Jaguar Prototype Testing

[DeuceEFI]

Ok, so it has been a few days since I etched my prototype Jaguar PCB and I felt like I should share what I have been up to

I have drilled out the PCB for the through hole components and run the PCB through a reflow soldering cycle in my Wally World special toaster oven to install the Freescale 112pin MCU, the FT232RL USB-Serial converter and the opto-isolators.

Attached are some photos I snapped during the reflow cycle and of both sides of the PCB during testing.

Notice that the optos are missing in the SMT photo, I was having a problem with it communicating between the FT232RL and the MCU so I removed the optos and the associated resistors to make sure it would work without them in the circuit.

At this point it communicates flawlessly with MTX and I am able to flash firmware with both Sean's freeems-loader and the MTX loader, so now I just need to figure out the problem I had with the optos (data was getting corrupted between the FT232RL and the MCU).

More to come, stay tuned...

[Fred]

Cool! Any chance of posting the details of your oven setup? :-)

[DeuceEFI]

Cool! Any chance of posting the details of your oven setup?

Sure, I have schematics and source code for a PIC16F88 as well that is GPL and tailored for lead-free solder

I will create a thread in Soldered for the oven details and sync the files to my github repository later on tonight...

[Fred]

Mostly curious about the sensor, heater driver and oven itself, but the more the merrier :-) I intend to write my own code and have a different micro in mind ;-)

[DeuceEFI]

I used a Type-K thermocouple with a Maxim chip (I don't recall which one at the moment and the files are on the computer at home, but I will follow up later tonight) and I used a 5vdc coil/12A@240vac relay to switch current on/off to the heating elements. The oven was a Black & Decker 1000 watt 2 element version. It can run the cycle within a few degrees per second of the specifications for the lead-free solder paste I'm using, which is also within the temperature specs of the ICs I am using.

I will post complete details later this evening.

[gixxer-harry]

Yep very cool,and man do you move fast
Keep up the good work

[Dan]

keep up the good work!

I am curious to know what is wrong with the optos ? can you post up about them when you sort it out please? you used the RavAGE schematics for them didnt you?

[DeuceEFI]

Dan: I used the same circuit and part # for the opto protection as you had drawn for your Ravage project. I will add them back to the circuit this evening and report back as soon as I have more information...

[TonyS]

Dan: I used the same circuit and part # for the opto protection as you had drawn for your Ravage project.

I have very, very, little experience with opto-couplers, but after taking a quick look at the data sheet for this part, it looks like the load resistor has a very large impact on the bandwidth + it looks like the opto is supposed to be used in a voltage follower configuration (high to the input, anode of the LED, drives a high on the output, transistor sources from Vcc). At least from my quick, unknowledgeable interpretation of the data sheet, with a 10k load resistor, bandwidth is pretty low. Is there any history of this circuit working before?
Thanks,
Huff

[DeuceEFI]

Huff: This is the first time I have tried to use these optos with the FT232R chip so at least for me personally I'm trying to learn if this will work for our application...

I put the optos back in the circuit as drawn in the Ravage and Jaguar schematics but all I get out as seen by cutecom is all 0 (zeroes) and MTX will not see it as a FreeEMS board. If I remove the optos from the circuit along with the accompanying resistors then MTX can see it as a FreeEMS board and function correctly. I will try using the circuit from the data sheet on my protoboard to see if the results are different.

I will let you know how it works after changing the circuit.