Silicon Chip Frequency Meter

A

Andy Wood

Guest
This is a question for anybody who has one of the Silicon Chip
Frequency Meters (the original 2003 version not the 2007 Mk2):

When you change the resolution, does it display a spurious character
on the LCD between 'Resolution ' and 'HIGH'?
Andy Wood
woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au
 
Andy Wood wrote:

This is a question for anybody who has one of the Silicon Chip
Frequency Meters (the original 2003 version not the 2007 Mk2):

When you change the resolution, does it display a spurious character
on the LCD between 'Resolution ' and 'HIGH'?
Andy Wood
woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au
Click to expand...
Not that I recall, but I can't test it now because I've dropped it some time
back, it flipped the power switch to "on", then broke the lever so you can't
turn it off.
When all is said and done, I found it with flat batteries and hadn't fixed
it since. (yet)

From what I remember, there was _sometimes_ spurious characters, but not
often, and only when switching from low/high in one direction (can't remember,
and can't test at the moment).

--
Linux Registered User # 302622
<http://counter.li.org>
 
On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:00:28 GMT, woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au (Andy
Wood) put finger to keyboard and composed:

This is a question for anybody who has one of the Silicon Chip
Frequency Meters (the original 2003 version not the 2007 Mk2):

When you change the resolution, does it display a spurious character
on the LCD between 'Resolution ' and 'HIGH'?
Andy Wood
woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au
Click to expand...
My DSE kit doesn't do this, but according to the errata there was a
timing issue with certain displays that was "fixed" by the replacement
of the 470pF capacitor on the E* input with a .0022uF capacitor. The
symptom was a blank display.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
 
On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:38:16 +1100, Franc Zabkar
<fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:

On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:00:28 GMT, woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au (Andy
Wood) put finger to keyboard and composed:


This is a question for anybody who has one of the Silicon Chip
Frequency Meters (the original 2003 version not the 2007 Mk2):

When you change the resolution, does it display a spurious character
on the LCD between 'Resolution ' and 'HIGH'?
Andy Wood
woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au

My DSE kit doesn't do this, but according to the errata there was a
timing issue with certain displays that was "fixed" by the replacement
of the 470pF capacitor on the E* input with a .0022uF capacitor. The
symptom was a blank display.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Click to expand...
Thanks Franc.

Interesting - they actually specifically mention the extra character
before "HIGH" on the display. I located this on the SC web site under
Notes and Errata:

"The 470pF capacitor between pin 6 of the LCD and ground may need to
be larger in value for the display to operate. A value up to 2.2nF may
be required if the display does not show any characters. This value of
capacitance may cause the character preceding the word "HIGH" when the
Resolution switch is pressed to have a couple of bars instead of a
blank space. The normal frequency display when the switch is released
will not show any abnormalities."

The capacitor they are referring to is connected between the LCD
ENABLE pin and ground. The original article says that this capacitor
is needed to "slow down the rise and fall times of the square wave
from (the PIC), which are nominally too fast for the LCD module to
handle ..."

I think what SC are saying is nominally bollocks. Heck, I have built
my own projects with PICs driving those LCDs and never found it
necessary to add a capacitor like that. The LCD specifications give no
minimum rise/fall times for ENABLE, but do give a *maximum* (25ns), so
too much capacitance there is likely to cause trouble.

History:

I bought one of the kits for this meter from DSE when they were having
the kit fire sale earlier this year. That was actually at about the
time the MK2 version was published in SC. When I got it assembled it
did not work properly - the display would freeze. I did not think to
go and look for errata published by SC.

I found that a finger on some of the tracks on the PCB could make the
problem go away, but I could not find any bad connections. I located
the source code for the PIC program on the SC web site and after some
checking with a scope I suspected that code was getting stuck in a
loop checking LCD 'busy'.

I tried a different LCD and it seemed to work OK. So far so good.

However, over time, when using the meter I found it would occasionally
have some problems a bit like the original trouble. I did nothing
about this until now when I decided to look at it again.

The LCD is used in four-bit mode (using only 4 data lines, so each
byte to and from the LCD has to be transferred in two nybbles). I
noticed that in the routine that checks if the LCD is busy, named
BUS_CK, it does not always access two nybbles when reading the busy
flag. I could not find anything to suggest that it is OK to do this,
so I decided to try a modified version of the code.

I put back the original LCD and confirmed that it still would not work
at all. I then changed the BUS_CK routine so that it always accesses
two nybbles, and also threw in a couple of NOPs to make 100% sure the
timing was right. I reprogrammed the PIC and after that the meter was
working perfectly with the original LCD - except that I noticed the
strange character on the display when changing the resolution. I took
a look at the SC code and found a pretty obvious bug that would cause
this problem (a stray call to the LCD-write routine, not in the area
of code I had touched).

I did not remember seeing that spurious character on the display
before so that is why I was asking here.

I see that in the code for the Mk2 meter, the BUS_CK routine is
completely different - it doesn't check the LCD busy at all, it is
just a delay. The old code is actually still in there but cannot be
executed. It seems they knew it was a problem area but perhaps did not
know why.

When I get a chance I will remove that capacitor. I'm pretty sure that
with the code changed it is not needed.
 
On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:42:19 GMT, woodag.trap@ozemail.com.au (Andy
Wood) put finger to keyboard and composed:

I see that in the code for the Mk2 meter, the BUS_CK routine is
completely different - it doesn't check the LCD busy at all, it is
just a delay. The old code is actually still in there but cannot be
executed. It seems they knew it was a problem area but perhaps did not
know why.

When I get a chance I will remove that capacitor. I'm pretty sure that
with the code changed it is not needed.
Click to expand...
I'd appreciate a copy of your modded code, if that's OK.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
 
On 7/12/2007 08:42 Andy Wood wrote:
The capacitor they are referring to is connected between the LCD
ENABLE pin and ground. The original article says that this capacitor
is needed to "slow down the rise and fall times of the square wave
from (the PIC), which are nominally too fast for the LCD module to
handle ..."
Click to expand...

All those parallel interface LCD modules are based on the Hitachi
HD44780 chip or its clones. The HD44780 data sheet I've got only
specifies a *maximum* Enable pulse rise and fall time of 25ns. There's
no minimum.
Enable pulse width (high) is 450ns minimum. Maybe that's what
they're trying to stretch with that cap? Kinda bizarre way to do it.
I've never had any problems driving LCD modules from micros (even
PICs) in either 4 or 8 bit interface mode.
Sounds like someone didn't have time to get right into understanding
the timing requirements when they were designing it.


Bob
 
Andy Wood wrote:


The capacitor they are referring to is connected between the LCD
ENABLE pin and ground. The original article says that this capacitor
is needed to "slow down the rise and fall times of the square wave
from (the PIC), which are nominally too fast for the LCD module to
handle ..."
Click to expand...

Just built the MK2 version (Jaycar) and it came with the .0022uF
capacitor as an extra in case the display didn't work with the 470pF.
Didn't need it in my kit.

Alan
 
Franc Zabkar <fzabkar@iinternode.on.net> wrote:

On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:42:19 GMT, woodag.trap@ozemail.com.au (Andy
Wood) put finger to keyboard and composed:

I see that in the code for the Mk2 meter, the BUS_CK routine is
completely different - it doesn't check the LCD busy at all, it is
just a delay. The old code is actually still in there but cannot be
executed. It seems they knew it was a problem area but perhaps did not
know why.

When I get a chance I will remove that capacitor. I'm pretty sure that
with the code changed it is not needed.

I'd appreciate a copy of your modded code, if that's OK.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
Click to expand...
Franc,

I have sent you an email with the modified code. Let me know if you
don't receive it.



Andy Wood
woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au
 
Bob Parker <bobp.deletethis@bluebottle.com> wrote:

On 7/12/2007 08:42 Andy Wood wrote:

The capacitor they are referring to is connected between the LCD
ENABLE pin and ground. The original article says that this capacitor
is needed to "slow down the rise and fall times of the square wave
from (the PIC), which are nominally too fast for the LCD module to
handle ..."


All those parallel interface LCD modules are based on the Hitachi
HD44780 chip or its clones. The HD44780 data sheet I've got only
specifies a *maximum* Enable pulse rise and fall time of 25ns. There's
no minimum.
Enable pulse width (high) is 450ns minimum. Maybe that's what
they're trying to stretch with that cap? Kinda bizarre way to do it.
Click to expand...
Another possibility is that they might be trying to read the data too
soon after raising the enable line. With the rate the PIC is clocked
at there, I don't think either of those would be a problem, but as I
said, when I modified it I added a couple of NOPs just to be sure.

With the way it might read only one nybble instead of two, I'm a bit
surprised that it works at all. What it looks like they could do is
read the first half of the byte with the busy flag, and then turn
around and decide to write a pair of nybbles to the instruction
register. Perhaps when the LCD controller sees the write it is smart
enough to reset its memory of high/low nybbles, and so gets back in
sync. However I don't see it saying anything like in the specs so I
wouldn't rely on it.

I've never had any problems driving LCD modules from micros (even
PICs) in either 4 or 8 bit interface mode.
Sounds like someone didn't have time to get right into understanding
the timing requirements when they were designing it.
Click to expand...
Exactly what I was thinking...



Andy Wood
woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au
 
woodag.trap@ozemail.com.au (Andy Wood) wrote:

....
When I get a chance I will remove that capacitor. I'm pretty sure that
with the code changed it is not needed.
Click to expand...

OK. I took the capacitor out and with the modified PIC code the meter
is still working just fine.


Andy Wood
woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au
 
Andy Wood wrote:

I have sent you an email with the modified code. Let me know if you
don't receive it.
Click to expand...
Is it possible for you to post the code to a public 'net accessible area?
If I'm the second who might be interested, I'm sure there would be others...

--
Linux Registered User # 302622
<http://counter.li.org>
 
On 9/12/2007 14:07 Andy Wood wrote:
With the way it might read only one nybble instead of two, I'm a bit
surprised that it works at all. What it looks like they could do is
read the first half of the byte with the busy flag, and then turn
around and decide to write a pair of nybbles to the instruction
register. Perhaps when the LCD controller sees the write it is smart
enough to reset its memory of high/low nybbles, and so gets back in
sync. However I don't see it saying anything like in the specs so I
wouldn't rely on it.
Click to expand...
I haven't seen SC's code but from what I remember, when in the 4-bit
mode, you have to read the upper *and* (irrelevant) lower nibble when
checking the busy flag so as to keep the HD44780 in sync.
Apart from all that, I reckon John Clarke deserves some kind of
award and/or medal for turning out so many projects covering so much
different electronics so regularly for all these years. The bloke's amazing!


Bob
 
On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 02:24:56 GMT, woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au (Andy
Wood) put finger to keyboard and composed:

I have sent you an email with the modified code. Let me know if you
don't receive it.
Click to expand...
Got it. Thanks very much.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
 
Andy Wood wrote:

This is a question for anybody who has one of the Silicon Chip
Frequency Meters (the original 2003 version not the 2007 Mk2):

When you change the resolution, does it display a spurious character
on the LCD between 'Resolution ' and 'HIGH'?
Andy Wood
woodag@trap.ozemail.com.au
Click to expand...
In a recent email, Andy indicated he didn't have provision for posting his
code to the 'net for download, so I've done it here: This is Andy's revised
code for the first incarnation of the frequency meter.

Through my home page <http://members.optusnet.com.au/~johntserkezis/> look
through the Utilities page, and scroll down to the bottom in the 'Electronics'
heading.
I know it seems out of place with all the cartography stuff, but I couldn't
be bothered creating a new category for it. <shrug>
--
Linux Registered User # 302622
<http://counter.li.org>
 
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