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I think the only thing I can suggest at this point is to
a) resolder your FTDI connector and try to use the Arduino IDE to upload a simple program again. Choose “Duemilanove” from the board menu.
b) solder the PAL jumper and connect to a TV.If there’s still no luck with either, then I’d say your chip got fried or the PCB is bad. Email me and we’ll talk about replacement.
Ok, Hackvision is for televisions, not this easycap device. I seriously doubt if the video signal emitted by the ATmega is going to be properly understood by the easycap thing. Please solder the PAL jumper and try a television.
When you say the “chip output” goes to zero when the cables are hooked up, what output do you mean exactly? The voltage across the center of the video output and the barrel (gnd) of the video output? I would expect it to go lower since there is an internal 75 ohm resistor built into a TV, but you aren’t going to learn much by measuring this voltage. The voltage on the video output will change very rapidly. It will be 1 volt when a pixel is being drawn and 0 for black. At 60 frames per second, and over 13000 pixels per frame, the voltage is changing over 780000 per second. A multimeter is not going to help you.
The voltage across VCC and GND on the ATmega chip should be almost exactly 5V. The voltage regulator should be outputting 5V. Please measure the VCC and GND on the chip, as well as the voltage regulator.
Yes, on the FTDI cable, black to “blk”, green to “grn”. There should be 5V supplied by your USB to the chip. VCC and GND on the chip should have 5V across it.
I don’t see anything obviously wrong with your soldering. Since you are in the UK, you’ll need to solder the PAL jumper as described in step 3 (unless you are sure that your TV can handle an NTSC signal). I don’t think this is your problem though, because you’d get sound and you’d be able to program the chip using the FTDI cable.
I would use your multimeter and make sure you have 5V across the VCC and GND pins on the ATmega chip. The datasheet here shows which pins to check (7 is VCC, 8 is GND, 22 is GND). http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/8271S.pdf
Some of your solder joints look a little light on solder, especially the FTDI cable connector. You might want to reheat/resolder some of your joints just to make sure they are good.
Also, I have to ask if you had the FTDI cable oriented correctly when connected — forgive me if that’s an elementary question.
I also get 403 when trying to access them. You can email them to me at michael@nootropicdesign.com.
Yes, Cool Components is my only UK distributor.
The only other thing I can think of is that the PCB has an error of some kind. I pay my fab house for electrical testing, so there should not be any bad PCBs, but I suppose it can happen.
No matter what, I’ll make sure you get a working Hackvision.Hmm. I’m sure you have the chip oriented correctly, right? Every chip I send out has been tested so I know they are loaded with the bootloader and games.
Do you have an Arduino you could put the chip in and see if you can upload a simple program to it? The chip has the normal Arduino bootloader on it (just like a Duemilanove). You can always load the original Hackvision firmware back onto the chip.
It sounds like maybe there is a short circuit somewhere. I’d be happy to look at any high resolution photos you send me.
Where are you located (what country)? Did you purchase directly from me or one of my distributors?
-Michael
Have you looked at the Troubleshooting section?
http://nootropicdesign.com/hackvision/build/#troubleshootingAre you using a 9V DC center-positive power supply? It’s very important that it be center positive.
Any sound output at all when you power it on while connected to TV? You should hear a “blink” sort of sound at power up. That would tell us that it’s running.
Hmm. Try following the manual instructions here: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows
for the Duemilanove. Use “Add Hardware” to install the FTDI drivers that come with the Arduino IDE.
I don’t have a modern Windows machine (I’m all Mac).@jonathan,
Glad your son succesfully assembled it! The Hackvision is essentially an Arduino. I’ll add some clarifying comments to the game development page, but as for the explanations about the Arduino IDE, bootloader, and compiling/uploading sketches, that’s covered best on the Arduino site. Hackvision has a ATmega328 chip, so choose “Duemilanove or Nano w/ ATmega328” on the board menu. I will definitely clarify that.Do you have a USB-serial FTDI cable or adapter? That’s needed for uploading your own games.
You’ve got the concepts right — the bootloader allows the IDE to communicate with the chip and upload firmware programs (“sketches”). It will hold one at a time, and yes you can always compile and upload the original Hackvision firmware. This firmware and required libraries are on the game development page in the section “Downloads”. For explanations about how/where to install libraries, see the Arduino libraries page.
Writing games does assume some familiarity with Arduino and experience in C programming. I’d suggest loading the Tetris game onto your Hackvision as a first step. It is on the games page, and requires particular libraries which are downloadable there. Installing the libraries, compiling the Tetris game and uploading to your Hackvision will give you a good sense for the process. Then you could switch back to Space Invaders/Pong by downloading the Hackvision firmware and required libraries. Note that Tetris and Space Invaders/Pong require different versions of the TVout library.
Good luck and have fun!
Agreed Radio Shack isn’t what it used to be! You were the second person that asked about Pong not working with the buttons so I figured I better make it work so that people didn’t feel cheated at all. Hack on, brother. O0
I have updated the Hackvision firmware to allow Pong to be played using the onboard buttons controller. The up and down buttons simply move both paddles. If the buttons are used, then the analog paddles are ignored.
Firmware download available on the game development page.Pong only works if you connect paddle controllers. Glad you like Space Invaders — hopefully you can write some of your own games!
