An Epic up date

[Ron Buchwald]

The following is a post from PM I put out. I have a lot of working code if any one is hung up. You will however need FS comm to use it. also R&R has released a new ver. of eeprom and epicenter. it works much better now and supports mult. epic cards. I will post the links. this is from R&R.

Let's update you to the latest so we don't have to figure out why.

Update to this EPROM:
http://www.mindspring.com/~rrelect2/EPROM_V7_01.zip
checksum F035

Run

http://www.mindspring.com/~rrelect2/..._1062_Full.exe

Then unzip with "use folder names" and "overwrite" checked in Winzip
http://www.mindspring.com/~rrelect2/V1082_XP.zip // put this in c: root dir.

Download SYNTAXUSB.PDF
http://www.mindspring.com/~rrelect1/Docs/SYNTAXUSB.pdf

EPICenter tools | options | loader checksum should be F40C . If not read
the note in:
http://www.mindspring.com/~rrelect1/...1052update.txt
to correct

Known problems:
1. switch scanning does not start for several seconds after loading.
2. signed divide does not work
3. Use of "timer" command may crash EPICUSB
4. word,int presets not working
word testWord = 15623;
will only preset to lower byte.
5. 0b1011000010101010 only sees lower 8 bits ( 0b0000000010101010). Workaround: Use the hex equivalent.

4 & 5 are fixed, but I do not have the release from Steve yet. Ralph.
end epic links.

Thanks for letting me post this on the forum, I feel it is important to all simmers who use the EPIC System. While wiring my over head panel, I shorted a connection. I put 12vdc to one of the button rows and it failed. while checking all the rest of the button rows I found that row 4 the one I shorted and row 15 were no good. I removed the expansion card and began to trouble shoot the board. I found that row 4 on the 40 pin ribbon cable was tied to one of 5 ic's. the chip is a MC74AC138. it is a 1 of 8 decoder/demultiplexer. my thinking was that it must be blown. I found and ordered 20 of them from ON Semiconductor. http://onsemi.com
they were free samples. they came today and i carefully removed the two I felt were bad. YES!, fixed the board now all 32 rows are good. hope this will help any one if they find a row/ rows are bad. I know a good bit about the EPIC hardware so If you need help, maybe I can.
Next a problem I had was with the rotory encoders not working and several of the analog channels. Ralph repaired my main USB board for me. However several months later it failed again. The problem was, and is caused by the weather, yes the weather. I am in florida, very humid and hot. seems as there is a problem with several chips on the board that did not like this. I have seen this on a lot of GrassVally production switchers (television). the chips and board allow fungis to grow between the pins and short the chip. a good cleaning with flux remover will slove this if done before the short. again I hope this will help. Ron.


PS if you can't for some reason get the chips, I have 10 I will part with.

[Bob Reed]

Hey Ron, where did you get this? I have not seen it. Is there any big changes that might outdate my code? I hate rewriting it...

[brianwilliamson]

Thank you Ron for the updates. I have never seen that page of updates before, so we have been relying on old information from the pages that I have been looking at from Epic.
Just started to get the epic boards out of the box yesterday, so the fun begins, and I guess I will have a number of queries to post in the weeks ahead.
Thanks......................Brian

[Bob Reed]

Hey Brian.. You have to remember that there is a learning curve with EPIC! It took me a long tome to even get brave enough to do anything with it. Just when you write that first bit of code that works… There is no feeling like it. Yes EPIC is tough but I think you will find there is not much it can not do once you learn how to manipulate it. This will take time, but it does come. And you will never stop learning with it..

[brianwilliamson]

Thank you Ron. Just started on the epic cards today, so you bet we will get there.Give ma week or two or whatever it takes. As you said once we get the first bit to work I guess the penny will start to drop. My main job at the moment is doing all the design work for the PCB's so that the wiring will be no problem.
Cheers....................Brian

[Ron Buchwald]

Hey Ron, where did you get this? I have not seen it. Is there any big changes that might outdate my code? I hate rewriting it...

L ike I said from ralph of r&r