Some help for Master card

[cesarfsim]

Hello:
Please someone could help me because from opencockpit support is like wait for Santa Claus visit...
I am very disappointed with OC.
I got a incomplete assembly kit and try to contact them for all emails as possible available... No body answer me and they removed one issue from forum when I mention about this.
I know its "free" but it not totally.. I paid for those cards and no support at all.

Let me try here to get what I need...

I made the test pin #1 with #10 and works fine = #001 and also the others group,
But when I test #2 with #10 nothing happened.
What I am doing wrong ?

By the way... 10 switches will need wire from ground and respective #1, #2,#3...
Do I have to connect 1 wire from ground + 1 wire from #1, #2,#3...
It was not clear for me
Other question: Do I have touse a resistor welding in leds ? What heppen if I don´t ? FSBUS does not need it !!!

Thanks for any help.
Cesar

[dnoize]

What mode is your parallel port in ? The opencockpit card needs a certain mode to work in. (cant remember by heart, but it has been discussed numerous times in their forum and is also documented in their manual).

Also sometimes it just wont work correctly with certain parrallel ports. In this case you either need to use their usb-board (to which you can connect up to 4 masterboards), or you have to make a <what they call> compatibility cable. Also more info on this on their forum and in the manual.

The opencockpits mastercard is direct driven which means that the outputs give a continuous 5 volt output. This means you will need resistors for the leds otherwise you will blow them up.

You refer to the FSbus that doesnt need resistors. I never used the FSbus cards, but some cards use multiplexed outputs. In this case you dont need resistors. Both methods have pros and cons.

To your question about the inputs. The board has several groups that use 1 common ground. This means that a group of switches (inputs) will share 1 ground.

This also is covered by their manuals. You can find their manuals and some schematics on how to wire switches and pictures of how the groups work in their download section.

There's no need to be dissapointed. The issues you mention are know things and well covered in both their forum and manuals. Just use the search function in their forum to find much information.

I used several of their boards (master, display, encoder, servo, stepper motor) and find them GREAT value for money.

Stef

[cesarfsim]

Hi Stef
First of all thanks a lot for your right a way answer.
I don´t know if you staff from OC but you did what I've been trying to get since I received the cards.
I just decided to express my opinion and disappointment because I saw many others people has the same complaint and solved them in this forum.
Any way I am happy again because I made everything work on...
I thought it was easier to wire Leds and switches... As I told FSBUS is much simple for that bat I think its less powerful.

Thanks Again

Cesar

[pdpo]

Hi there,

if you prefer not to use resistors for the output... well there is a solution...
when you solder two leds in series then the internal resistance of the Opencockpits
hardware will limit the current enough to have a stable running output and double
the light intensity.

if you connect the mastercard directly from the parallel port ... then the symptoms you describe are related to this parallel port mode (as mentioned by Dnoise)
play around with the mode setting of this parallel port in the bios section of your PC and
make sure you have the right parallel cable.
otherwise... it is much more simple to get also the usb expansion card... then you are settled
for the future also...if more outputs and inputs are needed

opencockpits hardware runs normally very stable and SIOC is very powerfull to put logic behind your hardware

I know about the sometimes poor reaction of the spanish people involved and have told them this in person. if posts are done in spanish it helps sometimes ...

greetz Peter

[dnoize]

Hi Cesar,

No, i'm not OC staff (i'm part of an other vendor though ;-) ), just a happy customer. My first pedestal was completely build with OC cards (mastercard, encoder cards and display cards).

The OC team works on an open source base and dont make much money (if any). In fact the designs are free. Those guys have regular jobs besides the OC project. Hence the fact that they are not always available for support.

But i have always found their forum a good place for help.

Because of the open source concept their cards are one of the cheapest available and also one of the most powerfull available.

I understand its frustrating that your cards dont work, but really, all these issues can be adressed with a bit of reading and once you have them running you will love them.

If you have any further questions dont hesitate to ask them here. Mycockpit.org also has a wide userbase for the OC cards and you will find many helpfull people here.

Stef

[cesarfsim]

Hi Peter and Stef:
Do you think having the same 4 pin in each group could be parallel port problems ?
I wish this is the problem because is more simple to handle. I thought it could be a IC burned or some thing more complecated.
I am not a electronic expert.
Thanks again.

[dnoize]

Cesar,

If you connect the common ground of the group with the other pinswithin that group, then you should see the number of that input in the test program.

If some inputs dont seem to work you have the parallel port program.

Try changing the mode of your parallel port in the bios of your computer (epp, ecp, etc).

If that doesnt solve your problem you either need to make a compatibility cable for the parallel port (see this file: http://www.opencockpits.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=14).

Or you should use the USBexpansion port.

More info about the port settings and the groups can be found in the Appendix I manual from their download section.

Stef

[wanderer]

I started building only for a few weeks. So here are my observations from MY system (if they will help):

1) Using LPT, the external 5v must be used for consistent inputs. Someone suggested measuring the voltage between the BOTTOM LEFT and TOP RIGHT pin of each IC. (That is how I found out there was no enough power.)

Verify the orientation of each IC when you are measuring. (I think one IC controls one group of inputs/outputs.)

2) Also 7-segment LEDs will NOT light without external power.

3) Even when everything else worked, there were corrupted 7-segment LED displays using LPT mode. The numbers 2, 3, and BLANK were sent to the wrong (adjacent) digit. Switching to USB expansion fixed the problem.

[cesarfsim]

Hi Fellows:
First I would like to say thanks for all and then my card is working great.
I just connected in a different computer (Things from Windows !!!!) and run SIOC instead of IOCARDS and BINGO !!!
But know I have other problem... The computer is running SIOC and IoCard is that I run my FS (PC1) and my PMSystem is in different one (PC4), that one I tried first .
My frames went down from 30 to 9 when I run SIOC.
Is possible to run SIOC in PC4 and IOcard connect in PC1 ? How ?
Any advice ?
Cesar

[pdpo]

HI,

I dont think it is possible to run SIOC or IOCARD on a different computer, since those programs will run the code to talk to the mastercard hardware to get/set the states of outputs/inputs.
If you have been able to run your mastercard Ok on the other computer...so the card is fine.
Just look at difference between the two computers parallel port...or as stated before...
get the usb expansion board. It will be less work for the PC since the onboard PIC will do the
work for the parallel communication to the 4 parallel ports...
Then you will also be able to run SIOC on the other computer then the FS computer.
Look also at the opencokpits forum since I remember also other posts there about impact on FS framerate.

Greetz Peter