John Bennett
Senior Member
Actually, I should’ve said - it was more my fear of horrible shipping costs etc, than us having to do huge volumes. If we do more than 25,I’ll be happy
.
Space Harrier /OutRun DX Motor OpenBoard Project
- Thread starter NaokiS
- Start date
John Bennett
Senior Member
iamjimmi said:
James (tin) is going to be our first tester.
I'm rather hoping it's a case of stick it in and watch it move. If not, then it's the joys of remote debugging. We'll get there though.
John Bennett
Senior Member
It probably would've gone quicker if I hadn't distracted myself with other things
Seems like a good time to 'release' the GAL code too:
315_5160.zip
V0.9, draft of course.
I suppose it's 'done' when it's had a bit of mileage in a cabinet or two, but hopefully no showstoppers.
Next headaches are logistics and testing.
Seems like a good time to 'release' the GAL code too:
315_5160.zip
V0.9, draft of course.
I suppose it's 'done' when it's had a bit of mileage in a cabinet or two, but hopefully no showstoppers.
Next headaches are logistics and testing.
SO!....
John very kindly has lent me the board to give it a test and see where we go from here. My cab has never moved correctly since it came into my possession. I understood it could be this drive board, the motor itself or the main game board. We shall see!
Old PCB for fitting reference...
One hitch I didn't expect, the connectors for the 5v and to the limit switches etc are long obsolete so there's just a bare header on the new board for both. The connectors fit - i had checked the pitch sometime in the past - but didn't catch that there's keys on the underside of the plugs...
These prevent the connectors sliding nicely onto the headers, no matter. I figured a quick Stanley knife was the best solution to this - and with that they were gone.
board fitted in pride of place - looks ace doesn't it?
One thing I did wonder, this board is really kitted out for Space Harrier with the two motors to drive, and I wondered what the second circuit would do not driving anything. I wondered if it would get floating input from the game board and maybe spanner something up. It doesn't seem to matter in practice, although obviously I can't tell if it's frying something on the unused part of the board - hopefully not!
So does it work? I've got video I'll be sharing with John and possibly wider later, but the short version is that it pretty much does, with a couple of small caveats that I think a bit of debugging may be needed. Or possibly parts of my DLX are trashed and aren't doing what they should. I'll continue to consult with John and see where best to do a little bit of troubleshooting or such.
It continuously moves the car when it seems to me it should be stationary, and also stops moving the car at some odd moments. However broadly it seems to me to do what it should in line with what I think I'd expect from a working DLX. On my set up it drives the car slower from left to right, but I guess that's likely something to do with my motor - presumably it's not run for 10 years or so.
But yeah. A moving outrun was a great thing to have a little go on today. Amazing. Super impressed and a big smile on my face! Hope to be able to add a little something very shortly to get the board to be perfect and enable it to be produced in number
John very kindly has lent me the board to give it a test and see where we go from here. My cab has never moved correctly since it came into my possession. I understood it could be this drive board, the motor itself or the main game board. We shall see!
Old PCB for fitting reference...
One hitch I didn't expect, the connectors for the 5v and to the limit switches etc are long obsolete so there's just a bare header on the new board for both. The connectors fit - i had checked the pitch sometime in the past - but didn't catch that there's keys on the underside of the plugs...
These prevent the connectors sliding nicely onto the headers, no matter. I figured a quick Stanley knife was the best solution to this - and with that they were gone.
board fitted in pride of place - looks ace doesn't it?
One thing I did wonder, this board is really kitted out for Space Harrier with the two motors to drive, and I wondered what the second circuit would do not driving anything. I wondered if it would get floating input from the game board and maybe spanner something up. It doesn't seem to matter in practice, although obviously I can't tell if it's frying something on the unused part of the board - hopefully not!
So does it work? I've got video I'll be sharing with John and possibly wider later, but the short version is that it pretty much does, with a couple of small caveats that I think a bit of debugging may be needed. Or possibly parts of my DLX are trashed and aren't doing what they should. I'll continue to consult with John and see where best to do a little bit of troubleshooting or such.
It continuously moves the car when it seems to me it should be stationary, and also stops moving the car at some odd moments. However broadly it seems to me to do what it should in line with what I think I'd expect from a working DLX. On my set up it drives the car slower from left to right, but I guess that's likely something to do with my motor - presumably it's not run for 10 years or so.
But yeah. A moving outrun was a great thing to have a little go on today. Amazing. Super impressed and a big smile on my face! Hope to be able to add a little something very shortly to get the board to be perfect and enable it to be produced in number
John Bennett
Senior Member
Well, pretty happy with that
Thanks for trying it so quickly! (I’ve been checking here all day, excitedly hoping).
When you’re next with the cab, one thing you could try is to move the jumper to select A-mode for the GAL.
On the 4 pin jumper next to the rightmost GAL, the jumper is in position 1-2. Can you move it to 2-3 and see what happens?
I suggest this as if it was a PAL with the ‘A’ afterwards, the the definition for zero speed is slightly different.
It shouldn’t knack anything having a channel disconnected - it’s be my preference to fully populate all board, although you could save £5-10 by depopulating a lane.
Thanks for trying it so quickly! (I’ve been checking here all day, excitedly hoping).
When you’re next with the cab, one thing you could try is to move the jumper to select A-mode for the GAL.
On the 4 pin jumper next to the rightmost GAL, the jumper is in position 1-2. Can you move it to 2-3 and see what happens?
I suggest this as if it was a PAL with the ‘A’ afterwards, the the definition for zero speed is slightly different.
It shouldn’t knack anything having a channel disconnected - it’s be my preference to fully populate all board, although you could save £5-10 by depopulating a lane.
John Bennett
Senior Member
I figured it was worth a punt to let one of the dev team try it first, plus there’s the glory of making a dead cab live again
I think the next step is a couple more protos for other folk with different cab types.
It does sound very much like it’s the PAL mode, so if true then a good learning exercise.
I’m wondering how to avoid modding the plugs - could either make cutouts on the PCB or get the header to sit a bit higher.
It does sound very much like it’s the PAL mode, so if true then a good learning exercise.
I’m wondering how to avoid modding the plugs - could either make cutouts on the PCB or get the header to sit a bit higher.
This is tremendous John
John Bennett
Senior Member
Gah, I messed up the PAL triac equation slightly - that’ll be the reason it doesn’t stop or go so fast one way.
I was trying to make it more readable, as an excuse.
The good news is that the difference between the ‘normal’ and ‘A’ PALs is very clear now - the ‘’A’ PAL just runs the motor a bit slower
So, for now, please put the GAL into ‘A’ mode (as that code should be OK and it’ll run almost the right speed) and I’ll stick another GAL in the post (unless you’ve got a programmer handy)..
I was trying to make it more readable, as an excuse.
The good news is that the difference between the ‘normal’ and ‘A’ PALs is very clear now - the ‘’A’ PAL just runs the motor a bit slower
So, for now, please put the GAL into ‘A’ mode (as that code should be OK and it’ll run almost the right speed) and I’ll stick another GAL in the post (unless you’ve got a programmer handy)..
John Bennett
Senior Member
The lengths we ended up going to in counterfeiting the original visually, helped as every track route was copied, which helped spot where I’d misinterpreted the ropey schematic. Naoki’s the one who led us down that route, but glad we did as it looks the part and I’ve enjoyed the retro engineering.J69 said:
Naoki - we could offer plastic connector covers as an optional extra? (Can be added at a later date). Not quite sure what to do about the plastic keyways on the bottom of the plugs though - I’ll see if the connector can be shimmed a bit higher before soldering down, but otherwise we need something that sits a bit raised, or we put cutouts in the PCB profile for the plugs.
Thanks for the nice comments, everyone