First (Real) Light (Literally)
In case you're wondering what I've been doing....
I've been assembling the development board. Twice. The first time I tried using the stencil and some solder paste. It was an unmitigated disaster, because the solder paste solidified between pins and caused a short circuit on the 3.3V line. I suspect this is due to the use of poor quality solder paste.
So I reassembled it on a spare board (PCB fabricators always give you spares) by hand. Then I set up an impressive array of USB devices (PICkit 3, USB power supply for the dev board, and TTL serial port - still waiting for the Lattice JTAG programmer) and a 3D-printed stand.
The first bit of firmware in PortaBit switches on the FET that controls the screen backlight. It was glorious:
Yes, aside from the yellow power LED and the grey glow of a backlight, that's it. But that's a good start for exactly two lines of code, with nothing in PortaCore and no EEPROM on the board.
Now comes the fun part: Writing the firmwares.
I've been assembling the development board. Twice. The first time I tried using the stencil and some solder paste. It was an unmitigated disaster, because the solder paste solidified between pins and caused a short circuit on the 3.3V line. I suspect this is due to the use of poor quality solder paste.
So I reassembled it on a spare board (PCB fabricators always give you spares) by hand. Then I set up an impressive array of USB devices (PICkit 3, USB power supply for the dev board, and TTL serial port - still waiting for the Lattice JTAG programmer) and a 3D-printed stand.
The first bit of firmware in PortaBit switches on the FET that controls the screen backlight. It was glorious:
Yes, aside from the yellow power LED and the grey glow of a backlight, that's it. But that's a good start for exactly two lines of code, with nothing in PortaCore and no EEPROM on the board.
Now comes the fun part: Writing the firmwares.
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