Atmel Mega 406 compatibility

[Marek Hudek]

Hi,

 

I bought G.T.Power A6-10 only because of cheali project, because I wanted to charge Ni-Zn with full control, but to my surprise it comes with ATMEL MEGA 406.

It was recently bought by purpose from Amazon, I wanted to be sure, that I will get genuine board, but either they have upgraded PCB design or it's just a fake.

 

I want to ask whether there is a tiny chance, that it could be compatible with this project?

 

There's no service connector on board unfortunatelly, but I would trace particular pins to get it flashed, I have already bought atmega USB flashing board, but I'm not sure, whether it is even compatible with this processor, because I was expecting atmega32 inside..

 

I would appreciate any help, I can post photos of PCB later if it makes any sense

 

Thanks

Marek

 

[Paweł Si]

2014-12-22 22:51 GMT+01:00 Marek Hudek <marek...@gmail.com>:

Hi,

 

I bought G.T.Power A6-10 only because of cheali project, because I wanted to charge Ni-Zn with full control, but to my surprise it comes with ATMEL MEGA 406.

It was recently bought by purpose from Amazon, I wanted to be sure, that I will get genuine board, but either they have upgraded PCB design or it's just a fake.

 

I want to ask whether there is a tiny chance, that it could be compatible with this project?

As you probably know, we currently only support atmega32 and nuvoton M0517 CPUs,

Unfortunately, I don't have enough free time to support yet another charger,

but if you know C++ (probably C is enough) you could try to write the support yourself,

with our help of course.

You should also be aware that adding a new charger is a time consuming process,

It took us almost a year to add the M0517 CPU.

Best Regards,

Paweł

[Marek Hudek]

Hello,

I hope my C/C++ knowledge is OK.

Almost a year for one cpu is quite challenging.. but I would like to try at least, cause this unit is unusable for me now and I do not plan to buy similar unit after this experience. And if this is the current PCB design, maybe some new folks with the same chip will participate too.

I thought that atmega406 could be somehow similar to atmega32, this is where I would appreciate some help, I do not understand chip design very much. As there is no service connector I think it is crucial to find whether it is possible to get some access to the chip by tracing pins, but I do not know what to search for.

Please feel free to post any advices.

Thanks

Marek

[jry]

According to http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-2548-8-bit-AVR-Microcontroller-Battery-Management-ATmega406_Datasheet-Summary.pdf ATmega406 seems rather interesting for battery charger:

The ATmega406 provides the following features: a Voltage Regulator, dedicated Battery Protection Circuitry, integrated cell balancing FETs, high-voltage analog front-end, and an MCU with two ADCs with On-chip voltage reference for battery fuel gauging.

The question is if they are using some of these battery dedicated features (for example balancing is limited to 4 cells).

[Paweł Si]

2014-12-23 12:34 GMT+01:00 jry <jan.r...@gmail.com>:

According to http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-2548-8-bit-AVR-Microcontroller-Battery-Management-ATmega406_Datasheet-Summary.pdf ATmega406 seems rather interesting for battery charger:

CPU is 16x slower the the atmega32 and eeprom is 512B (vs 1024B in atmega32)

but you have 40KB of program memory (vs 32KB).

and the are two ADC, one is 12bit, the second one is up to 18 bits (for current measurement).

something about programming:

http://www.avrfreaks.net/forum/atmega406-0

datasheet: 26.8 Using the JTAG Programming Capabilities

http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-2548-8-bit-AVR-Microcontroller-Battery-Management-ATmega406_Datasheet.pdf

[Marek Hudek]

So no ISP for this chip, only JTAG or HVPP (High Voltage Parallel Programming).

 

Is it possible to do HVPP on chip soldered to PCB?

 

I suppose that JTAG, as it can be used also for debugging is capable of flashing soldered chip, but from what I read, JTAG can be disabled in fuse and the only way to enable it is through HVPP.

 

Can anybody advise what piece of hardware to buy for communication through JTAG or HVPP and not to pay more than for new charger?

[Ronald-V]

Hello Marek and Pawel,

A while ago I purchased a Turnigy Accucel 6 with the same idea as Marek of flashing the cheali firmware, but is seems that it has also not an atmega32 inside (I count 12 pins per side of the processor instead of 11).

I opened it up and it seems that I have a connection port (6 pins) on the pcb below the 4 buttons (see picture below, marked with a red circle). 

Unfortunately the top seems to be sanded so I canot see the brand and type. Do I have the same atmega406 as you? Or is there a possibility that I have the nuvoton?

Thanks A lot!

Ronald

Ronald

Op maandag 22 december 2014 22:51:45 UTC+1 schreef Marek Hudek:

[stes...@gmail.com]

Это не Mega406.

Прозвонка выводов показала следующее:

17 pin GND

41 pin +Vcc

15 pin XTAL1

16 pin XTAL2

8 pin Tx UART

6 pin Rx UART

среда, 21 января 2015 г. в 16:39:38 UTC+2, Ronald-V:

[Roberto Garcia]

/

/

That connection port you refer is for external keyboard.

/

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