I did 2 tailcap spring bypasses, they went fairly well only burnt one finger.
I have been trying to get a special driver finished up for an old Ultrafire, so tonight I attached the spring and the LED+ pass thru wire and the LED- wire and thought I was fairly close. I built the driver with an ATTINY25 and TK’s precompiled Bisto, just to test with. The driver worked! But, my lowest mode did not. So, dl’d the source and found out that I could not make it compile and that it does not appear to do what Bistro on the X5 does. It appears that the Bistro source code has ramping and maybe other stuff in it. Can’t compile so lets load battcheck-25, finally got my crappy clip to make a connection and loaded the hex file. Not sure what fuses to use, so I went with the H & L in the batcheck C file and the E that was specified for the Bistro load. Everything programmed except for an error on the Extended fuse. AVRDude reported fuse at FD and I tried to set FF. I decided to test it anyway and well the MCU did not come up and I got no flashes. Tried to reprogram for the next 30 minutes, but it appears that my clip just is not making a connection and my testconn batch file never makes communications.
Well crap, now I have to wait on a clip, try to compile Bistro and try to figure out fuses for battcheck-25.
Sometimes I really wonder why I try to build drivers… most go well, but the special build went to hell in a hand basket tonight.
Bought all the equipment before Christmas and every single time I tried building drivers only the hardware part worked out. putting together the SW and the flashing process never worked - but I also never tried for more than a few minutes because of work/family commitments. Even though the information on BLF is simply priceless (people here are really smart ) the actual process of building your own drivers doesn’t seem to be an easy one
Normally the software does not give me this much problem… but this is my first 25 and I can’t seem to find simple things like what fuses to use for utilities and then my damn chip clip failed me! The physical driver is one of the best looking ones I have ever built, finally got the right amount of solder paste and good even heat. I think I am going to shelve this one for awhile. But, I have to put something 22mm together to make it work. And I really wanted it to run Bistro, I love mode reversing code and I love the option to set up the mode group just about any way you want it.
Thanks guys and gals, just a very frustrated rant.
Dude, I was so close at midnight to saying F’it and posting the old host up forsale and just pulling all of the parts off the driver! I just keep coming back, I really love building the hardware and tinkering with the code to make it work but sometimes that love gets tested. This is the same reason that I do not have a tailcap MCU board running yet. I am disappointed in myself and my efforts there as well.
At least the spring bypass surgeries went well. I had melted he tailcap spring in a C8 the night before because I forgot a bypass and dropped a 30q into a light that draws basically 5 amps. Maybe you know that smell…
The SPIEN and RSTDISBL bits are the tricky ones.
If not programmed correctly it basically bricks the MCU, unless you have access to a high-voltage programmer.
And on the 25 these bits are in different positions than on the 13A!
Messing up the clock source bits can also ruin your day, but this one is at least recoverable using an external clock of some kind.
The E fuse error is normal, the 25 is only using bit zero of the fuse and the other bits may read back random values.
And the frustration continues… This driver is one of the best soldered ones I have ever made! Got my new clip in over the weekend and it seems to fit perfectly, but I still can’t talk to the chip! I guess I will try and remove it and see if I can then program it… Maybe a failed chip? This is really pissing me off!!!
Yes, I tested it on a 13a that is not mounted to a driver, worked fine.
Can’t compile so lets load battcheck-25, finally got my crappy clip to make a connection and loaded the hex file. Not sure what fuses to use, so I went with the H & L in the batcheck C file and the E that was specified for the Bistro load. Everything programmed except for an error on the Extended fuse. AVRDude reported fuse at FD and I tried to set FF. I decided to test it anyway and well the MCU did not come up and I got no flashes. Tried to reprogram for the next 30 minutes, but it appears that my clip just is not making a connection and my testconn batch file never makes communications.
