comenzando con la placa colorlight i9

[miguelang...@gmail.com]

Muy buenas.

Hace unos días me llegó el pedido de la placa colorlight i9 junto con la placa de expansión y una placa FT2232H.

Estoy probando un "hola mundo" con un pmod de leds y pensaba que estaba defectuoso en dos leds, pero solo me pasa en uno de los PMOD que tiene la placa, en el resto encienden todos sin problemas. No se si es por lo torpe que soy soldando los conectores PMOD de la placa de expansión o hay otra causa que más adelante os pongo.

De momento estoy probando con oss-cad-suite-linux-x64-20221210 y el curso de verilog de Obijuan, comprimiendo el fichero .bit con ecppack --compress ... y programando con DAPLink:

openFPGALoader -b colorlight-i9  ....

Sobre programarlo con la placa FT2232H, ¿se podrá hacer sin soldar, con "agujas de prueba" como esta?

https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005003429620849.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2esp

¿sabéis la medida de los pogo pin si es de 2,54 mm o de 2 mm? Mientras no pueda programarla con FT2232H no puedo usarla en ICESTUDIO ¿no es posible usar DATLink con openFPGALoader en APIO? aunque sea lento la programación hace posible el uso de las colorlight i5 e i9 sin necesidad de utilizar otro programador.

Aprovecho y os adjunto el mapa de pines de la i9 modificado a partir del documento de la i5 de la web https://tomverbeure.github.io/2021/01/30/Colorlight-i5-Extension-Board-Pin-Mapping.html

Y sobre los pines que no activan los leds del PMOD con el que estoy haciendo pruebas son H18 y E18, forman parte de P5, y según el pdf que adjunto, del P5B dice que se usa también para SPI y UART "PMOD_P5B SPI and UART pins are connected to and may be driven by the STM32 MCU!", ¿puede ser que el STM32 interfiera y por eso no se encienden o puede ser por problemas de la soldadura?  Os agradezco cualquier recomendación.

Un saludo y muchas gracias.

[miguelang...@gmail.com]

Ahora si va el pdf.

[Jo mo]

Hello Miguel i am also using the Colorligth i5 and i9 board !

Thanks for you work with that board you found some errors that i had not found/tested before !

For the P5 port, you are right the reason why some pin do not work is because they are driven by the stm32 chip on the "ext board"!
i just tested with my i5 board (it should be the same for the i9);
- i can use as output the J17 (stm32 RX ) pin but canot use the H18 (stm32 TX) pin as output (like you)!  (connecting an output to another output is not good ;-) )

So, for now,with this ext board,  J17 can only be used as fpga output and H18 can only be used as FPGA input!

solution 1: remove the stm32 chip! i don not like that solution because i used this on board chip for "Unprotecting the SPI flash!

solution 2: i just tried to connect the pin 7 ( NRST)  to ground and it stops the STM32 and i can now use H18 and E18 as outputs too!

In fact, below, i connected a blue wire to the C3 capacitor (an orange box close to the quartz) and i am connecting the other side of the wire to a gnd pin (in a pmod connecteur)

That way if you need to use the stm32 (ecpdap software) you just disconnect the wire from gnd (on pmod)

About programming with the ft2232 or ft232 or usbBlaster have a look on my mods that i posted here (on the 13 april 2021)!

As i wrote on that same post i never managed to program using that onboard stm32(with ecpdap) inside of icestudio!

But outside icestudio, ecpdad in a command line works well for programming those Colorligth ix board inserted "in this ext-board" and with his stm32chip!

For the pogo pins, i am designing my own pcb which will hold a Colorligth ix board!

So i did not yet tested them but i ordered those pogo pins (3mm version).  so i will test that when i complete the design and manufacture of my pcb!

Saludos,  and have fun with you I9 board !

[Jo mo]

Also, In the two following link s from Benitos and Obijuan, you can find some info about the use of the colorligth boards with ft2232 programmers (not the with the onboard stm32 available on the ix extention board). So  as you know, you have to make an alternative connection to the four jtag pins (pogo pins) !

https://github.com/benitoss/ColorLight_FPGA_boards

https://github.com/Obijuan/Cuadernos-tecnicos-FPGAs-libres/wiki/Tarjeta-ColorLight-5A-75B-V8.0

[miguelang...@gmail.com]

Hello Joaquim.

thank you very much!!

[Jo mo]

You are welcome Miguel,

For info, to use your colorligth i9 board inside of icestudio and be able to see the ressources usage, you have to (at least on windows platform) :

1- install the last icestudio wip

2- install the toolchain apio 0.8.1:

   -  in Icestudio under  tools/toolchain/ update last stable version     (not the 0.8.2, development version )

3- download the zipped apio 0.8.2 from  .

  - Find the file apio/ressource/file board.json (from that last apio0.8.2)

  - and copy just that file in the  "C:\Users\<username>\.icestudio\venv\Lib\site-packages\apio\resources\"  directory

Tell us when you managed to use your board inside icestudio !

Have a nice day!