brent's board pics and Aaron's board pics show different resistors oriented differently, hmmmmmmm...

Help!

Barry

Post by **brentp** » Wed May 26, 2004 1:38 pm

Hi Barry,

I'm still looking into an alternate way to communicate with the controller. I was thinking of using Hyperterminal to manually send commands to it and see if any data gets sent back.

Otherwise, try taking some pictures of your work, front and back, as Paratime suggested. I'll try to get the file/upload feature working on the site, but in the meantime just email them to me.

Thanks,
Brent

Post by **brentp** » Wed May 26, 2004 2:52 pm

Barry,

Try this:

Open up Hyperterminal. create a connection, and configure it to connect directly to the com port # you have on your computer. (Make sure no other programs are using that com port- close all communication programs, including palm pilot sync programs)

When it asks for the communication settings, use the following:

Bits Per Second: 4800
Data Bits: 8
Parity: None
Stop Bits: 1
Flow Control: <b>none</b>

When you get to the main screen, send a capital 'C' to the controller. you won't see what you type echoed on the screen, but the controller should 'reply' with what looks like a bunch of garbage. This is equivalent to the config software requesting the current configuration.

Pressing 'S' returns the current runtime status; in my case it replys with a single 'Z' character.

If that doesn't work, try a different serial cable. Also, make sure you can prove the serial port works correctly, like with any other devices you might already have. Trying this on a different computer might be helpful as well.

Good luck,
Brent

Paratime · Post by **Paratime** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 4:10 am

Barry,

Did you ever get your box working?

Barry_D · Post by **Barry_D** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 11:32 am

Hey Paratime,

Short answer, no. I found someone who has much more experience at PCB's than I do to help me out. I should know more in a couple of days.

Once my error is found, I'll post it on here to help the next guy who has the same problem. Stay tuned...

On a brighter note - I've been working on what's going to become the decal for the case on the MJLJ. Brent has to sign off on the final design, and will be posting it on here soon.

The decal is already looking MUCH better than the MegaSquirt decal!

Barry
[email protected]

Autosport Labs