MiniMig with AGA

[mikej]

The input voltage must be regulated 5V and cable of supplying 1A or more. The 5V is used directly, the lower voltages are generated internally. There is a polyfuse (2A) and over voltage/reverse protection.
Ideally the 5V would be generated as well, but that would need another DC-DC and increase the cost.

You can also power it through the molex (ata hard disk power) connector from a PC power supply, assuming you have frigged the power on line.
Mike

[mikej]

Assuming a cable area of 0.205 mm² (cat.5) which gives 0,188 ohm/meter and 5 V with a 5% tolerance. Ohms law U=R*I gives the maximum cable length to be 2,2 meters. Quite tight.

I hope the next board at least has space to populate it with onboard 5 V regulation.

Why would you run cat.5 cable from the PSU plugged into the wall to the dc power jack?
Personally I would use somewhat chunkier cable, like the one which comes attached?

[mikej]

Testing going well, no problems yet apart from the audio connector being a bit close to the DVI connector which means you can't use really fat DVI cables. I've mounted the jack at a slight angle which helps. Right angle audio plugs also works.

I never received the production video, I'll chase it.

I'll get a video of the board running some demos up ASAP.
/Mike

[mikej]

"Didn't think of that (tm) ;-) "

Not quite true, the decision to move the connectors and fit everything on the back was not taken lightly, and was modelled quite carefully.

It is a pain but not a real problem, especially as you can use the RCAs on the other board, or a right angle audio plug.

The only cable I have which doesn't fit is the DVI to HDMI cable which is about 2cm wider than the DVI connector

[mikej]

I did look at HDMI connectors originally but you need to license them and it's quite expensive. I am working on another project which uses display port, but it's not so handy for TVs.

For the first boards I may offer a soldered on in-line socket on a short lead as a solution.
Cheers,
Mike

[mikej]

when I looked into it, it looked like you couldn't even mount the connector or mention HDMI without being a member of the cartel.

I certainly couldn't buy any chips which supported it. I am trying to design out the Chrontel part and do the DVI/HDMI coding directly in the FPGA with a DAC chip for the analog part.

I would still need to use a DVI connector, but I could use HDMI protocol (including audio) on it.

One option is to go for a smaller SD card, but the connectors are not so robust.

/Mike

[mikej]

What exactly needs licensing? The connector itself on your board, or the protocol it uses? Couldn't you use a connector, and only allow its use with DVI connector (DVI protocol) and leave out anything HDMI specific? Or is anything using the HDMI connector using enough of the HDMI protocol etc. to get hit by licensing? And if you leave out HDCP?

http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/terms.aspx

$10,000 per year is the killer

[mikej]

@MikeJ, Any more news? This is the single piece of hardware (any format) I want to buy in 2011. Already put aside money for it!

So far so good. DVI/Analog and sVHS video out work well.
I haven't managed to run up the minimig code yet but Jakub and I are looking at that.
I will test the composite and audio at work tomorrow with the expensive test kit.
Then it's just the DRAM stress tests left to go.

I haven't had as much time over the holiday as I hoped and I had some problems porting my boot loader to the larger ARM device I am using now, for some strange reason.

/MikeJ

[mikej]

Volume is certainly no problem.

I have received another snapshot from Jakub, who is well ahead of me on the firmware
front. The board is up and running well. I'm going to do a bit of filming this evening and get some vids up on youtube.
Best,
Mike