Do we have room for another N64P? (t64 WIP)

[dragonhead]

Might I suggest this method?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Sponge- ... ircuit-Bo/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh, I thought you meant how I was going to transfer the circuit image to the board. I use ferric chloride on occasion, but I prefer sodium persulfate. Although, this certainly seems like a quick way to get the board etched! Never thought about using a sponge. I may give this a try since leaving the board in a small tub usually takes a long time.

try simply agitating the solution when you do that. it speeds up the process. just mix it with a plastic spoon every once in a while

[kibble]

try simply agitating the solution when you do that. it speeds up the process. just mix it with a plastic spoon every once in a while

I do but, it still takes a while. If you warm up the stuff it etches a bit quicker. The main thing I don't like about ferric chloride is that it stains pretty much everything it comes in contact with. I've stained good shirts, pants, electrostatic mats, etc...

Back in high school I managed to get a drop of ferric chloride on one of my good jean pants just to the right of the zipper. It eventually turned into a brownish yellow stain about an inch in diameter and my friends referred to it as my happy spot. So whenever I wore those pants they said I was wearing my happy pants.....

[kibble]

Did some testing of the fan controller circuit and the FRAM chip. Fan controller worked and I'm happy to say that the FRAM chip works exactly as claimed. I had to make an "adapter" for it as it's pins are way too small to solder wires directly to. Then I ran some wires from it to the memory card board where the original SRAM chip used to be. I was in a hurry to make this board so it looks like crap and I had to manually remove some copper that didn't dissolve but, I was pretty impressed that the pads for the chip came out really well. Oh and by the way, I used the sponge method chainfire95 showed me and it took only a few minutes to fully etch the board. When I first plugged it into the controller and turned on the system, it kept telling me that the card was damaged and couldn't be repaired. I had to remove the diodes that originally went to the battery and the 3.3V line and just feed the 3.3V line directly to the FRAM chip and then it worked flawlessly. Here's some pics of it:

[dragonhead]

awesome! good progress methinks

[kibble]

awesome! good progress methinks

Indeed

[64M320N3]

Are the pinouts even remotely similar? Where did you get the diagrams for the N64 memcard?
(Or did you use some amazing tech that I need to get my hands on?)

[dragonhead]

Are the pinouts even remotely similar? Where did you get the diagrams for the N64 memcard?
(Or did you use some amazing tech that I need to get my hands on?)

theyre the same. the fram is a direct replacement for the old chip. but its stable so it doesnt need a battery to sustain the memory.

[kibble]

Well, I had found the information for the memory card as was mentioned in this thread: http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=29078" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; except I changed/added some information.

If you take the pinout for a standard 256Kbit SRAM chip, you can pretty much follow them back to where they're supposed to go and figure it out that way, with the exception of the CS pin, which is wired to a transistor so it was a little tricky figuring out what memory card pins 18 and 19 did at first.

I connected the fram using both CS and /CS pins how I had proposed they be connected in that other thread and sure enough, it worked. Pins 18 and 19 is what I'm talking about. The fram has the exact same pins that a 32 pin DIP, 1Mbit chip has. I used all but address pins 15 and 16, which I grounded for now. Eventually those pins will be used to address the four memory card "pages".

So anyway, no, there's no really "amazing tech" here that I can talk about.

[stuntpenguin007]

hehe, not trying to be a complete creeper/stalker but I ordered a sample of that ramtron chip so I can finally use my pcb etching stuff

[kibble]

hehe, not trying to be a complete creeper/stalker but I ordered a sample of that ramtron chip so I can finally use my pcb etching stuff

LOL ok. I think they're pretty neat how they work directly in place of an SRAM. The only reason I stumbled upon those chips was because I didn't want to use a bulky 1Mbit SRAM chip and battery holder from a memory card, so I started searching for a non-volatile memory. You can certainly tell the size difference, not to mention that a battery isn't required so the space savings are certainly worth it. Did you order it from Mouser? They also have a 2Mbit FRAM chip with the same number of address pins that I considered using to have 8 virtual memory cards but, it has a 16 bit I/O so It'd require more circuitry, like a multiplexer, to be able to use all of it.

Here's a comparison of the FRAM to the SRAM I was thinking of using at first:

[Shakespeare]

Nice work. Where did you purchase your chipquik kit at? Is it just flux and some solder?

I bought it at a local electronics store. It's not really just any solder, it's apparently a solder that contains bismuth. I've tried to find the stuff just by itself but haven't found any. The little kit is kind of expensive at like $17 so what I do is collect the used chip quik material and re-use it on parts that don't have such tiny pins and only use the brand new stuff on more critical parts. This is the second of these kits that I've bought and from experience, you're more likely to run out of the solder than the flux.

Hey I think I found your bismuth solder: Bismuth solder

It is 60% bismuth, and 40% tin.

Problem is that it's $26 after tax and shipping. That's how they get you. This, on the other hand, is $12 shipped.

[stuntpenguin007]

I got it from the ramtron website, they said a representative in my area would be contacting me about the samples... sooooo not sure what that means, but hopefully I'll actually get it.

As for desoldering I think I'll try out this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EUAEtri ... re=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[chainfire95]

most annoying voice evar

[stuntpenguin007]

What in that video I linked? I think in one of his other videos he says he has a cold.

In your custom memory card, are the top left 2 pins connected or not?

Oh and I'm pretty new to eagle. What did you use to make the pads you soldered wires to? Pic Microchips don't seem wide enough.

[kibble]

In your custom memory card, are the top left 2 pins connected or not?

If you're talking about these:



Pin 1 isn't used for anything. Pin 2 is address pin 16 and pin 31 is address pin 15. Those two pins I connected to ground for the time being but, they are not pictured as I did that after I took those pics.

This is the pinout for a 128 KB SRAM chip. This pinout matches the pins on the adapter.