Need help wiring the "Clearpath killer" for Clough42 ELS - iSV57T-180

I'm actually shocked that James would even share this kind of thing. It's amazing for what it does. He even went to the trouble of having the boards manufactured and he's nearly giving them away. Not to mention the time he has to have invested in the code. It's a nice hobby project but you can't expect support after the sale, there was no sale. He shared and there has to be well over 1,000 machines using it. Just hope problems don't make him yank it at some point.

These TI boards are powerful enough to make a pretty good guidance system, so them asking some export questions should NOT offend you. It's a miracle they would even allow you to purchase.
 
I agree - my hat is off to James for contributing so much of his time and effort when he really did not need to - he ain't making much $$ on this for sure. The world needs more folks like him!

And of course, when I went to the TI site to buy another board, while they show it in stock the website said that they can't fill the order. Perhaps a third board in as many weeks raised some red flags? Oh well - I got one from Mouser on the way - for an extra cost. Third time's the charm!
 
Tomzo said:
You are probably right and I followed all of those steps - I had it working without the motor or encoder connected. I connected both when I installed it in my cabinet so something must have gone wrong there. I am going to get my multimeter out and sound out every connection again in the cabinet to see where I went wrong.

I am not complaining - just a bit frustrated. I realize that this is a hobby project of James' and this sort of thing requires an amount of diligence and skill on my part that I clearly did not apply correctly. As with many projects of this type, the journey to getting it working is almost the best part as I learn new skills along the way.
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I have been working with electronics for over 60 years, and computers for over 50. This was the first board that died or was dead when it arrived. I take reasonable precautions when I work with electronics. The bad board powers up and is recognized by CCS but won't program. I've checked the voltages and all is good. The encoder and stepper driver were never hooked up, only the Clough interface and Display. Both worked on the first board I programmed for a friend.
 
A couple things...FWIW. I am horrible with these sort of things. I think its a right brain/left brain issue. One side type of people don't understand the road blocks of the other hemisphere people. All that being said, I'm the knuckle dragger side. I have not blown out a board BUT...I had it where I fired it up one of the many times during building an the LED board didn't show "Clough42"...or anything. Come to find out I had 2 wires crossed. It was a looking at it from the other side when it occurred to me everything is flipped. That other side brained person would look for markings...not patterns. So maybe that?
Next, one time I had to reflash the board for some changes I made...COULD NOT GET IT TO RFLASH. I did everything (6 different patch cords, prayed, stood on one foot holding laptop in the air...anyway, the 6th patch cord worked, the other 5 were bogus. You'll say what I said, "this cord worked before"....yes, it did...BEFORE. From personal f'ups, I'm gonna say it hard to fry these, even for a knuckle dragger.
Check solder points, recheck your wiring with the strong possibility you missed something or messed up something. Unhook everything from it other than the LED screen, then reflash. Stand on one foot while chanting "you got this Peloton!", try multiple cables.
Do any of the little diode lights light up when plugged in (on the TI board)?
 
Here is how I see if the board is toast: I take off the Clough board and replace the jumpers to deliver 5V from USB and then plug it into the PC. The PC then either does not see it at all, or tells me that the hardware is damaged. Essentially, the PC should "see" the TI board on its own with nothing else connected. When it can't I put it in the toast category. One board has more lights that come on than the other, but neither can connect to the PC.
 
My new board gets here today so I was doing some tests to make sure all my wiring from my enclosure through the aviation connectors to the servo, display, encoder were correct. They all were and nothing was crossed up. Through the process I had removed and replaced the Clough board a couple of times. As I was removing the TI board I noticed that in one of these iterations of removing and replacing the Clough board I had inadvertently set it incorrectly on the pins on the TI board. Only one of the rows of pins was set with the other outside of the spots on the Clough board. Since these rows of pins have 3.3 and 5V on them this could certainly been how I rain 5V in a 3.3V circuit and fried the board. When the TI board is set and screwed down on the din rail in the enclosure I can't quite see the pins, so I am guessing that I screwed that up when I did my last installation before the magic smoke got out.

Long story short, the most likely cause of my problems, as usual, is me. Hopefully I will be a bit more careful this time.
 
Well, the new board arrived today. I rechecked all the continuity tests and tested the cables through the enclosure all the way to each device. All were in the right places. However, I still have something wrong going on.

I carefully removed the jumpers and set the switches in full anti static mode (anti static mat, wristband, etc). I then made sure the boost board was set properly this time and went to load the firmware. I used the TI supplied USB cable and just a light in the area right next to the USB connection lit up which is what was expected. I then plugged in 5V power to the boost board and nothing. The TI board was not recognized by the PC. I then took off the boost board, reset the 5V jumpers so I had just a bare TI board and connected via USB and presto - the board comes alive and can be flashed. This is odd because it is the same boost board used in the image above.

Anyway, after I flashed the TI board I took it back out and installed it into my enclosure with the boost board. When I powered everything up the display flickered a bit followed by a POP and the familiar smell. I immediately powered down and upon inspection the TM1638 chip on the display had fried. I stripped the TI board down, reset the 5V jumpers and it still connects to the PC, so it does not look like I fried that board (again).

I have another of the LED&KEY boards on order but was wondering if any of you have any thoughts on (a) why the TI board won't connect to the PC when using power from the boost board and (b) what error on my part would cause me to fry the display?

Thanks

Tom
 
Have you checked the output of whatever your using to power to daughter board? Is it 5 volts DC? If it is, you don't want to hear it but you still have a connection error somewhere. The display board gets it's 5 volts from there as well and if voltage out of range, could have fried it. But for the display connector, you have to insure you have the 5 volt on the correct side.
 
Yeah - I have gone wrong somewhere in there. Time to step back and re-re-recheck everything!
 
Tomzo said:
Well, the new board arrived today. I rechecked all the continuity tests and tested the cables through the enclosure all the way to each device. All were in the right places. However, I still have something wrong going on.

I carefully removed the jumpers and set the switches in full anti static mode (anti static mat, wristband, etc). I then made sure the boost board was set properly this time and went to load the firmware. I used the TI supplied USB cable and just a light in the area right next to the USB connection lit up which is what was expected. I then plugged in 5V power to the boost board and nothing. The TI board was not recognized by the PC. I then took off the boost board, reset the 5V jumpers so I had just a bare TI board and connected via USB and presto - the board comes alive and can be flashed. This is odd because it is the same boost board used in the image above.

Anyway, after I flashed the TI board I took it back out and installed it into my enclosure with the boost board. When I powered everything up the display flickered a bit followed by a POP and the familiar smell. I immediately powered down and upon inspection the TM1638 chip on the display had fried. I stripped the TI board down, reset the 5V jumpers and it still connects to the PC, so it does not look like I fried that board (again).

I have another of the LED&KEY boards on order but was wondering if any of you have any thoughts on (a) why the TI board won't connect to the PC when using power from the boost board and (b) what error on my part would cause me to fry the display?

Thanks

Tom
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The LED & Key boards are low quality. I got one that initially flickered and then was dead. It turned out that there was no 5VDC to the TM1638, Added a jumper wire and the board came alive.

Just because the TI board connects to the PC doesn't mean that it is good. Connection to the PC just indicates that the USB interface is alive. There are two processors on the board. One is for the debugger, the other is the main CPU. In my case, the debugger seemed to work but the main CPU didn't.

I hope all is well on your TI board.
 
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