Apache Labs Community Forum

I have had several 200D users mention to me that the little bootloader/run switch soldered to the bottom of the Orion board and accessible through a hole in the bottom plate is very fragile. Apparently, if you slip with whatever tool you insert into the port to slide the mini switch it's very easy to rip the switch right off the board. When this happens, the traces on the bottom of the Orion board can be torn away making it difficult for an end user to repair the damage.

Looking at a photo of the top of the Orion board the J14 jumper block looks like it is right over the mini-switch. I thought it might be parallel to the mini-switch which would be great because you could easily put a jumper onto it to go into bootloader mode, or even better, use a header connector and run the leads to the back panel where a toggle switch could be mounted. Unfortunately, the schematic reveals that J14 grounds pin AK7 of the FPGA and the bootloader/run switch grounds pin AK8 of the FPGA. So, we can conclude that grounding AK8 switches the FPGA into bootloader mode but can anyone confirm what grounding AK7 does?

Unfortunately, from what I can see, the Altera Cyclone 4 datasheet does not give any information about pin functions.

Thanks, Rob W1AEX

Unfortunately, from what I can see, the Altera Cyclone 4 datasheet does not give any information about pin functions.

How could it? They are wholly defined by firmware.

Perhaps someone knows off the top of their head. If not, then the above fact will be the secret to determining the function of J14. I don't have the time to do it right now, or possibly even in the next few days, but the way to determine what J14 is used for is to install Quartus Lite, download the Orion firmware .qar file you are interested in, import it into Quartus, look at the IO definition file to determine the internal signal name assigned to that pin, then look through the firmware code to see what it does.

Oooooh... you're trying to motivate me Scott! I do have Quartus Lite (v19.1.0.670) installed but to be honest I am more likely to just put a jumper on J-14 to see what happens when the Orion is powered up. What could possibly go wrong?

I'd be very careful. Remember the batch of 7000's that got bricked because of the misplaced memory select jumper at the factory.

Yeah, it's a jungle in there!

J14 isn't being used in the Orion1 / 200D firmware as far as I tell.

It's assigned a signal name "MODE2" but nothing is attached to it.

In the Orion2 (7/8000) it's used to tell the firmware that there is an
EPCQ128A -vs- EPCS128 on board.
-Rick / N1GP

Oh yeah, that's the dreaded Orion MK II "brick me now" jumper! If it's set wrong and you try to program new firmware it'll brick the bootloader.

Good to know it has no function on the Orion.

hah yes ! That old chestnut !

https://apache-labs.com/community/viewt ... 7720#p7434

the thread has my first post, as the jumper was missing in my radio

Richie.

Thank you Rick for the clarification regarding the J14 jumper on the Orion board. Good to know it's not functional and also very glad that it's not destructive. Scott's warning was certainly valid in light of the Orion II "deadly jumper fiasco" that Richie and others had to sort out with their brand new 7000 rigs!

73, Rob W1AEX