[CROS]

Makes sense that the alternatives are all over the place, haha

Again, thanks for all the info. Didn’t realize the world of USB Blasters was so dense. Might be helpful to build my own just so I know all the things that can go wrong and better debug in the future.

[CROS]

haha, wow! That’s a lot of quirks with the USB Blasters. I never knew. I should have mentioned that I used Linux in my first post. I didn’t think it was an issue since it was recognized by my system, and I got the udev rules installed, and it definitely communicated at least to some degree. However, timings are always a tricky thing. I really should have tried switching to Windows right away to check.

Thanks for all the info! Looks fun to make your own USB Blaster (and Windows BSOD Blaster). Was it this project? https://hackaday.io/project/194894-usbblaster-based-on-ch552g Might have a go for fun.

Cheers!

[CROS]

So, the new flash memory IC didn’t work. Still the same issue. I had a feeling that either the FPGA was shot, or it was a communication issue over the USB port. I switched over to Windows (I used Linux as my primary OS, which is where I did the initial testing).

Windows actually worked to flash the FPGA. I now have a working OSSC again! So, I think your original theory was correct. Somehow the firmware got messed up. It was behaving how it would without a correctly flashed firmware. I don’t think it was the new memory in the end.

Thanks for all the help!

[CROS]

Wow, that’s surprisingly cheap. I may just do an order and put some of the other cheap ICs used within so I can test. I guess we’ll see again in a week if this fixes it. =]

[CROS]

And just a little more info. I had done the 1.8 mod to the device. Checked everything and nothing with bridged or bad with that. It was running for a while on the v1 firmware just fine. I reverted the mod, and still no go.

[CROS]

Did a little more research and it seems like that error can show in a lot of cases, so I’m actually not sure how helpful it is in figuring anything out. I tried loading up the ossc project in quartus and compiling it, but I get errors about memory not being able to be mapped or something. So I wasn’t able to generate an .sof file to test if having that would help or not.

It’s likely some chip being fried. Is there any way to view a debuglog or something from ossc through the jtag connection? It seems like it turns on, and the jtag connection IS able to detect the chip. When I run a diagnostic thing with the jtag connection it says everything is good.

[CROS]

Got the USB Blaster today, so I hooked it up. Seems like your theory about the flash memory being fried might be correct (or at least something along the path to the chip, not sure how the electronics are routed).

Here’s the log:
Info (209060): Started Programmer operation at Sun Jul 21 10:31:36 2024
Info (209016): Configuring device index 1
Info (209017): Device 1 contains JTAG ID code 0x020F20DD
Info (209007): Configuration succeeded — 1 device(s) configured
Info (19845): Start Serial Flash Loader programming
Error (209062): Flash Loader IP not loaded on device 1
Info (19845): End Serial Flash Loader programming
Error (209012): Operation failed
Info (209061): Ended Programmer operation at Sun Jul 21 10:31:37 2024

Seems like it’s able to communicate with the device to some degree but fails during flashing.

[CROS]

Alright, you convinced me. Gotta at least try! Got the $12 one, so I guess I’ll try it when it gets here in a week or so.

[CROS]

Ah, dang. I don’t have a USB JTAG programmer sadly. Sounds like it might just be fully bricked, though. =\

Have been waiting for the ossc pro to become available again. Might just buy that rather than spending extra money trying to figure out what happened.

[CROS]

Embarrassing, but the one plug on my multimeter was loose. I tested D4 again and now it seems to be showing the correct voltage in a single direction against pin 2 for all other pins. So I’m at a loss as to what it could be. Is there a known suspect for when there’s no output, no LCD output, but all the lights and everything are working? I tested all the voltage converters and they’re all correctly only shorting to ground with the middle prong.

[Author]

Posts