Issues updating old projects

Testing/Troubleshooting
1

I built a MIDIBox SID V1 back in 2005 and got it working.  I also built a MIDIBox FM but never got as far as even powering it up, and I bought parts for an early revision of the sequencer but didn’t get anywhere with that.  I ended up not having the budget for cases, panels and knobs - and my keyboard only has USB MIDI so I have to route things through my computer to use any of this and it was just too big of a hassle at the time and life got in the way of making it better.  

Now a few years later I’ve built a CNC machine and 3D printer for myself so knobs, cases and panels are all things I can do in-house :)  I also saw the sequencer is now running on a STM32F4 Disco board an I even happen to have the right one on hand.  Sweet! 

So I’m looking to blow the dust off what I have and get some stuff working and to build a Sequencer V4 finally.   I’ve already got my disco board running the seq software and my wilba PCB and Core32 PCB showed up yesterday - and my components for them should be here tonight so that’s progressing well.

Updating the older stuff…I’m not having as much luck with :frowning:

I started with the SID.  First I hooked it up and spent an afternoon playing with it just confirming it still works :)  Then decided to update.  

I have 4 core boards currently, all with bootloader 1.1c (according to the stickers from Smash) and MIOS 1.5 based on what the LCD showed as the SID would boot.

  1. In the SID - was working but see below

  2. With the FM - may or may not have the FM code on it already - but is old enough MIOS studio doesn’t recognize it - but I do see MIDI messages when I connect it.

  3. Was for a second SID no clue what’s flashed on it, powers up and I see MIDI messages but MIOS studio doesn’t recognize it.

  4. Was for a sequencer but that’s moved on to bigger core’s :)  So this is now a spare.

They all have the PIC18F452 as far as I know.  I only peeled the label off the one in the SID to confirm.

The latest MIOS says when updating something this old to contact TK directly - which I did and he was very helpful suggesting that since I have a pickit3 my best bet would be to use a special bit of code to reset the ID and then just flash the new bootloader from the latest package.

Which I tried on the PIC from the SID.  It seemed to work.  I had to use external 5v to power it because the internal wasn’t able to create enough voltage (I tried direct USB ports, powered hub and non powered hub on both mac and pc with no luck so stuck with external.)

With external 5v applied the programmer doesn’t complain and appears to program.  I also tried doing a verify and it came back as good (I also tried loading a different .hex and hitting verify to confirm it’s actually verifying - and that did fail as expected.)

But when I put the PIC back into the core and power it up - I just get black squares on my LCD and nothing on MIDI :frowning:

So I’m hesitant to try and upgrade the other 3 core PIC’s…but one is essentially a spare now and the 4th will be a spare if I upgrade this core to a PIC18F4685 so I can run the latest SID V2 which apparently can now handle 2 SID’s from one core.  

But I’m also hesitant to order a PIC18F4685 since I’m having such a bad go of flashing here.

I’ve tried the software implemented loopback test on the MIDI debugging page and don’t have any luck with it either - even though this board was working before I tried re-burning the PIC.

Attached are photos of the setup I’m using for flashing.  Orange wire is PIN1 with the arrow on the PICkit which should be MCLR so my wiring should match: http://www.ucapps.de/mbhp/pickit_dip40_adapter_board.pdf  Also a photo of the #2 core (the contrast pot has been modified since my LCD’s need a negative contrast voltage IIRC.)

Anyone have any thoughts on what I’m doing wrong?  Would love to get these core’s updated and finish up the control surface for the SID and finally get the OPL3 going after all these years.  Especially if I get this sequencer built :wink:

 

 

 

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2

I will try to answer some of your questions.. but not about the programmer itself

First what the readme of mios1.9h says:
 

Quote

 

C) Update a PIC with Bootloader V1.1 and MIOS V1.8 or older

This MIOS release doesn’t contain a special binary for bootloader
update V1.1->V1.2 anymore. If you still use a PIC with old bootloader
(which is obsolete since more than 3 years now), please contact
tk@midibox.org to get individual informations about the update path
(files are not officially released to avoid unnecessary confusion).

 

But that PIC18F452 will not run for SIDV2. Best you take new preburned PIC18F4685 instead. But if you want to get your burner running, maybe someone else can tell you something more specific.

 

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I have 4 core boards currently, all with bootloader 1.1c (according to the stickers from Smash) and MIOS 1.5 based on what the LCD showed as the SID would boot.

if you want to upgrade to SIDv2 and you also have 4 SID boards for your 4 cores, the stereo setup for SIDv2 would be an option.

http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid_manual_hw.html

http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid_manual_up.html

 

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But I’m also hesitant to order a PIC18F4685 since I’m having such a bad go of flashing here.

Burning could be done by someone, who sells the PIC18F4685 ICs, (e.g. by Mike Midishop in Germany - He also sells burner circuit boards). Maybe TK can help you out or someone else in the forum at your location.

If the bootloader is on it, then you can play up the MIOS1.9h and also change the ID (for the respective slave core) and all this via MIOS Studio.
In MIOS Studio you can now perform an “Alive” request on the Core ID - It should work.

If you want to resurrect (upgrade) your PIC18F452 for other purpose, then you can certainly ask the same person to burn your PICs too. I had never build or use an own programmer, so I can’t help out here.

 

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I had to use external 5v to power it because the internal wasn’t able to create enough voltage (I tried direct USB ports, powered hub and non powered hub on both mac and pc with no luck so stuck with external.)

I also power up everything with external power supplies and not via USB.

Greetings & good luck.

rio

 

 

3

5 hours ago, Rio said:

I will try to answer some of your questions.. but not about the programmer itself

Thanks, it’s the programmer that’s really giving me an issue right now but I appreciate any guidance.

 

Quote

 

First what the readme of mios1.9h says:
 

But that PIC18F452 will not run for SIDV2. Best you take new preburned PIC18F4685 instead. But if you want to get your burner running, maybe someone else can tell you something more specific.

 

Yes, that comment in the readme was why I contacted TK directly.  These boards are running really old releases.  The bootloader is outdated and just upgrading within mios studio isn’t possible - that’s what I had done previously (12 years ago) when I built these.  I missed the 1.8 update however which from what I’ve been able to dig up appears to be when the bootloader changed and which was a somewhat more involved update as a result (since it had to update the bootloader as well.)  The upgrade paths from this far back are ugly and complex so TK said he’d rather assist them individually than write up all the options.  I’m assuming there is a path for those who don’t have a programmer, but since I do the method TK suggested to me was reburning the chips.

I also realize that SID V2 won’t go on here…however there is a newer build of SID V1 than what I was running and I was on mios 1.7 (I don’t have LCD’s wired up to the other cores right now, but they’re probably on the same release.)  So I had been hoping to at least update it to a more recent MIOS so mios studio would recognize it again and if there were any bug fixes or features gained even better.  

I do plan on upgrading one of these cores to a PIC18F4685 but want to sort out my programming problem before getting any new chips.  I’m not opposed to buying a pre-burned chip (Note all 4 of my current ones were pre-burned by smash_tv - even though I had two PIC programmers at the time and was using them more regularly.)  

 

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if you want to upgrade to SIDv2 and you also have 4 SID boards for your 4 cores, the stereo setup for SIDv2 would be an option.

http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid_manual_hw.html

http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid_manual_up.html

Unfortunately right now I only have 2 SID boards and 3 SID chips (though one is a 6581 and the other two 6580’s or maybe it’s the other way around I get numbers mixed up easily.)  I’m happy with a 2 SID setup for now.  Someday I’ll run across another SID and build up boards to bring it up to 4…but for now I’d be quite happy to have 1 going again and hope to have 2 going not too long after.

 

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Burning could be done by someone, who sells the PIC18F4685 ICs, (e.g. by Mike Midishop in Germany - He also sells burner circuit boards). Maybe TK can help you out or someone else in the forum at your location.

That’s part of why I’m posting.  I’ve searched through the forums but haven’t seen any recent posts by anyone in the US offering to burn chips since smash_tv retired.  I order from overseas fairly often but would rather not deal with shipping them over an ocean when I’ve got a programmer sitting right here.  If someone closer to me offers I’d probably consider since it wouldn’t be as bad of a wait as dealing with someone out of country.  Though…since I have a pickit3 Ideally I’d like to just take care of it without dealing with the post office at all.

I had meant to mention in my original post that I’m in the US ( SW corner of AZ ) and open to this possibility.  Just forgot to include it.  

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If the bootloader is on it, then you can play up the MIOS1.9h and also change the ID (for the respective slave core) and all this via MIOS Studio.
In MIOS Studio you can now perform an “Alive” request on the Core ID - It should work.

If you want to resurrect (upgrade) your PIC18F452 for other purpose, then you can certainly ask the same person to burn your PICs too. I had never build or use an own programmer, so I can’t help out here.

The bootloader was on it (and still is on the other 3) but it’s an older bootloader (probably 1.1b based on the stickers on them since I don’t remember ever doing a bootloader update) so mios studio didn’t recognize it even though I was getting MIDI messages to and from it.   Now it’s not doing anything after by burning attempt :(  But the other 3 are still starting up and spit out a message or two when powered up.

 

4

Are you sure that PICkit 3 supports the chips you have? I have a vague idea that some of these are supported on PICkit 2 or clones, not completely sure. 

5

Should be supported, I can’t find a full list of all chips supported by the pickit3 but the docs do say all 18F devices are supported for “Programming on the go” (where the hex file is pre-loaded into the programmer allowing the programmer to be used by itself - neat trick I didn’t realize it could do.)  so they should be supported for normal programming as well.

Also forgot to mention I tried using both the full mplab IDE and the IPE programming tool - on both mac and pc with external power.  Both allowed me to select the 18F452 as the device and when programming check and confirmed that the device ID matched as expected.

 

6

Maybe this can help you:

< base_url >/topic/20600-programming-the-midibox-core/?do=embed

 

7

Thanks, I saw that thread and read through it several times.  

I know my board was working before I tried to reflash the PIC - I spent an afternoon playing with the SID before trying to do the update :slight_smile:

But after trying to flash nothing.  Even the software loopback which worked for that poster isn’t working for me (even though I get no errors flashing it and the programmer says it verifies.)  None of the wiring has changed - but I popped one of the other PIC’s in just to be sure and I still see a MIDI message come across as soon as I power it up with one of my old PIC’s.  

I haven’t found a way to change the configuration bits settings as mentioned in that post…that is the one thing I can think of I could still dig deeper for.

8

2 times the same kind of issue, coincidences are rare. Try another burner.