The Sinclair QL Forum

An update on the state of QL-VGA in case anybody is wondering: https://www.kilgus.net/2020/10/05/the-l ... ql-vga-v2/

Wow, looks very compact compared to the first one. Annoying problems though. How many boards did they make with the chip round the wrong way?

This was only a very limited run of 5 boards. And as I only have one chip at the moment anyway only one board works Still hope one of my two other FPGA orders will eventually ship me something...

Fortunately this is just an SPI EEPROM with lowly 8 pins, so easily fixed. And then… it works! It f*cking works! First time! My most complex board ever just works! This is a kind of happiness most people probably cannot comprehend but I was literally jumping through the house, fighting the air with my fists.

I fully comprehend this feeling Marcel. I get it frequently when something I'm doing works first time. I'm deep in the bowels of microcontroller interrupts at the moment. I've had a few moments like the above, but only a few.

Mind you, get the feeling when I've got some time to do "stuff" these days.

Cheers,
Norm.

NormanDunbar wrote:I fully comprehend this feeling Marcel. I get it frequently when something I'm doing works first time. I'm deep in the bowels of microcontroller interrupts at the moment. I've had a few moments like the above, but only a few.

I'm sure you do, Norman. But we are not normal people

Cheers, Marcel

mk79 wrote:I'm sure you do, Norman. But we are not normal people

True, very true. I have been called Normal a couple of times, also Norma!

But I'm definitely not normal.


Cheers,
Norm.

Congrats on getting it to work...on the first go!

I think the "rotation" problem at JLPCB is a known problem. It's on this You Tube video: https://youtu.be/C7-8nUU6e3E (excellect Kicad tutorial).

The board was marked with all +ve, Pin 1 etc for components, but JLPCB have some rotation foibles, so you must check if having assembly done. The board in the video had to have quite a few rotations corrections done to get correct alignment. Changes are required in the pick and place, or component centre point file. (Can't remember its proper name)-- the one which tells the p&p machine where the centre of the components are to be located.


Just checked, footprint position file. On the video, drop the description down, there's a table of contents. You need to be near the end at 2 hours 40 minutes roughly.

Might be useful information for future assemblies at JLPCB?


HTH.

Cheers,
Norm.

He's going very inefficiently about this. There is a script which does all the necessary translations and rotations between KiCAD and JLCPCB, no need to edit stuff by hand (https://github.com/matthewlai/JLCKicadTools). In the end, as in the video, you get a preview of where JLCPCB thinks pin 1 of every component is supposed to be, and that was of course all correct on my boards.

Thanks Marcel, I thought you would know all about it, but it was the thought that counted!

I have left a comment on the video with your recommendation. Maybe he will find it useful.


Cheers,
Norm.