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Uzebox n00b having problems

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 6:03 pm
by darktone
I got a fuzebox kit from Adafruit which I assembled and initially had working with no problems. I was able to load games from the SD card and everything was fine. At one point, however, I restarted the uzebox using the reset button at which point it seems to have died :( Now when it starts up I get the "ding" noise, but nothing on the screen and the power LED goes dull. When I start it with a button held down on the controller, the game loader comes up but it says "SD INIT FAIL: NO CARD?", even though the SD card is present. I can still read the SD card in Windows and all the files are there, and I have checked that there is 3.3v going to the SDcard reader on the Uzebox.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Re: Uzebox n00b having problems

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 10:50 pm
by uze6666
An old Fuzebox or Uzebox ? Is the PCB red or green? Well if it originally worked, it's hard to say. a couple things to check in order...
  • reformat your SD card, the bootloader does not support fragmentation.
  • Check with another regular Sd card
  • Check solders and traces leading to the card
  • Use an AVR programmer to verify the mega644 chip and reflash the bootloader.

Re: Uzebox n00b having problems

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 11:03 pm
by darktone
Hi.

It's a red board and it says Uzebox on it. I've tried your first three suggestions with no success :( I've ordered an ISP cable to try reflashing - will that work?

Thanks for your help so far :)

Re: Uzebox n00b having problems

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:43 am
by D3thAdd3r
It wont display ANY games, but the bootloader shows up on screen just fine? Seems crazy and I have no idea but it might not be a bad idea to pick up an extra '644 chip if you are already ordering parts?

Re: Uzebox n00b having problems

Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 7:04 pm
by darktone
In the interest of possibly helping someone else who might have had the same problem, I have found the solution. I tried to reflash the 644 using an ISP programmer, but AVRDude was unable to connect to the chip. I thought the chip might be dead, and as per D3thAdd3r's suggestion I tried a new chip. Same problem. Then I decided to look at the connections between the ISP header and the chip to make sure they were ok, at which point I realized that the SCK pin was not properly connected to pin8 of the 644.

It turns out this was what was causing the original problem, as the SD card couldn't communicate over the SPI and so it failed to initialise.

I tracked it down to a dry solder joint to R27 in the end. Working fine now.

Re: Uzebox n00b having problems

Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 3:32 am
by uze6666
I tracked it down to a dry solder joint to R27 in the end. Working fine now.
Aaaah...cold solder, that's a classic. :) Thanks for the update and happy to see that you solved the issue. Out of curiosity, what programmer did you get?

Re: Uzebox n00b having problems

Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 9:52 am
by darktone
I got a USBTiny clone from eBay and modified it a bit as per some instructions I found on the Adafruit forums. I don't know whether it would have worked because I ended up not needing to use it but apparently some folk have succeeded:

http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=8349

I assume that fixing the SCK connection would have resolved the problem I was having getting AVRDude to talk to the 644, but I didn't actually test it afterward. If it ain't broke, and all that :)