adept wrote:
To the plus fused and plus.


...?
On the thing, for measuring amperage, it has a plus fused, maxed at 10 amps. The other plus is for the non-fused like 1 amp side. The ground is common. (as it always should be! Smile)
adept wrote:
On the thing, for measuring amperage, it has a plus fused, maxed at 10 amps. The other plus is for the non-fused like 1 amp side. The ground is common. (as it always should be! Smile)
So in other words you didn't blow any of the fuses? The problem is something else? Perhaps you blew a solid-state fuse?
Kerm, I fixed it. It was the fuse. I blew both of them!! In the meter were 2 fuses. It made me feel dumb to have such a problem. It didn't stop me from wanting a new meter though... I started soldering these 30 AWG wires. They SUCK to solder. Lots of mess, even with my tiny silver bearing solder I got for my birthday. I can't work anymore on it this year. I'm in Kansas in the boonies. I get my internet from various hotspots. I can hardly get internet. It was a good night, and I got a signal from the neighbors, about a quarter mile away! So no work is going to be done until 2011. I promise to take more pictures of it. I feel awful not putting pictures up. It involves a complex scanning process from film. Maybe I'll get a new camera for Christmas! Oh, and new idea I'm going to implement: Expanded memory. I have to work out the details. Not like a MB, only about 32 KB cartridges that can plug into the calcs port I have already installed. 3.5 mm to make stuff easy! I already have a basic idea of how to program in assembly, and the functions of memory. I can't page too much anyway, but I found a 3-wire chip on digi-key. Manufacturer Part # AT93C86A-10SU-2.7. It's an Atmel surface mount chip for those toys... It should be good. 3 wire serial, Perfect, and it can run 8-bit mode. COOL. So I should be able to make a driver. Here is the datasheet: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/doc3408.pdf
Tell me if you guys think this will work. I know if BrandonW, Calc GOD, reads this, he will know. He does this sort of thing all the time. I can buy 50 or so of these and make lots of carts. 16k should be enough. That is a 57% increase in memory... it could be like archive memory! That would be cool. I hate to spill my ideas all over Cemetech's genius, so I'll stop and spurt all over a piece of paper instead.
PS, probably can't respond until after the new year. Unless another FREEZING cold and cloudy night comes up. REALLY COOL ECLIPSE LAST NIGHT!! Last one on the solstice for the rest of my life! So yeah...
adept wrote:
Oh, and new idea I'm going to implement: Expanded memory. I have to work out the details. Not like a MB, only about 32 KB cartridges that can plug into the calcs port I have already installed. 3.5 mm to make stuff easy! I already have a basic idea of how to program in assembly, and the functions of memory. I can't page too much anyway, but I found a 3-wire chip on digi-key. Manufacturer Part # AT93C86A-10SU-2.7. It's an Atmel surface mount chip for those toys... It should be good. 3 wire serial, Perfect, and it can run 8-bit mode.

I²C EEPROMs would probably be more practical as they use a two-wire open collector interface - the same as the calculator's link port. The one you linked to is an SPI EEPROM, and has a 2KB capacity - small memories usually give their storage in Kb. Something like the 24LC512 might be nice, with 64KB (512Kb) capacity and I²C interface.

If you're going to go for SPI then you may as well use SD cards instead, as these can be accessed over SPI and are very cheap.

adept wrote:
On the thing, for measuring amperage, it has a plus fused, maxed at 10 amps. The other plus is for the non-fused like 1 amp side. The ground is common. (as it always should be! Smile)

Just a nitpicking comment: the word is current, not "amperage".
BrandonW is indeed our software guru, but he doesn't delve into the hardware side of things that often. Smile As BenRyves said (since he's one of our top hardware experts, you should always listen to him Wink), I²C is a better option for interfacing with the calculators' link port. And indeed, that chip to which you linked is a 16Kb chip, or 2KB. You may want to consult the SPINterface pages on RichFiles for a memory expander project along similar lines that was created a bit over a decade ago:

http://richfiles.solarbotics.net/SPinTerfaceCart.html
Kerm:
Oh, 16 kilo bit.... But all the CMOS stuff is so old that you can't buy them anymore. I can't find a SELLER, but I can find the parts datasheet. Heck, if I could, I would get the old NMxxxx series of parts, but they don't sell them anymore. Then I could just follow the old RichFiles plans for the SpInterface and build the Expander Cart. Believe me Kerm, I've looked. (Whoa, a whole decade ago...) On a side note, on my TI-86 I built the SPINterface, lots of fun. I couldn't do the expander cart like a wanted, but I built a lot of the other carts. It was TONS of fun to do. Ya know, he still posts on his News part. His website is OLDER than Cemetech! Wow! Ok, Ben next.
Ben:
It appears like this chip you linked to IS available, and indeed the sort of thing I want. Thanks Ben! New Question, can I make this work like RAM memory, or must it act like Archive? Other Question: Do I have to regulate the different power inputs in this project, or can I just solder to the battery contacts with the number of batteries I need to meet my voltage/amperage requirement? I gotta get to bed soon, I'll post again with more questions soon. Christmas Eve tomorrow... bye
EEPROM is EEPROM. EEPROM is not RAM; SRAM is RAM. EEPROM stands for Electrically-Eraseable/Programmable Read-Only Memory, and is what you know as Flash (although your modern flash drive probably uses NAND Flash). You definitely need a voltage regulator or some other method to make sure your chip is getting a sane potential difference even as your batteries wax and wane.
I THINK that the various boards in the calc have regulation built in. That would have been the wise thing for the designers to do. My electrical engineering degree dad said it SHOULD work. But yeah, I'll put in a regulator I guess in each of the carts. I was asking if it was safe for the batteries to drain un-equally. The other option is to have 3 or 4 different regualtors INSIDE the calc. I already am going to have to make a plastic ring and make my own screw wells, because the calculator doesn't quite have the clearance anymore. Plus regulators waste your batteries. And I want the most efficiency possible.
And excuse my dis-organized thoughts this morning Kerm... I'm SO tired.
When I (also an Electrical Engineer! \o/ Wink ) built the Ultimate Calculators 1 and 2, I used a 5.1V zener diode to grab relatively dependable 5.1 volt power out of the 6v batteries. However, I was giving power to my LED backlight, a touchpad, a PS/2 port, etc, all of which either tolerate a relatively wide input voltage rage, or which (touchpad, mice, keyboards) have their own rudimentary regulator built-in.
@Kerm:
I soldered the two halves of the MP3 together. I only need to stick that in, and find a way to piece it together. The trouble with putting it together is that it protrudes out a little. I was thinking about using an epoxy to accomplish that. Anyway, the whole CPU project thing which I started on the 26th of december (the day after your post here.) has distracted me from this temporarily. Hopefully I can program asm after that and make my own code. (You would think a CPU designer/builder would know assembly.) I really want this to be done by May for sure though. (And I apologize for not responding quicker, I wasn't here on Christmas Smile )
Adept, this is great to hear! I hope you're able to get back to this project eventually; I'm always in favor of cool calculator hardware mods.
I picked this up and worked on it again today. After soldering a half dozen wires for the PS2 trackpad and MP3 player, I decided to try to turn it on. Now picture this for a moment: I picked up 4 random AAA's from my desk, put them into the battery holder in the calc, one of the batteries kept falling out because it had no spring, and there are a half dozen alligator clips running across between the two halves of the calculator, and I am using all six of my hands to hold another few wires. So when I powered it on, the screen was really garbled Sad. But, that is probably a result of the capacitance of the thick alligator wires messing with my overclock switch. Either that or I broke the calculator forever. I'm currently trying to diagnose any/all problems that come up. I need to get an oscilloscope and check some signals and stuff. It'll be fun to learn how to use an oscilloscope Very Happy.
It's very possible you damaged the LCD ribbon cable, which is a fragile beast. The good part is that I have become quite experienced at fixing this sort of issue from the dozens of cheap broken calculators I've fixed, so I'd be happy to help if that is indeed the issue.
I'm on Spring Break vacation at the moment. Anyway, I wouldn't think that would be the problem, seeing as I touched the display for a day on the VERY first week, and never touched it again. It is WAY more probable that the overclock job I did was shoddy. The simplest problem may be that when I hooked it up, I did NOT put the back-up battery back into the calculator. I didn't have the battery in my hands when the curiosity overcame me! If I did happen to damage it, I probably wouldn't have you fix it. I would feel too bad making you fix a dumb mistake when you have much better things to work on (DCS and gCn). Thanks for the offer though Kerm.
I meant to guide you through the process of fixing it yourself, actually. Smile And leaving out the backup battery is fine; your calculator will still happily run without the backup battery.
  
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