azonenberg changed the topic of #scopehal to: libscopehal, libscopeprotocols, and glscopeclient development and testing | https://github.com/azonenberg/scopehal-cmake, https://github.com/azonenberg/scopehal-apps, https://github.com/azonenberg/scopehal | Logs: https://freenode.irclog.whitequark.org/scopehal
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<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg opened issue #153: Windows portability fixes - https://git.io/Jfbz8
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg labeled issue #153: Windows portability fixes - https://git.io/Jfbz8
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal-apps] azonenberg opened issue #113: Windows portability fixes - https://git.io/Jfbz4
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal-apps] azonenberg labeled issue #113: Windows portability fixes - https://git.io/Jfbz4
<azonenberg> oooh, so somebody on twitter is interested in trying to develop a Windows port
<azonenberg> Which is good as i had been putting that off because i didn't want to do it :p
<azonenberg> miek: hey, your USB2PCS decoder breaks on full speed transactions now
<azonenberg> it thinks every K is a sync and every J is an error
<azonenberg> https://www.antikernel.net/temp/example.tar.bz2 is a proof of concept waveform you can test on
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg opened issue #154: Regression: USB2PCS decode no longer works on full speed - https://git.io/JfbgU
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg assigned issue #154: Regression: USB2PCS decode no longer works on full speed - https://git.io/JfbgU
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg labeled issue #154: Regression: USB2PCS decode no longer works on full speed - https://git.io/JfbgU
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg labeled issue #154: Regression: USB2PCS decode no longer works on full speed - https://git.io/JfbgU
<azonenberg> ok so i'm continuing work on the MAXWELL power supply
<azonenberg> finished all of the 1.xV rails, still have to do the higher voltage
<azonenberg> there are now two standby rails, one 3.3V and one 5V
<azonenberg> The 3.3V standby supplies the STM32, the 5V standby is a tiny LDO rail used to run pullups on the DC-DC input pins
<azonenberg> most of them need about 3.5-4V Vih on the enable line so i can't just drive direct with 3v3, and i can't use an mcu open drain driver at 12V
<azonenberg> so i needed an intermediate rail and a fet
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg pushed 1 commit to master [+0/-0/±15] https://git.io/JfbVG
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg 323f2d3 - Continued work on power supply, fixed some ERC errors
<azonenberg> welp i ran out of i2c interfaces on the MCU, i'm going to have to run the SPD EEPROM and the power supply INA233s on the same bus
<azonenberg> Which means moving the SPD EEPROM from the 3V3 domain to 3V3_SB since that bus is now powered all the time
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg pushed 1 commit to master [+0/-0/±3] https://git.io/JfbVH
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg dba5105 - Lots of cleanup, added I2C address map
<azonenberg> there are going to be five i2c buses on this board lol
<azonenberg> Hmmm so the spreadsheet estimates 2.67A load on the 3V3 rail
<azonenberg> (worst case)
<azonenberg> debating whether to use the 3A DC-DC i'm using for a bunch of other parts in the design, or go with something beefier
<azonenberg> that's still a 10% derating worst case and average case load is going to be substantially less
<azonenberg> actually that 2.67 was before i split the 3v3 and 3v3_sb rails
<azonenberg> so actual load on the 3v3 is more like 2.4A max, that's a comfortable amount of headroom
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg pushed 2 commits to master [+1/-0/±20] https://git.io/JfbwQ
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg 138e6b2 - Preparation for higher voltage supply rails
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg 2ba7076 - 3.3V rails
<miek> azonenberg: re charmhigh, you may want to keep an eye on how this plays out: https://twitter.com/unexpectedmaker/status/1273884272101736448
<azonenberg> That's a different model from the one i was looking at, but interesting
<miek> rough summary: his new 17000AUD machine has feeders that just don't work, and spit parts everywhere & charmhigh has refused to help so far
<azonenberg> colin oflynn has one of the model i was looking at that he seems to like
<miek> yeah, from what i hear the other model works well. though the company may screw you over if anything does go wrong
<azonenberg> i kinda expect that dealing with cheap chinese hardware vendors, lol
<azonenberg> but that is the only class of pnp i am likely to be able to afford in the near future
<azonenberg> also i physically cannot fit something like a neoden in my lab
<azonenberg> So if you have any ideas on a better one in the same size class i'm open to ideas
<azonenberg> the TVM802 is the other model on the candidate list right now
<monochroma> oh geeze $17k for that
<azonenberg> as much as i'd love something nicer and bigger it physically won't fit
<azonenberg> my lab is only 400 square feet and i need to fit a ton of stuff there
<Degi> Huh that buffer looks neat, 7.5 GHz... For which clock?
<Degi> Can we get the 1U supplies sufficiently? Are they quiet enough?
<azonenberg> Degi: wow you're way behind. I ended up deciding to go with 48V in
<azonenberg> the cleanup needed on an atx supply to make it good enough for what we're doing would have been more effort than it was worth
<Degi> Hmh dont the MEAD heads make their own 5 V anyways
<azonenberg> Yes, they run off of 12
<Degi> Oh sry
<azonenberg> but i need 5 internally for the comparators on the ext trig etc
<Degi> Tbh for lower current rails a brick converter would be kinda unnecessary, I mean there are buck controllers where you just add an inductor, output cap and sometimes a voltage divider...
<azonenberg> i'm using smaller converters
<azonenberg> for most of the lower current rails
<azonenberg> a lot of them are using the OKL-T/3-W12N-C
<azonenberg> it's tiny and only around $6 a pop
<azonenberg> going below that on a discrete solution seems hard and it saves a lot of soldering and engineering effort
<Degi> Eh okay
<Degi> Well yeah it certainly savse # of components
<azonenberg> and we're going to be pushing 800 parts on this board so...
<Degi> oh
<azonenberg> the schematic is up to 18 pages now
<Degi> "inspectable Land Grid Array (iLGA)" lol
<Degi> Oh neat its sequencable too
<azonenberg> I'm using the stm32 for all sequencing
<azonenberg> all pgood and en pins from every regulator go to it
<Degi> yes neat
<azonenberg> not using the built in sequencing, which might simplify routing a bit but prevents me from doing tweaks to sequencing in firmware
<Degi> I wonder if theyd require pulldowns? I guess the STM pins are on input mode on boot?
<azonenberg> they actually need 4-5V on the en pin
<azonenberg> so i have an ldo'd 5v_sb rail to drive all of the enables
<azonenberg> then a fet driven by the stm32 to turn it on or off
<azonenberg> with pullups/downs to set the default state to off
<Degi> Okay neat
<Degi> Hmh sure that it needs 5 V? These regulators seem to just care about whether on off is connected to gnd
<azonenberg> They had a Vil / Vih spec
<azonenberg> and it was >3.3 Vih
<Degi> I see, its on by default
<azonenberg> one half of a dual fet and two resistors.not a big deal
<Degi> So if you use the negative logic, you'd need to pull it up by defult
<azonenberg> Except the negative logic version is not stocked at digikey
<Degi> huh
<monochroma> mouser?
<azonenberg> not worth the trouble when there's such an easy way to use the positive version
<Degi> Well we could just use the positive logic version and just pullup the mosfet gate
<azonenberg> did you not see my schematic that did just that? :p
<Degi> Not yet
<Degi> <Thanks! the tab got lost
<Degi> Why is SEQ/TRK connected to 12V
<Degi> According to the datasheet it should be 50 mV within GND in the first 10 ms
<azonenberg> If you are using the track function
<azonenberg> it should also be connected to Vin if you are not using it
<azonenberg> (double check)
<Degi> Hmm okay, I guess it talks about output overshoot during the ramp then, and not of the final value...
<Degi> Oh theres still the MUX amplitude problem
<azonenberg> that should be solved now, no?
<azonenberg> U48 et al
<azonenberg> the external trigger amplitude is maybe a little bit questionable, i'm thinking of replacing the 7322's on the inputs with 607s at least for some of the lines
<azonenberg> which will fix that
<Degi> 607 what? LMH607?
<Degi> Ah n ADCMP607
<Degi> Hmh yes
<azonenberg> ADCMP607
<Degi> A bit slower but probably ok for the 1 Gbit ones
<azonenberg> wait what? slower?
<azonenberg> i have it on the 10gbit lines
<azonenberg> 10 Gsps*
<azonenberg> did i misread some specs?
<Degi> Oh it has 750 MHz BW
<azonenberg> oof
<azonenberg> yeah thats not good
<azonenberg> that would have ruined those inputs completely
<azonenberg> i could have sworn i checked that
<azonenberg> look around and try to find a faster buffer then?
<azonenberg> or comparator
<Degi> Hmh
<Degi> yes
<azonenberg> something with higher swing outputs suitable for this sort of thing
<azonenberg> i know a very good one but it's $$$$
<azonenberg> (the HMC674)
<azonenberg> $40 a pop
<azonenberg> While you look into that i have more power supply work to do
<Degi> ADCMP581 is 10 bcks on some chine website haha
<azonenberg> i'm goign by digikey availability/prices
<Degi> and 12 on rochester electronics, but 75 on digikey
<azonenberg> options include comparators, buffers, muxes, etc
<Degi> Actualy the ADCMP572 is 20 bucks on digikey not 75. Damn octopartt
<Degi> ADCMP572, 573, 580, 581, 582 all seem to have 12.5 Gbits
<azonenberg> And that's 400 mV 3.3V CML
<azonenberg> (572)
<azonenberg> except, it's not real differnetial amplitude measurement
<azonenberg> it's 375 swing on each leg
<azonenberg> so the actual differential swing is 750 mV which should be fine
<Degi> huh
<Degi> Yes the mux needs 200 mV on each leg, if it gets 375 it should be fine
<azonenberg> Perfect
<azonenberg> ok so i'll use the 572s
<Degi> Maybe for a later version where we have more serdess we could use 572s in the LA pods and straight to FPGA
<azonenberg> then maybe swap out the 7322 on the ext trigger with one as well
<Degi> Yeah lol its got like 8 GHz
<Degi> Would make for a cheap samplign scope haha
<azonenberg> How's the rest of the design looking?
<azonenberg> would you look at that i have an adcmp572 symbol in my library already
<azonenberg> isnt that convenient
<Degi> Would routing to the ESD7008 make a big impedance discontinuity? Maybe some kinda inline esd device on the faster lanes?
<Degi> Or can it be used inline even by routing the wires around the nc and gnd pads on the right side
<azonenberg> The esd7008 is meant to be used inline, did you look at the datasheet?
<azonenberg> that's why i used it
<Degi> Ah, thats what flow-through means
<azonenberg> figure 2
<Degi> Yes I've seen that and kinda wondered about the pads on the right side, whether theyd disturb the diff traces or not
<Degi> The SFP probably doesnt need ESD protection unless you use a DAC cable where you could touch the contacts
<azonenberg> Yeah
<azonenberg> aaand problem
<Degi> The QSFP uses 66/64 right
<azonenberg> adcmp572 wants 3.3V VCCO
<Degi> oh
<azonenberg> nice try but wont work
<Degi> It eems to output negative CML?
<azonenberg> the output swings from 3.3 to 3.3-0.4
<Degi> Ah the 582 the PECL variatn seems to work
<Degi> ADCMP can do 2.5 V on VCCo
<Degi> Page 4 towards bottom
<Degi> ADCMP582
<azonenberg> yeah i'm reading it now
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] miek opened pull request #155: USB2PCSDecoder: fix sync logic - https://git.io/JfbiT
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<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg pushed 1 commit to master [+0/-0/±16] https://git.io/Jfbik
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg 5bf956f - Changed comparators on GTX inputs to ADCMP582s, added pins for 0V5 supply
<azonenberg> Degi: reuploaded new schematic
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg pushed 2 commits to master [+0/-0/±2] https://git.io/JfbiL
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] miek 6e269bd - USB2PCSDecoder: fix sync logic
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg a7ffdcc - Merge pull request #155 from miek/usb2pcs-sync USB2PCSDecoder: fix sync logic
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg closed issue #154: Regression: USB2PCS decode no longer works on full speed - https://git.io/JfbgU
<_whitenotifier-f> [scopehal] azonenberg closed pull request #155: USB2PCSDecoder: fix sync logic - https://git.io/JfbiT
<azonenberg> miek: awesome thanks
<miek> np, thanks for the test case
<azonenberg> miek: that was actually the first demo i ever made for scopehal
<azonenberg> i was trying to re-shoot a screenshot with different zoom settings and found it didnt work, lol
<Degi> lol
<miek> heh
<Degi> Well now the LMH7322 looks kinda cheap with its 5 $ per channel heh
<azonenberg> lol
<azonenberg> you see why i used it
<azonenberg> it was affordable and "fast enough"
<Degi> Well I guess for 4 pieces it isnt thaat bad
<Degi> Well 5
<miek> it was the same bug i had found while poking at HS, but i hadn't had a chance to see if it applied to FS too yet :)
<azonenberg> Lol
<azonenberg> miek: eventually i want to make (reasonably small) demo/test case files for every protocol we support
<azonenberg> that we can use for regression testing as well as showing off capabilities to new users
<azonenberg> so just a library of waveforms basically
<azonenberg> i have a few but its far from complete and many are deep captures with a ton of waveforms that makes them huge
<Degi> Whats ext trig 2
<miek> yeah, that would be great
<azonenberg> Degi: i split the ext trig in two, one goes to an LVDS input and one to a GTX
<azonenberg> so i can sample at higher speed and get more precise trigger positioning if i'm using that GTX channel as a trigger instead of as an input
<Degi> Ah nice yeah
<Degi> 50 ohm on ref in after a capacitor? And 50 ohm on pps?
<azonenberg> i'm assuming 50 ohm and ext ref are on 50 ohm lines, i feed them through matched attenuators
<azonenberg> they'll be going over 50 ohm coax
<azonenberg> the ref is ac coupled so i terminate to ground after the coupling cap rather than before
<Degi> Is it usual for PPS to be 50 ohm?
<azonenberg> i would think any fast signal would be
<Degi> Is pps usually fast? I just thought that it needs to be on precisely once per second at the same time
<azonenberg> miek: how's usb going in general btw?
<azonenberg> Degi: well it should be fast rise time to minimize problems from uncertain zero crossing
<Degi> Hmh okay
<miek> i've been swamped, not had a chance to do anything more lately
<Degi> Maybe make C203 1 µF or put the 50 ohm before it, otherwise it has like 16 ohm AC impedance
<azonenberg> at what freq?
<Degi> 10 MHz
<azonenberg> yeah but the edge frequency is so much higher
<Degi> Oh it isnt a 10 MHz sine
<Degi> Still theres a 10 MHz component that would get somewhat reflected / attenuator would attenuate somewhat less there
<azonenberg> no PPS is a 1 Hz low duty cycle squarewave with very sharp edges
<azonenberg> how is there 10 MHz in there?
<Degi> I mean the refclk
<azonenberg> oh
<Degi> Well theres no cap o nthe pps anyways
<azonenberg> Yeah
<azonenberg> the refclk is a squarewave, or should be
<azonenberg> and ok i'll leave it as 1 uF
<azonenberg> anyway, the new comparator needs an 0.5V termination rail
<azonenberg> so now i need to add *another* power rail woooo
<azonenberg> and that has to be source/sink capable too
<azonenberg> might see if i can use the ddr termination reg
<azonenberg> slap another down and dont use vref
<Degi> We could hope for best of luck terminating to GND?
<azonenberg> No
<Degi> Okay
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg pushed 1 commit to master [+0/-0/±5] https://git.io/JfbiD
<_whitenotifier-f> [starshipraider] azonenberg d138583 - Added 0.5V Vtt rail
<azonenberg> i'd rather throw a few more parts on the board than risk it not working
<Degi> Output Voltage Differential vs Differential Output Voltage haha
<azonenberg> lol
<Degi> Why cant there be consistence
<azonenberg> Once i'm done with the first pass on the schematic, which will hopefully happen this weekend
<Degi> Like just give the differential amplitudes or consistently call it single ended swing
<azonenberg> the full design review can start
<Degi> Nice
<azonenberg> Which will be truly monumental as i'm going to need to verify the pinout on both of the FPGA symbol as well as a whole bunch of dc-dc's etc
<miek> Degi: next, get a decision on tabs vs spaces :p
<azonenberg> check Vi/Vo compatibility on all of the differential links
<Degi> lol yes
<azonenberg> that alone will probably be half a day's work
<azonenberg> (the vi/vo i mean)
<azonenberg> i'm probably gonna make a whole document that's just a design review report
<Degi> I wonder why they call a buffer with 10 ps deterministic jitter "ultra precision"
<azonenberg> instead of just the checklist i want to include supporting details for a lot of the stuff so i can go back and verify
<azonenberg> This is an expensive, complicated enough design it has to be right the first time
<azonenberg> there can be no question
<Degi> I wonder what they mean by input LOW voltage min
<Degi> Where are the Vt's on the SY56017R's in the schemati
<Degi> Nevermind found them
<azonenberg> and yes all of the Vt's will need to be verified too
<azonenberg> Your feedback at this stage in the process is super helpful but that still won't stop me from going back and triple checking every single connection before i move to layout :p
<Degi> Heh yeah we dont want to have a few thousand dollar fail...
* monochroma watched a $10,000 PCB respin happen once lol
<Degi> lol
<Degi> Did it involve FPGAs?
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<monochroma> nope
<azonenberg> I've written buggy HDL that ended up in a 28nm ASIC. So i think that beats all of your screwups :P
<azonenberg> but they managed to develop workarounds and avoid a respin
<Degi> Was it some specialty science stuff? @monochroma
<monochroma> azonenberg: wasn't my fault! i just watched it happen lol
<Degi> Oh lol yeah asics sound complicated
<azonenberg> well i mean the asic bugs weren't entirely my fault given that the client rushed the schedule like crazy
<monochroma> Degi: it was an ASIC first light bringup board
<Degi> Heh
<azonenberg> and when the verification guy (yes, there was only one) quit
<Degi> loll
<azonenberg> instead of hiring another one, they made me the hdl guy AND the verification guy
<azonenberg> with an incredibly tight timetable, on a design that took three weeks to run a single simulation on
<azonenberg> as you can probably imagine coverage was subpar
<azonenberg> i'm amazed the thing worked as well as it did
<monochroma> Degi: the PCB designer thought the pinout for the 3m textool socket was the same as one they already had in their part library
<Degi> Lol three wrrks
<Degi> *weeks
<azonenberg> Degi: we were simulating about a quarter of a WAFER at a time
<Degi> And wow mismatched footprint for 10k pcb... Was the PCB 10k or the components included?
<azonenberg> 64 dies the size of a midrange GPU
<Degi> Oh not only a single chip
<Degi> Huh thats prettyl arge
<monochroma> Degi: PCB only
<Degi> Oh wow like 20 layers?
<monochroma> it was a large PCB, about the size of an ATX motherboard
<monochroma> probably would have been cheaper with a chinese PCB fab but the project required DoD trusted suppliers :P
<sorear> "3 weeks" is a function of the number of cycles you want to run? or fpga synth/pnr because the design is so big? :p
<azonenberg> sorear: no this was simulation
<azonenberg> we were only simulating a millisecond or so of run time
<azonenberg> we were running what was normally a several hundred MHz design at... i think about 1 Hz equivalent clock rate
<Degi> Like transistor level simulation?
<azonenberg> HDL level
<Degi> Oh
<Degi> Huh
<azonenberg> gate level would have taken probably 10x longer
<azonenberg> i think my favorite screwup i was part of, though, was the time i knocked an entire large company off the internet as part of my first solo project at $dayjob
<sorear> I have heard ASIC people describe "map the design to an FPGA for single-digit-MHz testing" as "simulation"
<azonenberg> no that's usually referred to as emulation
<Degi> monochroma: How many layers did it have? Do DOD approved suppliers take 10k for 6L? :P
<azonenberg> We tried it
<azonenberg> We bought two VCU118s to run the thing on
<azonenberg> They would have, together, fit about a quarter of one die
<azonenberg> so we gave up, the cost of procuring enough fpgas to emulate the whole system would have been astronomical
<monochroma> Degi: don't remember, it was probably somewhere in the 8-12 layer range. PCB fabs in the US are stupidly expensive
<azonenberg> we'd have needed... something like 256 xcvu9p's
<azonenberg> which, if my mental math is right, would have costed more than a 28nm tapeout
<sorear> I guess f1 is not a DOD approved supplier
<azonenberg> it would literally have been cheaper to fab the chip and YOLO it than to buy enough fpgas to emulate lol
<Degi> Is the VCU118 the one where the eval kit is cheaper
<azonenberg> the chip is about 50 kUSD at digikey, the devkit is around 7 kUSD
<azonenberg> 256 of them is about 1.8M USD
<azonenberg> pretty sure you can get a 28nm tapeout for less than that
<monochroma> azonenberg: i wonder what xilinx would want for a bulk buy. 256 is probably enough to deal direct with them :P
<sorear> see, with open tools we can make time/space tradeoffs
<azonenberg> monochroma: probably
<azonenberg> sorear: not possible here, the chip was just too big. you could have tuned a bit but there wasnt enough block ram or anything to even get close to fitting what we needed
<Degi> And open source developers have an interest to minimize design size, whereas for closed source tools from the MFG its the opposite
<Degi> What did the chips do?
<azonenberg> No comment :p
<Degi> Heh okay
<sorear> the chip had a very large RAM/logic ratio?
<sorear> ok
<azonenberg> sorear: tens of megabytes of on chip ram
<Degi> (Also open-source things arent under NDA usually :P)
<monochroma> Degi: the chips went in the dip, duhhhh ;)
<Degi> dip?
<Degi> Well the XCVU9P has like almost 50 MB heh
<azonenberg> Yeah
<sorear> I still wonder if you could push that to DDR and sustain a simulation rate well above 1 Hz, but we're getting outside of what's reasonable to implement as an automated yosys pass
<azonenberg> when your chip has >70 MB of on chip ram?
<azonenberg> good luck optimizing THAT :p
<azonenberg> and yes we could have probably hacked it to work in ddr
<Degi> lol
<azonenberg> but that would have been immense retooling of the design and its value for figuring out how well the actual asic hdl will work is limited
<Degi> And on chip RAM is usually short and wide
<azonenberg> we already had a higher level simulation of the whole design that ran nice and fast in C
<azonenberg> verification mostly focused on making that line up with behavior from the rtl sim
<azonenberg> i mean we could have also saved area in emulation by bitslicing in some way
<azonenberg> have one copy of the core and then run that logic N times to time-share as many cores as we had
<azonenberg> or something like that
<azonenberg> but again, value for verifiying the real RTL is questionable
<azonenberg> i'd imagine the fancy cadence/synopsys asic emulation platforms do this sort of things automatically
<Degi> Wow, lattice is down
<sorear> right, the verification value is quite marginal unless it can be automated
<monochroma> lattice's web services appear to run on a forgotten potato at the back of a shady datacenter :P
<azonenberg> it could have been useful for verifying higher level aspects of the design and architecture
<azonenberg> but that was done on the C model
<azonenberg> monochroma: is the potato moldy?
<monochroma> azonenberg: of course!
<azonenberg> and/or starting to sprout?
<Degi> Yes like lattice sometimes is very fast and sometimes has 100 kB/s download and aborts in the middle of it
<azonenberg> lol
<monochroma> iirc i actually looked into who was hosting lattice's web services and it seemed like a tiny little datacenter iirc
<Degi> Maybe xilinx is DDOSing them :P
<azonenberg> lool
<azonenberg> also the design is now up to ~720 components and i still have to do all of the I2C sensors and three power rails
<Degi> Lol it actually runs on a potato then
<monochroma> specifically /BECAUSE/ they seem to be down every other time i go to visit their site >_>
<azonenberg> monochroma: it runs on you-know-which datacenter back in the midwest ;)
<azonenberg> lol
<Degi> A raspberry pi under somebodies bed
<monochroma> holy crap their hosting provider's own website is slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
<monochroma> running on a 486 off a split T1 line where .5mbit of bandwidth is going to POTs lines :P
<azonenberg> lol
<Degi> Tbh if they're already desinging microchips, cant they tell their IT guy to set up a server in their office
<miek> maybe that's the problem, it's running on a few ice40s
<Degi> Or those MachXO2s
<sorear> something like http://www.magic-1.org/
<monochroma> XD
<Degi> Is that made on perfboards?!
<monochroma> wire wrapped
<Degi> http://www.homebrewcpu.com/Pictures/cage_1.jpg That looks like perfboard
<Degi> Well and here is the wire wraphttp://www.homebrewcpu.com/Pictures/mem_4.jpg
<Degi> Impressive
<Degi> So its a perfboard with wire wrap pins heh
<monochroma> yeah those used to be super common
<monochroma> looks like they are VME prototyping PCBs
<Degi> If you wanna go real cheap, you could have a section of trace being thin to act as a fuse
<Degi> "The guard ring turned out to be resonating at the seventh harmonic of the 50 MHz clock" lol
<sorear> i mean that's basically how OTP works
<Degi> We could make our own OTP memory PCBs
<azonenberg> lool
<azonenberg> reminds me of my idea of connecting a big dc supply to a spool of solder and getting a tank of argon or nitrogen
<azonenberg> and MiG soldering
<azonenberg> ESD? what's that
<monochroma> XD
<azonenberg> i actually tried this years ago in my apartment with a 30V A supply
<azonenberg> no shielding gas, just air and flux
<miek> get started on pre-compliance testing early!
<azonenberg> i actually got the solder to stick to the board, barely, once or twice
<azonenberg> but mostly just got little balls of solder floating everywhere
<Degi> Hmh where di you apply the current
<azonenberg> i was melting the tip of the solder but not getting the board hot enough to make a joint
<azonenberg> meanwhile the solder was so hot it burned off the flux almost instantly
<Degi> Between the board and the solder?
<azonenberg> Degi: ground the board
<azonenberg> energize the solder
<Degi> Ah yes
<Degi> Try using a graphite tip as soldering iron instead
<Degi> One pole to solder, one to graphite
<azonenberg> this wasnt measnt to be practical :p
<azonenberg> it was meant to see what would happen
<Degi> I once got 5 mm graphite rods orange hot by connecting them to a 63 A PSU, I think I set it at 50 A 10 V?
<Degi> Thinner rods would be better, when I could go to 48 V...
* monochroma got some graphite rods glowing white hot a few weeks ago >.>
<Degi> Sadly they dont get very hot in air before disappearing...
<monochroma> mine were in vacuum :3
<Degi> Like sure I could hook up a 0.5 mm rod to the power supply, but it'd probably be fully oxidized before it vaporizes
<Degi> Ooh I could try that
<Degi> Put some 10^-8 mBar vapor pressure oil into the rotary vane pump yesterday
* monochroma was bored and felt like playing with glasswork and made a few lamps that sorta worked
<Degi> Like you could use that as a high vacuum lubricant haha. Though I think diffusion pump oils have even lower vapor pressure at RT
<Degi> I made a neon lamp out of a plastic tube
<Degi> Sadly hollow cathodes and hot glue dont like eachother… Especially at 100 W
<monochroma> D:
<Degi> I added some sulfur, it glows white :D
<Degi> But not very bright, lots of heat is lost to PMMA and the hollow cathode
<Degi> The anode stays cold
<Degi> Well considering that the vacuum hose is a plastic tube with approx 1 cm inner dia and it gets squished flat, especially when in contact with oils (vac pump check valve broke or missing), but it works well.
<Degi> Its only single stage too haha
<azonenberg> ok so, re MAXWELL
<azonenberg> I couldnt find a pre-engineered boost converter PSU I liked for the backlight LCD
<azonenberg> So i'm tentatively using a MIC2605 to generate +21.5V
<azonenberg> forward voltage of the LCD backlight is 17.4 to 19.8V, typical 19.2
<azonenberg> Then i plan to use a TSCR420 on the low side as a constant current sink
<azonenberg> so the backlight will be always supplied with 21.5V on the high side then the low side regulator is basically an LDO
<azonenberg> (i might drop to +20.5 or +21, need to re-evaluate minimum drop across the regulator etc)
<Degi> Arent there LED regulator SMPSs
<azonenberg> Yes, but they're meant for much bigger LEDs
<Degi> Ah right
<azonenberg> i actually had trouble finding one that would work well with such low load
<Degi> Uhh you can apply up to 300 mA to the TSCR420 lol
<Degi> No way that isnt gonna catch on fire at 300 mA
<azonenberg> That's why they use an external resistor to carry some of the load
<Degi> I think the MOSFET carries almost all of the load
<Degi> How much mA does it need? 10?
<azonenberg> you parallel the internal transistor (variable element) and the external resistor
<azonenberg> The display backlight needs 40, the internal transistor normally pulls about 10
<Degi> The schematic on page 1 says otherwise heh
<Degi> 40 mA?
<azonenberg> oh interesting so it goes across the other resistor
<azonenberg> Yes
<azonenberg> So i'll need an Rext
<Degi> Thats gonna be a sufficiently bright display jaja
<Degi> *haha
<Degi> 0.76 W...
<azonenberg> It's PWM-able, and i intend to do that. With substantial duty cycle depth
<azonenberg> i also intend to have the display shut off when not being touched
<Degi> With the EN pin?
<azonenberg> As well as power gating the 21V5 rail
<Degi> It doesnt need a VCC, interesting
<azonenberg> which turns off the backlight
<azonenberg> i'll turn off the display itself too probably
<azonenberg> or maybe just the backlight and leave the lcd active, i'm notsure yet
<Degi> Yes the regulator needs min 1.4 V heh
<azonenberg> Anyway so that's basically the plan
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