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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : New Version of MMBasic. Version 3.2
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| donrecardo Newbie  Joined: 04/05/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 16 |
Thanks everyone for your replies I have to agree with all of you as all the suggestions you make are valid I too have another duinomite ( not mega) and 3.2c works fine on that suggesting its a hardware fault on the mega yet if I run v2.7 on th emega it will run happily all day so a hardware fault seems less likely I also except that a dodgy PSU is a likely cause however If I run 3.2c with the said PSU on the duinomite it runs fine If I run 3.2c with the said PSU on the mega I get jitters if I run 2.7 with said PSU on the mega its fine So its the same PSU in all 3 cases yet twice it works and once it fails which to me doesnt make the PSU such a likely candidate When I first switched on this morning I noticed that it took nearly 2 minutes before the jitters started , so I suspected its a heat problem . It gets warm and fails . I also guessed it was around the regulators that I had the problem, so, I removed the box from the mega and blew on the regulators to cool them, and for a second or two the jitters stop, then on warming it starts again. So is heat the culprit ? maybe , but then why isn't heat causing the same problems when I run v2.7 ? All the reasons we have thought of are good reasons why it might fail, but all the reasons also fall down when I change firmware , it really doesnt make sense and to be honest if you were telling me these symptoms I might not believe you. So ... See for yourself . I made a small video and put it online so you can watch it . You will see the hardware remains the same . The PSU stays the same , yet I can turn the jitters on and off like turning on and off a switch and all just by switching between firmware V3.2 and v2.7 You can see it here https://www.dropbox.com/s/zi5vu0r7lqwvkwf/MVI_1151.AVI any suggestions ? Don |
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donmck Guru  Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
That video sure helps to tell the story. Do you have a freeze can pack of some sort Don? I sure looks heat related, and only noticeable on V3.2 I would suspect a regulator, but it could be something really obscure in the power circuit. It is a complex setup on the Mega. I would doubt it is in the video output area, or the micro itself. Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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| donrecardo Newbie Joined: 04/05/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 16 |
Hi Don No I dont have any freeze spray but when I first suspected it might be heat related this morning I did blow in the area of the regulators and it did help untill of course they warmed up again. I wrote to cool components who I bought it from suggesting we swap it for a better one, so I am, waiting on their reply. The part that threw me is the heat related problem is not there with V2.7 firmware. The only thing I can think is that V3.2c perhaps works the processor harder making it draw a little more current therefore making a bit more heat and if the situation was borderline that might just be enough to tip it over the edge As suggested by BigMick on the other forum I tried running it off a 12v battery so I could be sure the supply was smooth but it still behaves the same , jitters on 3.2c ok on 2.7 Don |
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| donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
OK, it would be a good result if they can swap it over. You can only give it a try. Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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| donrecardo Newbie Joined: 04/05/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 16 |
Well I got my reply from cool components and considering the item was new last friday and that it can clearly be shown that the problem is related to the regulator getting too hot I was less than impressed with their answer They Wrote.... Hi Don, Thanks for your email. It appears that V3.2c firmware is not made or supported by Olimex. The Olimex Duinomite Mega is certified only with firmware 2.7 (written by Olimex) The 3.2c firmware is closed source and made by someone called Geoff Graham. We would suggest that you contact him directly, as this is not something that we support. http://geoffg.net/maximite.html Kind Regards, The Cool Components Team Well you can guess who wont be getting any more business from me if that's the after sales support they offer. Beware who you buy your duino from Don |
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| donmck Guru Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
hmmmm..... That would not have been my approach, but that is another story about supporting customers. They appear to understand the concept of other firmware being available for the device, and I suspected this could have been the path they would take. Me, I wouldn't have taken the chance of loosing a good customer, and getting bad press for the sake of a few dollars, as it is the only unit that I have heard of with this problem, in possibly thousands now sold. All is not completely lost, as it can be used in a stand alone controller application, but I know you purchased it with a case, so you can have a complete development system. And it isn't Geoff's problem either. He has MMBasic running nicely on DuinoMites without this problem, which I and many other members of this group can testify to. Don... EDIT regarding MMBasic: From Olimex's page: https://www.olimex.com/dev/duinomite-mm-firmware.html Granted, it was written some time ago, but it appears to be an Olimex recommendation to also use MMBbasic by Geoff Graham. Perhaps my interpretive skills are bad. https://www.dontronics.com |
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| shoebuckle Senior Member  Joined: 21/01/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 189 |
Don, Have you checked your soldering around the power supply components? Dry joints, or almost dry joints, can cause strange errors. If it was me, I would put an iron over all the connections... but perhaps you have already done so. Cheers, Hugh |
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| jdh2550 Regular Member  Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
Yup, you may well be right. The mysteries of the ten thousand and one different licensing agreements in existence are beyond me. 
I've just downloaded and built everything. Adding it was as easy as adding can.c/can.h to the MMBasic project. Next up is actually testing it. 
As I haven't yet gotten CAN working on my eMega I'm not too hopeful about that - but I have a regular Mega on order and other folks on PriusChat.com (from whence I came) have their Mega's attaching to CAN just fine (with DMBasic 2.7). I just really, really want the nicer structured programming syntax that is in MMBasic 3.2 ... If I get it working then I'll ping both Geoff and Frank and see if they can reach detente... If they can then hopefully it can get distributed. If not then, oh well at least I can do my stuff and screw the rest of ya!  |
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djuqa Guru Joined: 23/11/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 447 |
I just posted a small but infomative comment on their facebook page aboout the history of MMbasic/DMBASIC VK4MU MicroController Units |
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| donrecardo Newbie Joined: 04/05/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 16 |
As it came as a ready made board rather than a kit I am reluctant to put an iron to it in case they say I buggered it up Don |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2914 |
Hi John, I dont think detente' is quite the correct word I dont think they are at war or arguing... It certainly would be nice to have all things available... It would also be nice to have Iggys shift-in-shift out available on MM... It would be nice to have numberless code on DM (Not that I quite like that myself but most people do. I am an old bugger stuck in their ways) Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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| donrecardo Newbie Joined: 04/05/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 16 |
Thanks for the helpful heads up to them talking about mmbasic but I fear the line down at the bottom of the page would be used as a get out clause , it says ...... Overal we welcome the DuinoMite support in MM-BASIC 3.1, but our advise is to stay to DM-BASIC until the MM-BASIC support is improved as in the current state it's not very useful. Geoff G has sent me a good tip by email , he agreed with what I had said regarding 3.2 may work the pic32 a little harder ( 10mA to 15mA) than v2.7 and that could cause more heat creating my problem . He suggests connecting a 330 ohm resistor to each of 5 outputs and sending them high. This will then also draw the same current on 2.7 as using 3.2c with no resistors I will give it a go and see what happens Don |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3801 |
Just wondering... what else do you think they could reasonably have said? After all, 3.x is indeed closed source and the board will not have been tested with it. John |
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| donrecardo Newbie Joined: 04/05/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 16 |
What I think they could have reasonably said was "as it works on every one elses duinomite mega and not on yours then your board must be non standard and as its brand new we will exchange it for a working one" . That would have been reasonable They do after all talk about using 3.x on their web site ... MM 3.1 adds some very nice features: That is on https://www.olimex.com/dev/duinomite-mm-firmware.html |
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| jdh2550 Regular Member Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
Hi Mick, Sorry, that was my poor attempt at humor. There's certainly some "tension" between Olimex and Geoff G. I've no idea what the current state of that is - hopefully it's getting better (time heals all!). After all Geoff now has a DuinoMite hex file for MMBasic 3.2 and that's a positive sign. As you originally said the main issue with getting my stuff into a distributed MMBasic build is for Geoff and Frank to decide on the impact of differing licensing agreements between the two code bases. I'll just ask them to consider it. My take on things (FWIW!) is that it will be easier to pull some of the DM features into MMBasic rather than the other way around. This is just a gut feel based on the fact that adding the CAN stuff appears relatively easy (still not tested yet!) whereas overhauling the interpreter to support functions etc. seems like a bigger job. Also, from a licensing perspective taking chunks of Geoff's code and putting it into DM is probably a non-starter (but might not be if somehow one can make a separate module out of it). However, taking code from DM and putting it in MMBasic has a better chance of success. The caveat is that CAN is probably one of the easier features to port. I've read both the Olimex and the GeoffG point of view about implementation differences. I haven't compared the code bases to see the extent of differences between them. Once I have CAN confirmed to be working I'll look at Iggy's code - that should be easy to port as well. In fact "port" is too strong a word for this - all I'm doing so far is moving from one code project to another - all the hard work has been done by other people. Not me. However, it may be that there's other changes necessary if it doesn't just work out the box. I'm away for a long weekend with the family and it has been suggested that I shouldn't bring the laptop with me...  |
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| donrecardo Newbie Joined: 04/05/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 16 |
Dont shout too loud but I think I fixed it The Pic chip is overheating . I fitted a temporary heat sink to it with a bit of thermal compound and its been stable on 3.2c ever since I ordered some self adhesive heat sinks for a more permanent repair but for now you can see it here ..... https://www.dropbox.com/s/r6jsxaiz1ft7uac/IMG_1153.JPG I think I might market the idea as Duinomite Mega with supercharger . looks kinda cool Don |
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| DuinoMiteMegaAn Senior Member Joined: 17/11/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 231 |
The Pic chip is overheating
Donrecardo ... Just curious, can you test or find out how much current your DM Mega is drawing without any GPIO connected except for your video connection?
Putting a heatsink on the PIC32 CPU is just a band-aid. If so, just report the current value on this forum board. |
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| donrecardo Newbie Joined: 04/05/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 16 |
Hi with just the vga and the keyboard plugged in its reading 136mA Don |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3801 |
Sounds a rather overoptimistic expectation. I gather from your more recent posts that it's overheating. Maybe several more will do that if they're tried with 3.2. Probably only some have even tried it at all. Can you measure the temp with & without 3.2 to see how much hotter it gets? John |
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| donrecardo Newbie Joined: 04/05/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 16 |
Unfortunately I don't have any equipment suitable to measure the temperature |
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