I thought this might be a good place to see who's interested in Microcontroller applications. I guess to start does anybody know how to read/Write to a smart media card using a PIC
I know there are people here with electronics backgrounds.. This might be an interesting area to delve into if anybody else besides my friend MicroMan has any electronics experience. I've seen the random question here and there in the past (on icrontic) about electronics, and I've always called up MicroMan.. So this is the dude to have electronics discussions with.
-tk said yeah seriously, he knows his ****
he eats assembly for breakfast
this is the guy that solders **** onto motherboards and they actually work afterwards
lol
-tk is right..
In case you're lost about the insider jokes, me and MicroMan have known each other since Age 3, and -tk and him and myself have been hanging out for like 8 years or something..
But MicroMan DOES KNOW HIS STUFF... Be sure to ask him what he does for a living.......
Oh so you know a bit about electronics?? I may call upon you in the next three years. I am taking Computer Engineering Technology at DeVry and I will have to take a few electronic classes.
I have a Q for you now actuallly.
I am building a NES PC (PC in a Nintendo) and I had to take the case off of the PSU to make it fit. Well no case means no ground wire. Its just kinda dangling there. It works at school but it shuts off at any random time at home. I think its shorting out cause of it not being grounded. I have yet to try it with a surge protector, something that it was on at school.
What should I do with that thing. I have heard I dont _need_ it as long as I keep static away from it. I even spayed static guard on the carpet, where I was working on the NES and it still shut off.
So...is it ok to just leave the ground wire dangle as long as it doesnt touch anything?
Just saw primes post...what do you do for a living? Eat motherboards or something?;D
Yeah, Dangling wires are never good. That wire is prob. a chasis ground. Most electronic devices have a signal ground and a chasis ground and sometimes a analog ground. Good rule of thumb is to keep all grounds seperate. It's not always posable. In your case I think the machine is shutting off because voltage surges are getting in. That's why it work better on the surge protector (they are regulated better). How is your power hooked up?
If your using a nornal 3 prong AC cord, you could hook the 3rd wire (green) of the AC to the that dangleing wire. I'm assuming that the dangleing wire is attached to some piece of metal or something. ?? If you really want to get sweet on it you might want to get a 5volt transient voltage supressor. Basicly, this device gets hooked up between 5v power and ground. and when a surge gets put into the system it will knock it out. For more info. Look up Transient votage suppressors. I know it's a lot to take in, but the bitch with PC's and microcontrollers is the nasty votage and current surges from poor power supplies. There is all kinds of ways to fix them but the easiest usually is the best. First I would hook the dangleing wire up to the AC earth ground (Green wire). Hope I didn't bable too much. If you have pictures of the wire I can tell you something better, but with out knowing much That's the best I could do. By the way I'm an electrical enginner, with a fetish for microcontrollers. and I only eat mother board when I'm out of romens soup.
The dangling wire is that green one. On the other side of the 3rd prong is the green one. It was screwed onto the case but there is no more case. Its taped up atm.
I'm assuming that your still powering the unit off of AC. So connect that dangling green wire to the 3rd prong of the AC cord. OR an even better way is screw the unit to a metal plate and attach your 2 grounds(Green dangler, and 3rd prong AC) to that. Thus, creating a ground plane, really good for noise....That's what I'd do. An old cookie sheet would even do. A good "Macgyver" Design, but it will work.
do you a picture of this thing, it would help A LOT. I have a hunch that the solution is much simpler then we think. I just need to know what it looks like. Is the nintendo taken apart too? what are you power sources? The Dangling wire is on the PSU? Do you have apart number for the PSU so I can look up what it looks like. or something to give me a visual.
This is about the best the crappy lile camera/webcam gets. Thats the plug that is usually screwed to the case and the wire on the right is the green on that is dangling. The plug will be screwed to the nintendo case when put all together.
Ok there is cord you plug into the wall, a power cord. It goes into the Power supply. There are 3 prongs, thus 3 wires on the other side where you plugged in the cord. 2 go to the circuit board of the power supply, the other is the greeb wire. It is normally screwed into the case to be grounded. But I removed the case so it is danging. The damn wire has already screwed me me over once when it touched the aluminum inside the PSU to cool the volt regulators.
Take the nintendo and strip it of its guts. Its now a PC.
Ah HA!! ok now I have the ansewr...maybe. look at the case that you took off. there should be screws to mount the circuit board to the case. on the underside of the board were the mounting screws go though, you should see a silver solder pad. So basicly a hole for the screw and an exposed pad around the hole. Since these mounting holes get screwed to the case and so does the green wire...simply attach the green wire to one of these pads. Actually what I would do is get some metal stand offs from radio shack and mount the PSU to a metal plate and then connect the green wire to the plate as well, but you might not have room for that. But that is you first step to solve you power problems. The picture actually did help. Thanks
There are no pads. The board sits on something like this. Its cut out and bent up with a hole in it for the board to screw into. There is nothing on the board in that area so its ok for the screw to go thru that part.
And isnt the purpose of grounding to take the static charge away from the circuit board.
There isnt much space in the nintendo case. I have to turn the PSU upside down with case off and res it on 2 pieces of plexi and the PCI slot. Above the PSU will be part of the CD ROM and there isnt any room.
There is a lil bit of room on the bottom of the PSU where I can place part of the case and screw it into I guess. But then the purpose of the green wire is to take static electricity from around the PSU out to the wire.
As long as the circuit board mounted flush to the bent piece and no plastic insert was inbetween the board and chasis. I would attach the green wire to ware the screw went through. And the purpose of THAT ground is for a few reasons. 1) it's a safty ground. In case some ass hole wires your electrical socket up wrong, that ground will act as a shunt. also since it's connected to the chasis it helps to reduce electromanetic fields. That power supply is a switching power supply so because of the nature of the beast it will create magnetic fields. the design of the power supply should have stuff it it to minize the field but shunting it to the case also is a good idea. And of course to shunt static electricity. It's ok to attach that there because it was attached to the case, thus it's not a Return for 5v and 12V supplies. Actually if you havea multimeter, test the continuity. Put the case back on and see if the Black wires are connected to the case. I would not expect it would be, but they may. Then check the continuity from the mounting screw to the the case. That should have a connection. If so go right a head and connect the green wire to that point. If not, I would not hook it up. The objective is to find another point on the board that would have continuity to the case. Whitch means you have to put the PSU back in the case and probe around for the continuity. I think the mounting screws are a good place to start. grounds are funky.
No wires were attached to the case except for the green one. No black ones. They all went into the board.
also since it's connected to the chasis it helps to reduce electromanetic fields.
There is no more chasis. And how strong are these magnetic fields? Strong enough to harm a Laptop harddive a few inches away? I sure hope not.
I thought about screwing it to the motherboard screw or the PSU screw but I thought that would hurt it. I just dont know enough about electricity. I should in 3 years tho after college.
well, it comes a time in every project to say "**** it" and try something that your unsure about. Either way you learn something. I'd say attach it the PSU board screw. I pretty confident that it won't hurt anything. As for the electric feilds, don't worry I don't think it's strong enough to erase the hard drive. It's always good to have "shields" But this is for learning/fun/to see if you can do it, thus have fun with it, and don't worry about blowing **** up...hell I use to do it all the time. You it's true what they say "all electronics are made of smoke, once you let the smoke out it stops working".
Blown up one PSU already with this project and I dont care to do it again. I cant return it and say it came like that cause I cut the case before I knew I had to take it all off.
Almost electricuted myself too. Well I guess you could say I did. Felt the tinglies go up my arm. Good thing is only 90W.:)
Yeah I have learned a lot from this project. First mod I have done.
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Look guys, we've found our own little corner of the intarwebnet
he eats assembly for breakfast
this is the guy that solders **** onto motherboards and they actually work afterwards
lol
-tk is right..
In case you're lost about the insider jokes, me and MicroMan have known each other since Age 3, and -tk and him and myself have been hanging out for like 8 years or something..
But MicroMan DOES KNOW HIS STUFF... Be sure to ask him what he does for a living.......
I have a Q for you now actuallly.
I am building a NES PC (PC in a Nintendo) and I had to take the case off of the PSU to make it fit. Well no case means no ground wire. Its just kinda dangling there. It works at school but it shuts off at any random time at home. I think its shorting out cause of it not being grounded. I have yet to try it with a surge protector, something that it was on at school.
What should I do with that thing. I have heard I dont _need_ it as long as I keep static away from it. I even spayed static guard on the carpet, where I was working on the NES and it still shut off.
So...is it ok to just leave the ground wire dangle as long as it doesnt touch anything?
Just saw primes post...what do you do for a living? Eat motherboards or something?;D
If your using a nornal 3 prong AC cord, you could hook the 3rd wire (green) of the AC to the that dangleing wire. I'm assuming that the dangleing wire is attached to some piece of metal or something. ?? If you really want to get sweet on it you might want to get a 5volt transient voltage supressor. Basicly, this device gets hooked up between 5v power and ground. and when a surge gets put into the system it will knock it out. For more info. Look up Transient votage suppressors. I know it's a lot to take in, but the bitch with PC's and microcontrollers is the nasty votage and current surges from poor power supplies. There is all kinds of ways to fix them but the easiest usually is the best. First I would hook the dangleing wire up to the AC earth ground (Green wire). Hope I didn't bable too much. If you have pictures of the wire I can tell you something better, but with out knowing much That's the best I could do. By the way I'm an electrical enginner, with a fetish for microcontrollers. and I only eat mother board when I'm out of romens soup.
is that a certain persons X-men name?
hehe
And how could I attach the third prong of the AC wire to a metal plate if I have to plug it into the PSU?
http://www.directron.com/nps90ab.html Thats the PSU it is.
Ok there is cord you plug into the wall, a power cord. It goes into the Power supply. There are 3 prongs, thus 3 wires on the other side where you plugged in the cord. 2 go to the circuit board of the power supply, the other is the greeb wire. It is normally screwed into the case to be grounded. But I removed the case so it is danging. The damn wire has already screwed me me over once when it touched the aluminum inside the PSU to cool the volt regulators.
Take the nintendo and strip it of its guts. Its now a PC.
And isnt the purpose of grounding to take the static charge away from the circuit board.
There isnt much space in the nintendo case. I have to turn the PSU upside down with case off and res it on 2 pieces of plexi and the PCI slot. Above the PSU will be part of the CD ROM and there isnt any room.
There is a lil bit of room on the bottom of the PSU where I can place part of the case and screw it into I guess. But then the purpose of the green wire is to take static electricity from around the PSU out to the wire.
No wires were attached to the case except for the green one. No black ones. They all went into the board. There is no more chasis. And how strong are these magnetic fields? Strong enough to harm a Laptop harddive a few inches away? I sure hope not.
I thought about screwing it to the motherboard screw or the PSU screw but I thought that would hurt it. I just dont know enough about electricity. I should in 3 years tho after college.
Almost electricuted myself too. Well I guess you could say I did. Felt the tinglies go up my arm. Good thing is only 90W.:)
Yeah I have learned a lot from this project. First mod I have done.