64 channel Renard board Update

[Mrplow123]

It has been 2 months now since I had the first successful test with the 64 channel board. It has also been close to 2 months since I sent the beta boards out to testers. It is time for all the testers to chime in with test results. I need to know if and what problems you ran into. Either with assembly, fitment, or operation. Please post all of that info in this thread, to keep it together and tidy.

I have talked with Phil about the boards worthy ness of a COOP. Overall, we both think it is ready. With one exception, a large scale test with more then 64 channels. My first real world test was with 40 channels, and worked flawlessly for over 3 hours straight. That was a big accomplishment. So, unless someone wants to volunteer to setup a large 64+ channel test display, I guess I will have to do it. I was already planning on pulling all my display lights and equipment out of storage in August for inventory and repairs. But now I am going to move that up to late June, early July. Basically, as soon as my SSR parts get here form the COOP, I will build my remaining SSRS, and setup a large scale test. It really will be Christmas in July. This test will prove the designs capability for daisy chaining the boards, and the ability to run 128 channels off one com port at the minimum.

No for the people I sent boards to. If you have not built them yet, please get a move on. And for those who have built them, give me some feed back. The sooner we get all the info, problems, and complaints in, the sooner they can be fixed. And the sooner I can get a COOP going. My plan is to start the first COOP no later then mid July. That way we can get the boards into peoples hands early enough for everyone to build and test them before December. I know I hate waiting until the last minute.

That is it for now. I look forward to some input from the people I sent boards to.

David

[MarkL]

I've had my board built for a while now. Since I don't have any SSRs (still waiting on the big coop order), I went ahead and populated all the LEDs and am running the PWM code. Everything appears to work fine. I'm also getting some of the 16ch Renard with integrated SSRs when the coop comes through, so at that time I can test the chaining of multiple boards, and finally hook up some lights.

Thinking back to assembly, the one thing I remember is that there was too little space for the RJ45 jacks (SSR interface). They need just a hair more room. The first row in a pair of rows seats fine, but the second of the pair to be installed won't seat fully on the board because they're blocked by the first set. Other than that, I was amazed at how smoothly things went given that I haven't soldered in >10 years.

Mark

[P. Short]

As I recall, someone had an issue with the hole diameter for one of the diodes. The body of the resistor that I used for R6 is just a little too long (I had to bend the leads very close to the body), but other than that I haven't noticed any other problems (although I haven't finished soldering the board yet).

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Phil

[MarkL]

That was me. I forgot about that one. (I'm feeding in a DC supply, so I didn't end up needing the diode.) It was the 1N4001 that the holes were too small for.

[fkostyun]

This may/may not be relevent - but - I should be able to answer with some testing mid next week with 72 channels running. I currently have 32 up and running (ran out of triacs)

It is three of my 24 port boards running, different layout, same code. I can run test at 50ms and 25ms to see what I find.

[P. Short]

Frank,

What version(s) of the code are you using? Any of the recent revisions (February and April of this year)?

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Phil

[fkostyun]

I am running the 2006 07 04c code. (I am running at 57600 with RS485)

[fkostyun]

Just wanted to give an update! I have everything up and running, and things are perfect (with all chanels on / off) at 50ms. I see some lags if I do it @ 25ms.

[P. Short]

Frank,

How many total ports for each parallel port, and what baud rate? Is it still 57600?

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Phil

[fkostyun]

OK now for a longer post!!

My setup is as follows:

Three 24 port All-In-One boards, connected together (Board 1 sends to board 2, and then to board 3)

I am using a USB-Serial adapter, with a RS-485 adapter connected to that, and then a D9 to RJ45 adapter after that.

The USB to serial adapter is on COM21, set to 8,N,1, at a baud rate of 57600

The PIC16F688 chip is programed with the 20070410C code.

There are three PIC16F688 chips per board, and two RS485 chips (one for send, one for recieve.) Even though I am not running it as so, the board has also been checked for proper RS232 communication.

The Tests:
With a timing setting in Vixen of 50MS, I am able to trigger all channels on, and then all channels off. Doing this for a six second test (looping) produced no visible lags, or spots where it seems like lagged behind a bit.

With a timing setting in Vixen of 25ms, I start to see a visible lag (2 times a second) when triggering all channels on, and then off.

Now, those tests are just for dumping as much data to the ports as I can, and are more of a good test to see how well the board can process the data.

As far as songs go, all of my songs are done with 50ms timing. I have watched several of them run though, and they look excellent. I can not see any problems.

All of my sequences will be set with 50ms timing, and I do not see a need to me to be at 25ms timing.

Also, during the show, I will only have a given 35% of the channels at one.

I also did a current comparasen with the renard chips to create a power consumsumption savings chart. (This is posted in a separate post)

Any other questions - feel free to ask!

[P. Short]

I split the last few posts off to form a new thread 'Connecting the Renard64', because they are off-topic for this thread.

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Phil