Saturday, September 17, 2011

The old Racegun board

So while we are on the topic of replacign the old board, I thought I would take a moment to document what its specs are for posterity..

Board Information
0.72in Wide
3.48in Long
Processor - PIC16LF873-041SO
Firmware (Of processor NOT the Race program itself) - 9.8.2002
Serial Com provided by a intersil ICL3221CA (Bottom right of board)
Memory storage (settings) provided by 24LC08B (Below the silver capacitor)

Battery Information
4.8v Ni-MH (made up of 4x 67AAAA cells)
600 mAh
MicroMolex Connector (I will try to look up the PN for these).


Oddly enough it looks like the board was programmed with normal serial commands.. I know people (the 5 of us who still use Raceguns!) have been struggling recently due to a lack of programming cables/charging cables but this one looks to use a standard TTL/UART interface.. Connectors for those are cheap (search ebay for USB to UART), and then you would just need to connect the pins to the correct pins on the connector..

 You COULD even build in a connector into it and make the board USB programmable! I would get one of the ones on EBAY that has the cable all made with just the pins on the end.. Plug them in the correct order and it should work just fine with the current RIP software!

2 comments:

  1. Just a tidbit, you really cant just add a USB connector and make it a USB board. The baud rates are totally different, and the out-put/in-put commands are totally different between USB and serial. It is a great thought though.

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  2. Heheheh.. Sorry for posting an idea without fully hashing it out!

    So because the Racegun can be programmed at any time, im guessing that means that their serial chip is using a interrupt pin on the PIC, so that when the bits start flowing, the PIC stops what its doing, and starts writing the new serial commands to memory. That makes it easy in that we dont have to design any special electronics we just have to get the signal to the board.

    http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8531

    I would use one of these type boards since they are VERY small (.5in x .5in) which is barely smaller than the current LEMO area in the frame.. Its close enough, you might be able to wedge it in there without to many mods... Then route the pinout of the board to the propper TTL pins on the raceboard. Voila! A USB Racegun Board!

    The only hard part would be charging since the 5v on the TTL side is logic level only.. Might be able to do something with bridging the raw 5v USB over to the charging circuit, but who knows!

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