After some fun with the new IQ Radio I figured it was time to get back to those decoded Series 1 Radio images I had been sitting on for way too long. With some more digging and experimenting we (the lovely people on CarModder) figured out yet another way to get custom boot images on the radio, which for testing purposes worked out nicely.
So what does that let us do: Totally Custom Radio Boot Logos! That's right - you can have a completely custom animation play when your radio powers up / down. It doesn't even need to be a simple fade, but can be something fancier.
Now to clarify: this is NOT what other places are selling when they let you pick supposedly 'custom' logos. These radios are shared amongst different Holden Cars, Vauxhall, and of course Chevy and Pontiac. So stock from the factory these radios come with 6 logos already pre-programmed as shown here. They let you pick one of those 6 images- Sorry, but changing 1 factory setting for another factory setting is hardly what I call 'custom' (or let alone 'hacking the radio'...*insert big eye roll here*). I can do the same change (including the blue text etc) with my basic ELM329 cable...
No, what we can now do is put ANY suitable image/animation on there! If you wanted Spongebob popping up on your screen, you can. If you wanted a picture of your family, you can. If you want a screen that shows some photos of your car, you can. Some Custom pontiac / G8 Logo? you can. Unicorns, flying cats shooting laserbeams? Doable etc etc. If you can think it - it's possible! (keeping in mind animation length/size constraints).
Here are some basic samples:
In-car reprogramming has also been proven possible, so this will allow us to do all this over the OBD port instead of having to take out the radio.
Good stuff!
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
Oh what fun, it is to play, with an IQ Radio... (Radio Logos Part II)
Christmas Songs in March? Well it's festive, and I'm in a festive mood after hitting a major milestone! Let me explain:
So as you may remember I had decoded the Series 1 Radio images , as used on the Pontiac G8, a (long) while ago back in 2011 and even got to the point of injecting new images. However at that point I was doing a favor for someone else and they never took it anywhere. That frustrated me quite a bit a to be honest, so when I recently had the opportunity to work with some guys over on CarModder to pursue a similar project but with the IQ Radio System (found in the Holden VE E2/E3 cars) I really wanted to make sure that it was something that would lead to a feasible end product. After a decent amount of testing it appeared that YES this could be done!
These IQ Radios are definitely different 'enough' from the original S1 radios we have here in the States. Higher resolution screen, more colors, better UI (Red or Blue depending on platform), Wallpaper, Touch screen, larger Boot Animation, different processor architecture etc. etc, So any of my previous work was basically useless and I had to start from scratch. (on a side note - I'm planning on doing a conversion to an IQ Unit in the near future...)
First off was finding what kind of graphics were in there.. It really didn't take me that long to find a bunch of interesting image data, but some of the encoding proved to a bit a stubborn. After quite a few baby steps though I was able to see all the graphics they had stored in there. Here are just a few of them.
So... now that I was able to read this stuff out, how about sticking something new back in? Well that proved to be a little bit harder since there were a few limitations on the data encoding that weren't obvious from the extraction. Attempt after attempt were made to write the data back, yet somehow the image would always come out looking weird or messed up. Finally this last weekend after attempt.. oh.. probably 30-something, I found the proverbial 'last piece of the puzzle' and we were able to successfully upload a custom wallpaper! And that is WITHOUT taking the radio out of the car :)
A Million Thanks go out to the guys @ CarModder, especially Jezzab, for helping me test this stuff. This is naturally only 'Step A' in our diabolical ehmm i mean great plan. Hopefully more interesting things will soon follow .. Maybe now I'll finally be able to get back to implementing custom boot logo's on those S1 radios for the G8 folks... Just have to find the time!
So as you may remember I had decoded the Series 1 Radio images , as used on the Pontiac G8, a (long) while ago back in 2011 and even got to the point of injecting new images. However at that point I was doing a favor for someone else and they never took it anywhere. That frustrated me quite a bit a to be honest, so when I recently had the opportunity to work with some guys over on CarModder to pursue a similar project but with the IQ Radio System (found in the Holden VE E2/E3 cars) I really wanted to make sure that it was something that would lead to a feasible end product. After a decent amount of testing it appeared that YES this could be done!
These IQ Radios are definitely different 'enough' from the original S1 radios we have here in the States. Higher resolution screen, more colors, better UI (Red or Blue depending on platform), Wallpaper, Touch screen, larger Boot Animation, different processor architecture etc. etc, So any of my previous work was basically useless and I had to start from scratch. (on a side note - I'm planning on doing a conversion to an IQ Unit in the near future...)
First off was finding what kind of graphics were in there.. It really didn't take me that long to find a bunch of interesting image data, but some of the encoding proved to a bit a stubborn. After quite a few baby steps though I was able to see all the graphics they had stored in there. Here are just a few of them.
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| Blue Wallpaper - Red one used in GTS |
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| Partial graphic of Backup Sensor Screen |
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| Oh look it's a Wagon! |
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| Partial Frame of Chevy Boot Animation |
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| Frame of Holden Boot Animation |
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| Tadaaaa! |
A Million Thanks go out to the guys @ CarModder, especially Jezzab, for helping me test this stuff. This is naturally only 'Step A' in our diabolical ehmm i mean great plan. Hopefully more interesting things will soon follow .. Maybe now I'll finally be able to get back to implementing custom boot logo's on those S1 radios for the G8 folks... Just have to find the time!
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Building the ELM329 CAN Device - Part IV
As mentioned previously my very first build failed because of a solder bridge under the USB Chip. I hadn't spotted that right away and I'm pretty sure applying power to it etc, totally fried it.
In looking for a way to fix it I found a standalone USB->CP2102 board on Ebay. It was designed to plug straight into the usb port, and then had headers on the end breaking out the TX/RX lines.
Obviously I did not really need the USB plug etc, so I decided to chop it out and a) solder a longer USB Cable to it, in place of the USB plug, and b) solder some wires from the header to the proper connection points on my original PCB. Luckily most of those had exposed VIAs so it would be an easy transplant.
First though I had to get the existing CP2102 off.. since it has a heat-sink like ground connection underneath that was soldered as well it was a real pain to get off. In the end I actually didn't care anymore about trying to get it off with heat and just stuck a sharpe razor blade underneath and practically sawed (and broke) it off.
After that the rest was simple. I just soldered some wires from the vias to the new USB Board and soldered on the original USB Cable and that was that. I did wrap it in some electrical tape so it wouldn't be touching anything when squeezing it into the enclosure!
Success! Or was it?...
I had meanwhile made the other boards and sent one out to a friend to help test. While the HI-Speed Can side worked, the SWCan side kept giving issues. When rewiring the Hi-Speed can side to act like a SW Can connector (tying the Can-Lo pin on the MCP2551 to GND) it seemed to work so there was STILL something wrong with the SWCAN side of things. In my previous testing I thought it was working, but I had forgotten that after you issue a Reset command to the ELM it reset the switch to it's default state, so it was actually showing more Hi-Speed Data. *DOH*
After staring at the board , schematic, datasheet etc a long time I finally found a stupid mistake I made relating to the SW-Can sub-section. A certain supply line was tied to the wrong point and instead of now receiving 12-16V it was getting a measly 1-3V. I instantly fixed the schematic and ordered some new PCBs, however looking at the existing PCBs I was fortunate in my design that all it would take to fix this issue was cutting 1 track and soldering 1 extra jumper wire. After converting one of the boxes this proved to be the fix it needed and everything worked as expected! (Except for some LEDs, but that was simply because I put them in backwards... stupid inconsistent specs between different colors!)
The fixed also worked on my 'Revision 1.0' boards, so I decided to finish up one of those as well.
While the Red is a nice Color, the Purple PCBs are really cool. Now that I have a solid design I should probably order a large batch and start cranking out some of these for sale.. I can stick with the Purple (5x the cost for just the bare PCB), or do Green (yuck), Red (OK), Blue (OK) but also stuff like White, Yellow or Black!.. Decisions, Decisions...
If you were to buy one of these, What's your preference? Would you even Care?
p.s. I know this may not seem like these posts are 'car-related' anymore, but I guarantee you nothing is further from the truth. With these boards now complete the 'real' fun now starts as I'm starting to write software not to only see what's going on on the network, but also explore reprogramming of certain devices on the GMLAN network :) Long road ahead though before we get there, but at least the start is there!
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| One (hard to see) solder bridge |
First though I had to get the existing CP2102 off.. since it has a heat-sink like ground connection underneath that was soldered as well it was a real pain to get off. In the end I actually didn't care anymore about trying to get it off with heat and just stuck a sharpe razor blade underneath and practically sawed (and broke) it off.
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| The CP2102 removed.. Inset shows the 'remains' :) |
Success! Or was it?...
I had meanwhile made the other boards and sent one out to a friend to help test. While the HI-Speed Can side worked, the SWCan side kept giving issues. When rewiring the Hi-Speed can side to act like a SW Can connector (tying the Can-Lo pin on the MCP2551 to GND) it seemed to work so there was STILL something wrong with the SWCAN side of things. In my previous testing I thought it was working, but I had forgotten that after you issue a Reset command to the ELM it reset the switch to it's default state, so it was actually showing more Hi-Speed Data. *DOH*
After staring at the board , schematic, datasheet etc a long time I finally found a stupid mistake I made relating to the SW-Can sub-section. A certain supply line was tied to the wrong point and instead of now receiving 12-16V it was getting a measly 1-3V. I instantly fixed the schematic and ordered some new PCBs, however looking at the existing PCBs I was fortunate in my design that all it would take to fix this issue was cutting 1 track and soldering 1 extra jumper wire. After converting one of the boxes this proved to be the fix it needed and everything worked as expected! (Except for some LEDs, but that was simply because I put them in backwards... stupid inconsistent specs between different colors!)
The fixed also worked on my 'Revision 1.0' boards, so I decided to finish up one of those as well.
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| You can see the Cut Track Between VBAT and CANH. Just need to add the jumper wire now |
If you were to buy one of these, What's your preference? Would you even Care?
p.s. I know this may not seem like these posts are 'car-related' anymore, but I guarantee you nothing is further from the truth. With these boards now complete the 'real' fun now starts as I'm starting to write software not to only see what's going on on the network, but also explore reprogramming of certain devices on the GMLAN network :) Long road ahead though before we get there, but at least the start is there!
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Building the ELM329 CAN Device - Part III
So After the first build had failed I determined that the problem was with the CP2102 USB Chip. If I looked closely I could see a solder bridge under one side. It'll take some time to fix it (if it's even possible at this time), so instead I decided to kick off another batch of boards as practice.
As I mentioned earlier I have 3 different revisions of the boards, the red 1.1, a purple 1.2 and purple 1.3. I figured I would try to make one of each for a comparison - between them the layout has a few slight changes and a few component differences. After going through the usual process of the stencil, paste, placement etc I baked all 3 PCBs at the same time.
I'm not sure if you can tell, but the center IC on the Red board (almost looks orange in the picture!) actually had couple of solder bridges, so I set that one aside so I could use some solderwick on it later. Also, while the backs are 99% the same between the different version, I noticed I had moved quite a few things around on the 1.2/1.3 revision, so the top stencil simply would not work with the 1.1 board. So it looks like they are either a) Coasters b) in need of a separate stencil, or c) I'll be doing a partial stencil job and do the rest by hand in the near future.
When I went to check the other 2 board, they both seemed fine. I did notice in testing though that for the USB to be seen on my computer I had to apply 12V to the circuit as well (used an old router power supply). That surely is a bit of an inconvenience for further testing, however when doing that my computer was successfully able to open the port and talk to the ELM329 chips.
Next we getting the PCB all connected and built into the housing. I re-used the housing from an existing ELM327 instead of a new one, since that already had some wires connected to the OBD connecter and had a 8 pin plug. After taking off any of the wires we didn't need, soldering a new one to pin 1 for SWCan, and moving the wires to their right spot in the 8pin connector it was ready to go in. I had meanwhile also made a usb cable to connect to the 4 pin connector on the PCB.
The final result looked pretty sharp!
The device defaults to Hi-Speed CAN, and thereby lets you use whatever ELM327 Software you may have that supports CAN commands. A Quick test showed this to work, and when switching over to the SWCan chip, by issuing an 'AT C1' command, we were able to also see data using a terminal app, so it looked like a success!
Next, I will try to build a few more boards , but also perhaps write some software for it to easily interface with it since right now it's really more an 'advanced users only' tool.
As I mentioned earlier I have 3 different revisions of the boards, the red 1.1, a purple 1.2 and purple 1.3. I figured I would try to make one of each for a comparison - between them the layout has a few slight changes and a few component differences. After going through the usual process of the stencil, paste, placement etc I baked all 3 PCBs at the same time.
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| After a nice baking session |
I'm not sure if you can tell, but the center IC on the Red board (almost looks orange in the picture!) actually had couple of solder bridges, so I set that one aside so I could use some solderwick on it later. Also, while the backs are 99% the same between the different version, I noticed I had moved quite a few things around on the 1.2/1.3 revision, so the top stencil simply would not work with the 1.1 board. So it looks like they are either a) Coasters b) in need of a separate stencil, or c) I'll be doing a partial stencil job and do the rest by hand in the near future.
When I went to check the other 2 board, they both seemed fine. I did notice in testing though that for the USB to be seen on my computer I had to apply 12V to the circuit as well (used an old router power supply). That surely is a bit of an inconvenience for further testing, however when doing that my computer was successfully able to open the port and talk to the ELM329 chips.
Next we getting the PCB all connected and built into the housing. I re-used the housing from an existing ELM327 instead of a new one, since that already had some wires connected to the OBD connecter and had a 8 pin plug. After taking off any of the wires we didn't need, soldering a new one to pin 1 for SWCan, and moving the wires to their right spot in the 8pin connector it was ready to go in. I had meanwhile also made a usb cable to connect to the 4 pin connector on the PCB.
The final result looked pretty sharp!
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| Everything all connected |
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| Yes the RED wire is Ground.... Crazy Chinese people... I didn't bother to change it |
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| Ready to use! Now if only I had a snazzy sticker... |
Next, I will try to build a few more boards , but also perhaps write some software for it to easily interface with it since right now it's really more an 'advanced users only' tool.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Building the ELM329 CAN Device - Part II
So I finally had (made) some time to finish the front side of the first ELM329 pcb. The process is basically identical to the back-side where I used a stencil to apply solder paste, then place the components (obviously making sure the polarity is correct for diodes/LEDs etc), and toss it into the toaster oven. This side was a little more work actually since it had a few more components, and it had some 'odd' components such as the USB Chip that has all the pins connected underneath etc.
When it was time to put the pcb in the toaster oven I took two pieces of aluminum foil and roll them up to make little 'offsets' to place the board on. This way the rack wouldn't be touching the components that were on the bottom side and possibly disturb them.
The problem components were the 2 aluminum caps which you can see in the above picture being closest to the front. They were not very stable and one even fell off in the oven! While they may be a LOT cheaper than the Tantalum caps, I'm tempted to switch back to those since they don't seem to be that wobbly. You can even tell in the picture that they are leaning.
The baking seemed to take longer than last time, but keeping a keen eye on it, eventually the solder paste started to reflow. The voltage regulator took the longest, probably because it has a large heatsink area. At first glance everything seemed OK, But i'll have to take closer look with a magnifier to make sure everything flowed the way it was supposed to. Of course as soon as I turned off the oven and opened the door a little whisp of smoke came from 'somewhere' so who knows what I fried...
After letting it cool down I manually soldered the header pins in place (1x for OBD and 1x for USB). Now I just need to finish up the USB cable so I can test it out and see if I screwed up anything beyond repair. Also the bottom-side components stayed neatly in place so with some tweaking this method of making PCBs is definitely viable.
Lastly here are a few more pictures of the unique soldermask color.. depending on the light it looks either purple or blue-ish (mostly purple though)
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| Paste Applied and Components Placed |
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| Sitting on it's 'fancy' mount |
The baking seemed to take longer than last time, but keeping a keen eye on it, eventually the solder paste started to reflow. The voltage regulator took the longest, probably because it has a large heatsink area. At first glance everything seemed OK, But i'll have to take closer look with a magnifier to make sure everything flowed the way it was supposed to. Of course as soon as I turned off the oven and opened the door a little whisp of smoke came from 'somewhere' so who knows what I fried...
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| Fresh out of the oven - Hmmm tasty! |
Lastly here are a few more pictures of the unique soldermask color.. depending on the light it looks either purple or blue-ish (mostly purple though)
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| It's Purple! |
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| No it's Blue! |
Friday, June 15, 2012
Building the ELM329 CAN Device - Part I
After a lot of digging I had finally found a supplier for the device enclosure that offered the exact enclosure I had based my design on. They were (of course) in China, but I decided to just go for it, since after doing some research they did appear like an official business. I had placed my order on a Thursday evening, and I had not heard anything by that Monday so I contacted them to see what the status was, fully expecting it would take another week or so before they'd even ship the product etc. To my surprise they did not only provide me with a valid tracking number right away, when checking the number on UPS it showed the package was already in California and making it's way up here so I would receive them the next day! Consider me impressed!
Meanwhile I also ordered a handful of the ELM329 chips from ElmElectronics.com. At $21 a piece they're not cheap, but hopefully I can recoup some of the cost by selling a few devices after I've confirmed this design actually works OK etc. (For those of you leaving comments interested in the Eagle files etc - I haven't decided yet if I will - or when, but I may simply sell some ready-built devices on GRRRR8.net or Ebay)
Now it was time to start building the PCBs - I basically watched a bunch of tutorials and figured - how hard can it be? so I dove straight in. First I started with the bottom side of the board. Since I have 2 layer PCB with both the Top AND Bottom populated, I'll have to bake the board twice - once per each side. Based on this I figured I'd do the side with the smallest / lightest components first so that once it comes time for the 2nd bake I wouldn't have the large chip etc hanging upside down and possible re-flowing to the point of falling off. Supposedly the surface tension will hold on any of these components just fine, so that will be an interesting 2nd session.
Usually you want to put your board somewhere solid (desk/workbench/counter) and in a frame so that it doesn't move. Because I didn't bother making a custom frame I used the common trick of making two L-Shapes out of extra PCBs and taping those down to the work area. They are the same thickness so there are no weird bumps when it's time to apply the paste. Next I put a piece of tape on my bottom-side OharaRP Kaplan Stencil and secured it so that it lined up just right, and I could still lift it up on one side.
I had purchased a small jar of Lead-Free solder paste which was thicker than I thought it would be. It roughly had the consistency of grout you use with ceramic tiles etc while I was expecting it to be runnier for some reason (perhaps I had seen too many videos of people using the syringe paste..). Now normally you need some kind of tool to spread the paste on - Some places sell a $50+ specialty solder paste applicator, while others use a $5 homedepot spackle/putty knife. I went super cheap and used an old plastic card much like a credit card. This actually worked beautifully: I scooped some paste out of the jar and basically smeared it over the area. Then I ran the edge of my 'tool' at a shallow horizontal angle to work the paste into the openings in the stencil. A second run over it, but this time more vertical cleaned 98% of the paste right off the stencil and left the pads nicely coated and I simply scraped the excess back into the little jar.
After this it was time to place the components. For my SWCan ELM327 I had used 1206 components which took some getting used to. This time we were down to 0805 size components - If I had to hand-solder this stuff I would probably stick with 1206, but since all I really had to do was place them on the board for the reflow they weren't that bad to work with at all. I did notice that I probably should've made my silkscreen font a LITTLE bit bigger because at times it was hard to tell what the component was supposed to be.. (Is it R8 or R9??). After some work with the tweezers I ended up with this:
Next step was to actually bake the board. I had gotten a small 1000W toaster oven (cheapest I could find) that went up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. I didn't bother with getting a special controller for reflow profiles etc since these things take a while to heat up anyway. So, Instead I went at it barebones like many others have done. Basically pop in the board, turn on the oven to 400-450 and simply wait for solder to reflow, wait a few seconds, then turn it off and pop open the door to let it cool off.
The end result looked really good - I would never guess this was done by some amateur in their kitchen vs a professional PCB house. Now the wait is on for the mail to deliver the ELM329 chips so I can try the other side and hopefully not screw up :)
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| Device Enclosure with USB Cable |
Now it was time to start building the PCBs - I basically watched a bunch of tutorials and figured - how hard can it be? so I dove straight in. First I started with the bottom side of the board. Since I have 2 layer PCB with both the Top AND Bottom populated, I'll have to bake the board twice - once per each side. Based on this I figured I'd do the side with the smallest / lightest components first so that once it comes time for the 2nd bake I wouldn't have the large chip etc hanging upside down and possible re-flowing to the point of falling off. Supposedly the surface tension will hold on any of these components just fine, so that will be an interesting 2nd session.
Usually you want to put your board somewhere solid (desk/workbench/counter) and in a frame so that it doesn't move. Because I didn't bother making a custom frame I used the common trick of making two L-Shapes out of extra PCBs and taping those down to the work area. They are the same thickness so there are no weird bumps when it's time to apply the paste. Next I put a piece of tape on my bottom-side OharaRP Kaplan Stencil and secured it so that it lined up just right, and I could still lift it up on one side.
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| Frame out of Extra PCBs & Stencilon top of PCB - Ready for the paste! |
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| Paste applied through the stencil |
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| Stencil lifted away showing the gray solder paste on the pads |
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| All components placed and ready for baking |
Next step was to actually bake the board. I had gotten a small 1000W toaster oven (cheapest I could find) that went up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. I didn't bother with getting a special controller for reflow profiles etc since these things take a while to heat up anyway. So, Instead I went at it barebones like many others have done. Basically pop in the board, turn on the oven to 400-450 and simply wait for solder to reflow, wait a few seconds, then turn it off and pop open the door to let it cool off.
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| Baking away |
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| Cookies are done! |
Monday, June 4, 2012
ELM329 PCBS have arrived
Not really of interest to most people, but I'm excited about it so I figured I'd post about it. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had been goofing off in Eagle and sketched up a PCB for the ELM329 chip and the end result looking somewhat like this:
It would be a direct replacement PCB for the Generic ELM327 Clone boxes you find on ebay as shown in another previous post.
I had sent out for a batch of 10 PCBs and chose a Red Soldermask instead of the Blue depicted. Then, as I was waiting for these and being the eternal tinkerer, I kept playing with the schematic & layout and made another revision. It was a small change, but I wanted to get that board made too, so I send out to have 3 made through DorkBotPCB, which usually gives you a snazzy Dark-Purple with gold pads PCB. After I got that order in, I found that the Tantalum caps I was using (and were a few bucks EACH) could easily be replaced with an aluminum can cap that only costs 53 cents.. so Revision 1.3 followed soon after - and once again I ordered 3 boards of that revision. Of course incredible timing follows that I would receive all boards all at the same time!
As you can see I have the 10 red revision 1.0 boards in the back,
then 3 revision 1.2 boards (yes I had an intermediate revision 1.1 I never had made), and in front the 3 latest revision 1.3 boards
I also ordered a Kapton SMD Stencil from OharaRP so I can try to bake these boards in a toaster oven instead of trying to hand solder all this tiny stuff.
The Silkscreen layer on all them is not the best since I did not really worry about Vias etc breaking up text (which it does XD ), since I would be doing the assembly most likely, but perhaps if I get to a revision 1.4 I'll tweak that a little bit too.
What's interesting is that this is the second clone I have of the generic ELM327s and the board is actually a bit different component wise than the first ( that one still has the SWCan mod in it).
Also if you have a keen eye you will spot something off.. The connecter for the USB on my board is actually smaller! Guess I'll have to redo the USB-Cables as well.. Apparently I used a standard 1.5mm pitch 4 pin connector, while the original board had a .1"/2.54mm pitch connector. Always something that goes wrong ;) At least it fits in the enclosure just right!
Of course I have been looking at the new STN1170 chip which is looking pretty nice as well ( and cheaper than the ELM329) so perhaps a new batch will be a brand new design based on that chip instead. Meanwhile I have the actual board parts such as resistors, capacitors etc etc arriving tomorrow, so then I just need to get my hands on a toaster oven, and some time , which is usually the problem....
I had sent out for a batch of 10 PCBs and chose a Red Soldermask instead of the Blue depicted. Then, as I was waiting for these and being the eternal tinkerer, I kept playing with the schematic & layout and made another revision. It was a small change, but I wanted to get that board made too, so I send out to have 3 made through DorkBotPCB, which usually gives you a snazzy Dark-Purple with gold pads PCB. After I got that order in, I found that the Tantalum caps I was using (and were a few bucks EACH) could easily be replaced with an aluminum can cap that only costs 53 cents.. so Revision 1.3 followed soon after - and once again I ordered 3 boards of that revision. Of course incredible timing follows that I would receive all boards all at the same time!
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| All boards lined up - That's some groovy purple! |
then 3 revision 1.2 boards (yes I had an intermediate revision 1.1 I never had made), and in front the 3 latest revision 1.3 boards
I also ordered a Kapton SMD Stencil from OharaRP so I can try to bake these boards in a toaster oven instead of trying to hand solder all this tiny stuff.
The Silkscreen layer on all them is not the best since I did not really worry about Vias etc breaking up text (which it does XD ), since I would be doing the assembly most likely, but perhaps if I get to a revision 1.4 I'll tweak that a little bit too.
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| Original ELM327 Clone with the new PCB next to it |
Also if you have a keen eye you will spot something off.. The connecter for the USB on my board is actually smaller! Guess I'll have to redo the USB-Cables as well.. Apparently I used a standard 1.5mm pitch 4 pin connector, while the original board had a .1"/2.54mm pitch connector. Always something that goes wrong ;) At least it fits in the enclosure just right!
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| Fits just right! |
Of course I have been looking at the new STN1170 chip which is looking pretty nice as well ( and cheaper than the ELM329) so perhaps a new batch will be a brand new design based on that chip instead. Meanwhile I have the actual board parts such as resistors, capacitors etc etc arriving tomorrow, so then I just need to get my hands on a toaster oven, and some time , which is usually the problem....
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