IDE card issues

[RickyDean]

@F.G. Kaal, could you tell me how the check point listed in the IDETEST program line up with the existing location of the IC's on the actual board? Like which chip is U8, U9, etc.  I have built 3 Ide boards, two using an oven method and the last individually soldering each and there are no shorts or obvious issues and I have have electrical continuity from the CRU BCD switch all the way across to the end led light from point to point test using a schematic. I'm suspecting bad components but don't know how they relate in test to the actual IC's onboard. Thanks for any info.

[RickyDean]

@F.G. Kaal, I may have answered my own question, I still have one bare board from the run of them Shift838 did awhile back and I see IC, IC9, etc. So I guess these relate to the ones listed on the test as U+digits?

[RickyDean]

Here's the last one I did, point soldering by hand

.

Here's the level I can see with my microscope camera.

Every chip, looks this good, so it has to be a bad IC?

[F.G. Kaal]

10 hours ago, RickyDean said:

@F.G. Kaal, could you tell me how the check point listed in the IDETEST program line up with the existing location of the IC's on the actual board? Like which chip is U8, U9, etc.  I have built 3 Ide boards, two using an oven method and the last individually soldering each and there are no shorts or obvious issues and I have have electrical continuity from the CRU BCD switch all the way across to the end led light from point to point test using a schematic. I'm suspecting bad components but don't know how they relate in test to the actual IC's onboard. Thanks for any info.

The idea of the test program is that if something is not working you follow all the connections / traces from begin to end through all the IC's (Ux) mentioned. Also check the obvious ... is the polarity of the LED correct 🙂

I'm not the designer of the board ... I only wrote the programs to use the board. 

See also the description on Thiery's website: IDE card version 2 (unige.ch)

End drawings on my website: My TI99/4A and Geneve Web Pages (hexbus.com)  ... Project ... Ide card

[Shift838]

21 hours ago, RickyDean said:

@F.G. Kaal, could you tell me how the check point listed in the IDETEST program line up with the existing location of the IC's on the actual board? Like which chip is U8, U9, etc.  I have built 3 Ide boards, two using an oven method and the last individually soldering each and there are no shorts or obvious issues and I have have electrical continuity from the CRU BCD switch all the way across to the end led light from point to point test using a schematic. I'm suspecting bad components but don't know how they relate in test to the actual IC's onboard. Thanks for any info.

 

Many times, I have seen this error on the SMD cards when I was building them, it was always something to do with either the clock chip or the SRAM.  As Fred said, check all your points, also I found out that if the Battery in the RTC was dead or under voltage then this error would also pop up.  I have a benchmark chip that had a dead battery and I had to hack on it to get it to work. But since your back LED is not on, then check the polarity as Fred said (negative towards the back of the card)

My Frankenstein BQ4847 is documented HERE

 

To test the battery, you need to use a multimeter to get the voltage of course.  If the battery is under voltage which can cause an issue is really anything under if I recall about 2.1 volts (but don't quote me on this).  To test, remove the RTC from the board and set your multimeter to DC voltage.  Use the ground lead on pin 14 (remember pins 2 and 3 are missing on the RTC) and the positive lead on pin #1, see what your voltage is.

 

I know @F.G. Kaaldetermines if the on-board battery is OK or LOW, he can let you know what voltage he has that set to.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Shift838

[Shift838]

The back LED is controlled by U19 (74ALS08) and U9 (74ALS139).  Start by reflowing U19, U9 and U8 (LS138) as it also has a couple of signals that go directly to U9 and U19.

 

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Shift838

[RickyDean]

Thanks, I'll look into the battery issue for sure. The the ic's have been reflowed twice on at least one of the boards, and your Blue board was all hand done point by point and carefully checked with a microscope camera with the image quality that you see in the picture. I was leaning on the possibility of some bad chips, or damaged chips from the oven process till I built your board, I will concentrate on those IC's and the battery possibilty, right now.

[Shift838]

1 minute ago, RickyDean said:

Thanks, I'll look into the battery issue for sure. The the ic's have been reflowed twice on at least one of the boards, and your Blue board was all hand done point by point and carefully checked with a microscope camera with the image quality that you see in the picture. I was leaning on the possibility of some bad chips, or damaged chips from the oven process till I built your board, I will concentrate on those IC's and the battery possibilty, right now.

double-check the polarity of the back LED, too.  You could always run through the test program and answer Y to that question anyway to see if it will write to the SRAM.

[RickyDean]

2 minutes ago, Shift838 said:

double-check the polarity of the back LED, too.  You could always run through the test program and answer Y to that question anyway to see if it will write to the SRAM.

That was a right angle led, facing up, so it could be easily seen. That would be something if that was all it was... sigh...worth looking at. And I have tried that, answering Y, and it fails with the message in the photo.

Edited November 5, 2023 by RickyDean

[Shift838]

1 minute ago, RickyDean said:

That was a right angle led, facing up, so it could be easily seen. That would be something if that was all it was... sigh...worth looking at.

If you can't get it figured out and want a fresh pair of eyes feel free to let me know and you can send it my way.

[RickyDean]

8 minutes ago, Shift838 said:

If you can't get it figured out and want a fresh pair of eyes feel free to let me know and you can send it my way.

Let me check the other stuff mentioned, if I don't figure it soon, I'll get with you.

[RickyDean]

5 hours ago, RickyDean said:

Let me check the other stuff mentioned, if I don't figure it soon, I'll get with you.

I don't think its a polarity issue as I use an angled led that was purchased for the purpose of mounting there like the photo in Fred's website. Tried it on one of the other, didn't work. Also checked the voltage of the battery on the blue one from you, It is putting out 2.93 volts, so should be fine. The two bq4847 chinese knockoffs I have here are 3.30 volts on the green ones. I may have a theory on the green ones. And I had removed the smd sram I mounted on the Blue from the green ones a while back, not sure if it was maybe bad. I'll check a couple more things before I think about sending it. After I deal with the Surgeon about my arm Tuesday, I'll know when the surgery will take place, then when it happens I'll have about 10 or so weeks to let my shoulder heal before I can do anything with my right arm

[F.G. Kaal]

19 hours ago, Shift838 said:

I know @F.G. Kaaldetermines if the on-board battery is OK or LOW, he can let you know what voltage he has that set to

The battery ok is just bit (BVF) in the flags register of the clock chip. 

 

Battery-Low Warning The bq4845 checks the battery on power-up. When the battery voltage is approximately 2.1V, the battery-valid flag BVF in the flags register is set to a 0 indicating that clock and RAM data may be invalid.

 

[RickyDean]

On 11/5/2023 at 4:02 PM, Shift838 said:

If you can't get it figured out and want a fresh pair of eyes feel free to let me know and you can send it my way.

@Shift838, I used one of the M68Z512W-70NC1 Srams that originally came with the Green IDE boards, on the 1 blue board, that I used a griddle method to  flow the solder paste on the two green boards about three years ago. I removed those Srams, thinking that maybe I had fried them on the griddle from the heat, from the boards. I have been trying to use another sram method but found that the M68Z512W-70NC1 chip has a slightly different pinout than say a HM628512AFLP chip, so I have to compensate for that. Also don't know if I did in fact overheat any or all smd on those two boards. I will figure them out sometime, but if you don't mind I'll send you the Blue Generation board to check out. To see if the M68Z512W-70NC1 that I did place on there is good or bad, or to find the problem. Let me know your mailing address in a message and while I'm out to talk to the surgeon tomorrow, I'll get it mailed off to you. Thanks

Edited November 7, 2023 by RickyDean
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