Puma board for FreeEMS

[jharvey]

The spin 1 docs are crucial because if we piss off the people that put their hands up, spin 2 will be harder to push.

I think we should leave that up to them. Of course if anyone inquired about spin 1, I'd pitch in and offer insight, but I haven't seen much chatter about the spin 1 boards. I think most put up their hands because it was dirt cheap and a unique opportunity. Lets remove perception, and put it up for a vote. Can you create a thread with a voting option that allows folks to vote for where we should focus our efforts? I don't think we are going to piss off people, who bought a board they were told wasn't going to be supported. I think it was one of those, sure why not situations.

I would vote that we focus on the next spin, with option 2 (that's built by aapcb with MCU and critical components populated, then the DIYer adds the injector circuits and such). Can the vote include that option?

[tpsretard]

If spin 2 is done in that nature i would definitely be interested in the next spin.

[Fred]

I don't think we are going to piss off people, who bought a board they were told wasn't going to be supported.

Are you fcuking joking? People certainly were NOT told that it would not be supported, quite the opposite. They were told that the design could be worthless and have any number of issues and that we would do our best to solve them and keep everyone informed. Most stuff that is wrong with the spin 1 is known and just needs writing up. I've done at least my share of that. It needs collating, and assembling and wording.

As for no one putting their hand up, that's another fcuking joke. I know of at least SIX people who are waiting on a detailed BOM to place their order and get building. Some of these are people that I have promised code to such that they can get vehicles that they NEED running, others are CORE devs, others are EXPERT tuners, etc. We CAN NOT afford to let these people down, period. If 50% of the buyers never bother to assemble/ask/whatever, fine. But those that do want to, should be helped. The support level that You and Marcos gave me for a few days there is required for the others too. If the docs are good, there won't be any. There won't be many questions until people can order the parts, though, and there isn't a good enough BOM for that yet, it's full of waste/wrong and optional parts.

Too not distribute clear info on how to order bits and put it together would be EXTREMELY unprofessional and give the Puma project a bad name right up front. Not cool.

Fortunately Marcos is working on docs right now, so we're probably on the right track despite your comments.

Imagine if I said "Nah, I'm working on the next version of vanilla, if you have issues, sort them out for your self. NO one would try it....

Fred.

[SleepyKeys]

I expected that spin1 would need some patches and changes as it's the first run and there are still many unknowns etc. What I didn’t expect was the absence of documentation explaining those patches, let alone no BOM.

The money isn’t really a concern(I spent $25 big deal). What is a big deal is time. Go on ohloh.net, look up our associated projects and have a gander and the estimated project cost(s).

I know the HW guys have put in a TON of effort too. But if were not on the same page were not really headed towards the same finished product. Look at what happened to all the guys who left diyefi.org to peruse things on their own.

All the key people as of now have SPIN 1. We need to get those built so we can get the SW DONE(at least for the most part).

The is what the FreeEMS project needs.
1. Good docs for Spin1.
2. The software guys to get busy getting things sorted and tested.
3. MORE TESTING
4. The software guys to give the hardware guys a set of std cpu pin-outs etc.
5. Finalize Spin2

You can work on 1 and 5 and the same time to a certain extent, so it's not like your are bored.

[lumpensack2003]

is the ground shield terminated directly to the gnd plane ? if so, not a good idea and I'll leave the rest of the 'homework' up to you if you're really interested in why.

A friend of mine had severe problems with exact this topic:
the USB-connection on an illegal german MS offspin board won't work reliably.
As far as he told me, the ftdi-chip ist not bus-powered (imho bad idea) an the shielding posts of the usb connector aren't conneced to ground.

So - what is best practice?
- leave shield unconnected
- connect hard to ground
- connect via capacitor
- connect via inductor
- connect via resistor

I myself used some DIY boards with FT232RL in an automotive environment.
I did always choose:
- bus powered, 10nF between VBUS and GND directly at USB connector, serial resistor 22R instead of ferrite bead, 4,7uF tantal and 100nF ceramic directly at VCCIO/VCC pins
- shield hard grounded
- /RTS and /CTS bridged
- groundplane polygon around all USB related components, this polygon is connected to system ground at only one point

With this configuration, I never had any bad experiences.

Bye,
GJ

[jharvey]

What I didn’t expect was the absence of documentation explaining those patches, let alone no BOM.

I understand there is a BOM, on puma.freeems.org. That has been there right all along. Also after spin was released, a reference designator BOM was created. I haven't noticed you inquiry for that BOM. I believe Fred had made some changes to his board, I'm not sure what Marcos has done. I believe Marco's has used a type A to type A USB cable, he's made a PLL change that's documented in this thread, and scratched a trace for some reason. I don't think there are really many changes at this point. Can you elaborate more about why you haven't built your board? Is it because you don't know where a particular resistor should be located?

The money isn’t really a concern(I spent $25 big deal). What is a big deal is time. Go on ohloh.net, look up our associated projects and have a gander and the estimated project cost(s).

Nice, does that mean I should put in for a raise? It claims the cost so far is $116k. Which I believe to be low if one were to try to hire a team to do it. I don't see how that's relevant to spin 1 or the next spin.

All the key people as of now have SPIN 1.

Thanks for verifying I'm not a key person on this project. Or perhaps you know something I don't? I don't have a spin 1 in my hands at this point, so it's bit hard for me to help directly, but I'm willing to help with what I can.

We need to get those built so we can get the SW DONE(at least for the most part).

If you can't physically assemble it from the docs available, I'm at a bit of a loss. We have told you that resistor XX is digikey number XXX-ND and goes in this location. Perhaps it's simply a communication issue, I'm not sure what the problem is right now. Also the boards that have been built, have had several pictures to help iron out potential problems. What more is it you need? Can we get your help in such a task? Perhaps you can build yours and take photos along the way to help document the process. What is your general layout, low Z high Z, ect. I know Fred's mods have included high Z, but I haven't seen those mods documented yet.

I'd like to see a vote option, such that we can get feedback about how many are out there with similar problems to what you expressed.

[jharvey]

With this configuration, I never had any bad experiences.

Awesome and thanks for the constructive criticism. I'll look into your post in more detail later this evening, on my lunch break, it sounds like some good input. Any chance we can get some kind of a sketched schematic that helps shows how the hip bone connects to the leg bone/ect.

[SleepyKeys]

I was told to wait on building it "as is" because there were problems with certain circuits etc.

My point was that we're all putting in huge efforts and we need to keep all team members happy and working(within reason).

LOL sorry man, I figured you would have had a board in your hands long before me I didn’t mean it that way, poor choice of words on my part sorry. Hopefully all contributors have HW in hand.

Again this goes back to waiting on building it "as is".

[jharvey]

It wasn't a priority to get me one as my schedule didn't allow for me to make significant progress back then. I've changed jobs and now have a much shorter commute. So perhaps things will change in the future.

The big thing is you didn't tell me what you need to make progress. I don't know what your general setup is (high z / low z, hall / VR, ect) , or what you're missing that you need to start putting it together.

[Fred]

I'm going to reply to the other three posts, but in reply to this last one, Jared, that is a WASTE of time. Helping me in the first place, OK, maybe useful, but writing docs that are useful to EVERYONE is a MUCH better use of time. IE, write them once, and everyone can read and use them. The docs should say "if you want low z do these mods install these parts, dont put these ones in, drink this coffee, OR, if you want high z, cut this trace, run this jumper, isntall this part, don't install these" and it should be like that for fuel and ign as they both have options. Plus the "don't put these parts in if you're not using this" and the "never put these in no matter what, as this was a cockup" and the "you must perform these mods or your cpu will smoke" etc etc. Such docs will make a good basis for the spin 2 docs as well, those docs will be written before people get their boards... so we don't have this BULLSHlT again. Besides which, Marcos says he is working on docs right now anyway. Don't reply to this until I have handled the above posts. if you ignore this directive, your post will be removed.