First timer's Problem

[Thud]

Hi Everybody,

Firstly as a newcomer let my say thankyou to Synthex, Dmitri and anyone else who deserves credit for a wonderful project and a fine pcb with the kit. An outstanding piece of work.

I took delivery of mine the other day and by nightfall had assembled the kit, having already done a lot of preparation work, ie the case, beforehand. The kit went together beautifully largely thanks to the quality of the pcb. Now comes the tricky bit....

On powering up via usb, the lcd backlight comes on. That's all. Apart of course from the PC going 'pa-ding' as the usb device is recognised. I was hoping to see the copyright screen.

If I press the left button now, that is after powering up and having the lcd light up, I am greeted with the message, ' Fw Updater 16MHz | DOWN-ok.UP-clock '.

Incidentally, holding the left button during power-up has the same effect.

I can select different clock frequncies via the up button, so I select 20MHz as I was supplied with the Altmega 644 20PU, and then either the down or the right buttons produce the lcd output ' Fw Updater 20MHz | Send SysEx now '.

At this point the Midi LED lights and stays on until the unit appears to timeout and revert to a blank blue screen.

So, my first question is; Why, if the firmware is already on the chip that Synthex supplied, do I have to update it at all.

Next one;

Why didn't I get the copyright screen coming up on power-up.


I'd be grateful for any help at all.

Thud

[dmitri]

Evidently your Atmega came with only the bootloader programmed.
Read trhough the first post at http://www.megadrum.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=622 and follow the procedure to load the correct MegaDrum firmware.

[Thud]

Thanks for the quick response, Dmitri.

I've tried what you suggested but with no positive results. Do you have any further suggestions?

Cheers
Thud

[dmitri]

Thanks for the quick response, Dmitri.

I've tried what you suggested but with no positive results. Do you have any further suggestions?

No, just this one. Keep trying until you get a positive result.

[dmitri]

Thud, please correct your e-mail address in your settings. I keep getting these error notifications:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at outbound-mail-347.bluehost.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<jimsmifff_123@ntlworld.com>:
81.103.221.10 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550 Invalid recipient: <jimsmifff_123@ntlworld.com>
Giving up on 81.103.221.10.

[Thud]

Sorry Dmitri,

I've corrected my details so you shouldn't have any more problems. Please try again.

Still no joy with midi-ox. For example, I dont receive the response ' ERASED ' on MD after sending the sysex file.

Cheers
Thud

[dmitri]

Still no joy with midi-ox. For example, I dont receive the response ' ERASED ' on MD after sending the sysex file.

Good! You began giving hints of details Read http://www.megadrum.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=352

[Thud]

My apologies again, Dmitri.

I'll try to be more forthcoming with details.

Firstly, my MD consists of the Altmega 644 20PU chip installed with the 20 MHz crystal, white on blue LCD and as yet has no midi or input sockets connected.

Buttons are wired up properly and connected to main board

All components are mounted correctly on a v2.8 All In One PCB by Synthex and all solder joints appear to be fine.

As previously mentioned, on power-up via USB, the LCD backlight comes on and windows recognises a USB Audio device.

Pressing the left button at this point brings up the Fw Updater screen on the LCD so I press the up button once to set 20 MHz matching the crystal on the MD board. Now pressing the down button or the right button takes me to the Sens Sysex now screen and lights the Midi LED, both of which time out after about 10 seconds extinguishing the LED and the LCD returns to it's backlit but blank condition.

Powering up the unit, then starting Midi-ox whose output buffer is set at 6000 and opened USB Audio as it's input and output, I navigate MD to Send Sysex now and try to send the erase_firmware.sys file. MD does not report ERASE as suggested. I've also tried sending the file megadrum644_20_32.sys. (Megadrum_20090516) MD still does not appear to react and if I try sending the same file again, Midi-ox reports that it is still sending a file. So I shut everything down, make a cup of coffee, recheck all MD's connections and try again.

I hope this is of more help to you should you decide to assist me further. Please ask if I've missed something obvious and thank you again for your patience.

Thud

[dmitri]

Pressing the left button at this point brings up the Fw Updater screen on the LCD so I press the up button once to set 20 MHz matching the crystal on the MD board. Now pressing the down button or the right button takes me to the Sens Sysex now screen and lights the Midi LED, both of which time out after about 10 seconds extinguishing the LED and the LCD returns to it's backlit but blank condition.

It MUST not time out. Before doing anything else you must find out why it resets itself after a few seconds. Once in the bootloader it only resets itself after finishing the whole update procedure or if you reset/power cycle it yourself. These are the possible causes:
1. You don't start the procedure properly, i.e. by powering up while holding the key LEFT pressed.
2. The bootloader is not programmed correctly.
3. There is hardware problem like shorts/breaks, loose connections, ICs not sitting properly and so on.

[gastric]

It sounds like your MD isn't receiving the signal, or is and isn't processing it properly.

I would start with trying to determine if it's receiving signal. Though that's difficult without any working firmware already flashed. Double-check your MIDI-OX settings. Make sure you have the correct USB Audio Device selected in the IO. Ideally you'd select JUST the output to negate any potential routing issues (that I've had). Since you have no firmware you cannot test that MD is triggering MIDI output correctly by opening an input monitor in MIDI-OX which would be helpful.

You could also build a ISP cable for the ATmega and program it via PonyProg.