petSD+ - Hardware

petSD+ Draft Schematic	PCB 3D model

The hardware is built around an Atmel ATmega 1284P AVR microcontroller (MCU) with 128KB of flash memory, 16 KB of SRAM and a 4 KB EEPROM, clocked at 18.432 MHz. To make assembly easier for electronic hobbyists, the PDIP package was chosen for the petSD+ design . The main components on the petSD+ PCB are :

Bus Drivers

To enable petSD+ to coexist with other devices on the IEEE-4888 bus, it is fitted with a pair of Texas Instruments SN75160/SN75161 IEEE-488 bus drivers, controlled by the MCU.

The SN75160 8-channel IEEE-488 (GPIB) transceiver is designed to support two-way communications for the 8 data bits of the parallel IEEE-488 bus using two control pins, TE (Talk Enable) and PE (Pull-up Enable). In petSD+, TE is controlled by the MCU and PE is tied to 0V.
With PE tied low, the driver outputs behave as passive pull-ups when TE is high and are placed in the high impedance state when TE is low.
When TE is low, the receiver bits are set to the values of the corresponding bus data bits.
The SN75161 8-channel IEEE-488 (GPIB) transceiver is designed to provide the bus management and data-transfer signals for a single controller IEEE-488 bus system. The direction of data is controlled by the Direction Control (DC) and Talk Enable (TE) pins. In petSD+, TE is controlled by the MCU and DC is pulled up to Vcc. This means that petSD+ will always be a device and never a bus master such as a CBM computer. In other words: you can use it only as a device attached to a computer but never "stand-alone" with other IEEE-488 devices.
In petSD+, the Service Request (SRQ) and Remote Enable (REN) bus management channels are not used.   With DC pulled high, the remaining bus management channels, Attention (ATTN), Interface Clear (IFC) and End or Identity (EOI) are set to the directions shown in the reduced function table opposite :   (Transmit means that petSD+ writes to the IEEE-488 bus) (Receive means that the IEEE-488 bus state is written to petSD+ )
With DC pulled high, the data transfer channels (used for handshaking), Data Valid (DAV), Not Data Accepted (NDAC) and Not Ready For Data (NRFD) are set to the directions shown in the reduced function table opposite :

Level Shifter

Since the petSD+ design uses both +3.3VDC (for the SD Card) and TTL voltage levels (for the other ICs), there needs to be voltage level shifting to convert signal between +5V and +3.3V for the SD card interface. The 74LVC245A Octal Bus Transceiver (IC4) is used to provide level conversion for the SD Card interface signals highlighted in the table below :

Real Time Clock

The Real Time Clock is implemented using an NXP PFC8583 clock and calendar chip, interfaced to the MCU using the I²C bus. A 32.768 kHz quartz crystal is connected to the RTC OSCI and OSCO pins. A trimmer capacitor between OSCI and VCC is used for tuning the oscillator.

The PFC8583 data sheet states that "average deviations of ±5 minutes per year are possible", this equates to around 1.5 seconds per day, or expressed another way, around 19 parts-per-million (ppm). The oscillator supplied specified for use in petSD+ has a tolerance of 20 ppm on its own, but is only one contributor to the overall tolerance, other variables include the capacitor tolerance and temperature.

There are a few ways of using the trimmer capacitor to adjust the clock rate if the variance of your device is greater than this, the easiest are :-

• Measuring the 1Hz signal available at the INT[errupt] output on pin 7

• Direct measurement of oscillator output (allowing for test probe capacitance).

Both of these are constrained by the accuracy of the test equipment being used.

For models with the Real Time Clock option, test point TP1 on the PCB can be used to measure the clock "tick" rate. This photo is of the display on my 'scope when measuring the frequency at TP1 for the first petSD+ that I built. As you can see, it is a nice, clean, square wave, with a frequency of 1.000 Hz, i.e., 1 cycle/second as it should be.
This photo is of the raw signal from the 32.768 kHz oscillator connected to the Real Time Clock chip oscillator input on pins 1 & 2, the measured frequency at this point was 32.72 Khz. This is quite a bit outside the stated tolerance of the oscillator (20ppm) but takes no account of other variables and is limited by the accuracy of the 'scope.

Power Supply and Voltage Regulator

The raw +5VDC power supply to the petSD+ PCB is fed to an IRFD9024 power MOSFET, used to provide reverse polarity protection for the PCB.

In addition to the +5VDC supply, petSD+ requires +3.3VDC for the SD Card as specified by the SD Card standard. A MCP1702-3302 voltage regulator is used to generate the +3.3VDC supply used by the SD Card slot and the 74LVC245A voltage level shifter.

SD Card Slot

The card slot used in petSD+ is an Attend 104H-TDA0-R, it is a surface mount component, but with care, can be hand soldered onto the PCB, after installation, it should have been tested as described in the Assembly instructions.

During testing and normal operation, you will probably find that SD card insertion and removal feels a little "rougher" than with other SD card slots that you use, whilst this is unusual, it appears to be the norm for this particular card slot. The issue is present on the petSD+ prototypes that Nils has built and the boards that I have assembled.

Nils has made this observation : "There's a little black plastic finger on the left side that gives this first resistance when inserting the card. Just out of curiosity, I broke that finger away at one slot and looked what happened: it turned out, this finger is used to hold the card and prevent them from just pulling it out once it is inserted. I never experienced this on any other SD slot I have anywhere, it really feels kind of broken, but that's just the way this "special" slot is."

In the absence of a more technical description, I have found that giving the card a little "wiggle" during insertion and removal seems to make the process slightly easier.

SD Card Slot Pin-Out

LCD Module

petSD+ was designed to allow an (optional) 20 character x 4 line LCD display to be mounted above the PCB. The LCD driver code in the NODISKEMU firmware is programmed to drive displays fitted with an Hitachi HD44780, or compatible, LCD controller in 4-bit mode.

A wide variety of compatible displays are available, with some slight variations between them; apart from obvious differences such as colour, the displays have a pretty much standard design. The most important difference relevant to petSD+ is the voltage used for the LCD backlight. In some displays, a +5V backlight supply is fine, in others, +5V will damage the display. Resistor R2 in the petSD+ design is provided to drop the +5V supply used for the backlight down to the appropriate voltage for a particular display. To allow the LCD to be replaced with a different model, the preferred location for mounting R2 is on the LCD itself.

In order to select the appropriate resistance and power rating values for R2, we need to know the backlight supply voltage and operating current for the LCD module being used. If, for example, the supply voltage is 5V, the LCD backlight voltage is specified as 4.2V and the operating current is 260mA

The contrast for the display is controlled by pot VR1, but the fixed value of R2 sets the LCD to a fixed brightness level. To some extent, the "ideal" brightness, and hence the choice of resistor R2, is subjective. The fixed value supplied in my kits or fitted to pre-assembled units, should give an acceptable level of brightness for the majority of users, however, being located on the top of the LCD, the resistor can easily be replaced with a different value by the end user - subject to the electrical specification of the display being respected.

User Controls

This simplified extract from the petSD+ schematic shows how the User Controls are connected to the MCU.

All versions of petSD+ have a RESET push-button (S1) located at the rear of the unit, close to the power connector. (Although not shown here, the RESET button is also connected to the ISP connector header pins.)

Internal models also have two bit-switches (SW2-1 & SW2-2) installed, located at the front of the unit, close to the SD Card slot. These are used to set the Device Address, the default position, with both switches OFF, sets Device Address 8.

External models are intended to be fitted with the LCD screen and three additional push-buttons, Previous (S2), Next (S3) and Select (S4), located at the front left hand side of the unit, along with a potentiometer to adjust the display contrast. Operation of these controls is described on the User Guide page.

The ATMega1284P has 4 x 8 channel I/O ports, giving a total of 32 programmable I/O lines available to implement all of the features in petSD+. A quick count of the I/O requirements for petSD+ might suggest that the MCU did not have enough I/O channels to do the job :

However, Nils has used a neat trick to read the status of the option buttons, this is made possible by the flexibility of the MCU's I/O ports. As well as being configurable as bidirectional digital I//O ports, each of the 4 ports also has an alternate capability :

Nils has used one of the ADC channels on Port A to read the status of the control switches as analogue values. A 10-bit ADC has a count range from 0-1023, using the resistor network shown in the schematic, the calculated voltages and corresponding ADC values for all of the key combinations are shown in the table :

 ¹  The schematic also shows the optional bit switches used to set the device address for internal versions of petSD+, these switches are wired in parallel with the Next and Select push-button pads on the PCB.

Later versions of the petSD+ firmware include diagnostics to check the operation of the push-buttons as described on the User Guide page.

Connectors

petSD+ does not connect directly to a PET computer, the "standard" build of petSD+ is fitted with an IEEE-488 connector like those found on PET disk drives. Most PET and CBM computers use a cheap PCB edge connector to provide IEEE-488 connectivity, to connect petSD+ or a Commodore disk drive, you need to use a Commodore IEEE-488 disk drive cable (hard to find) or a PET to IEEE-488 adapter along with a standard IEEE-488 cable.

to be continued . . . . .

Board Revisions