Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Discuss older Nikon-based Kodak digital SLRs, including DCS 100, DCS 200, NC2000, DCS 400/600/700-series, etc. Ask questions, post general comments, anecdotes, reviews and user tips.
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Well it's been a slow week since i'm rewriting all the code since it was a mess and it didn't worked anymore.

recoding was going nice till i tryed to turn on the back.

nothing worked, tested lots of stuff and it didn't worked, on the last test while programming a new code onto the FPGA the poor DCS bursted in white smoke... A LOT OF IT...

Image

So well.. f**kin caps... till i recap the winder depelopment will be stuck for some days and hopefully it will solve some problems i was having
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
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Stan Disbrow
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

I refer to that as: Crapped Caps. Most common malady of electronics. :(

Stan
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Professional Electronics Development Engineer
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Hi Stan, yes... i work a lot with vintage HI-Fi, and capacitors are a plague even had unrecoverable devices due to corrosion from leaking capacitors, but tantalums failing... this is new to me
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
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Stan Disbrow
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

I have seen many tantalum caps crap. They like to alter their Effective Series Resistance, which means they don't show physical signs and even measure capacitance ok. But, aren't ok. Sometimes they smoke, and sometimes they just make whatever they are in work wonky.

Like all other electronic parts there are ones which never crap out, and some which seemingly always crap out. All depends on the supplier coupled with what the item producer decided they could live with. That usually equals cost. But, I have had some suppliers find themselves hard pressed to supply the high-end we wanted, in the quantity we wanted, and fill-in (so to speak). I hate it when that happens!

I recently had a ham come over with an older radio which worked. Most of the time. But, it would take it upon it self to do weird things at times. Mostly in the control circuitry. Sudden frequency shifting, volume running all the way up or down, things like that. Lots of tantalum caps. Some good, most going. Time to 'shotgun' all of them out of there. Not that he felt the rig was worth that.

Stan
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Hi Stan, for this i want to add a small 128x64 OLED display, designed for arduino mostly, it's i2c, do you think it's worth the effort to code it or i just use an arduino as display controller and feed the data from the fpga in a simpler way, also i will be saving the FPGA memory for the real stuff
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
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Stan Disbrow
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Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

I think using a secondary controller for, well, secondary, tasks makes good sense. :)

Stan
Amateur Photographer
Professional Electronics Development Engineer
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

nuff said... this weekend i recap the winder and start working on the display with the arduino
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
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pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Well this is going slooow, i found that my level shifters can't deal with real data or clock speeds, so i ordered new and better ones from the states.. they'll be arriving in a few days, i hope... also comunicating with the display seemed imposible, probably due to the level shifters.
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
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pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Well, the level shifter arrived, but they are so small that i'm soldering to a breadboard in order to be able to use them and is quite a job... maybe next week will be news about it
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
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pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Well... today i finished building the shifters, tomorrow i will be wiring it up to the FPGA and testing if they work...
.... fingers are crossed

Image
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Image
Image
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Hi everybody, if there's somebody left...

from the last post, i wired, tested and nothing was correct, everything was wrong, everything i measured was wrong, the fpga didn't liked at all my board with shifters... or maybe was the wiring... also it was december from a very complicate year and i was tired to debug.

Also.. Argentina is going a big time economical crisis so i moved to Peru... i didn't bring the DCS with me.

But, since here eBay works, i'm starting from scratch with the acquired knowledge, bought a new CPLD, one that can tolerate 5v signals so i din't have to use shifters, also a smaller print pcb but since i'm out of the country for undeterminate time the project is stopped.

I will post news as soon as i have.

Thanks everybody.
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
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precertvideo
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by precertvideo »

This is all way beyond me, but you deserve a medal for even trying.

Please keep going, we are all very interested!!
DCS serial no. survey
RC-760, EOS-1D & Ds Mk I, II, III, EOS*DCS-3, 5, DCS, DCS-200ci, 420, 460, D1, D1H & X, D2H & X, E2, F, F2, F3, F4, MVC-2000, 5000, 7000, RD-175, 3000, EF 50mm f/1.0, Audi S2, Porsche 911, GSX-R1000 K9
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Thanks for the support! you know, i haven't give up yet, actually taking advantage of free market in Peru i've bought 2 CPLD boards, much more compatible with the DCS hardware, an SDRAM board for buffer and the programmer for the CPLD, it still remain in its bags but as i return to Argentina, which is next month, i'll start over with it...

Now having better compatibility i can make a cleaner code which allows me for faster coding and better results.

Fingers are crossed
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
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pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

Slowly restarting the development.
Just testing if the Xilinx tolerate 5v signals (the one the DCS has) and not only the 3.3v modern ones

Image

Then will be time to get my rusty Verilog code and my rusty coding and port the existing code from Altera to Xilinx, re-wire and test how it goes
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
pieroc91
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Re: Making a DSU from scratch for an orphan DCS100

Post by pieroc91 »

And we went light sensitive...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTjVRjoqz54

Everything is ready to store all those LED blinks to something so i can read it on a computer and make a file to open in something and see if there is a picture, or something like it.

We are close folks!
Kodak NC2000e - Nikon D1x - Kodak DCS 14/n - Fujifilm Finepix S2Pro - Nikon D750 - Sony A200 - Sony NEX-3
https://www.instagram.com/piero_cavallin/
https://www.instagram.com/_pi_va/
https://www.behance.net/cavallinpiero
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