On Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 08:14:32AM -0700, gil smith wrote:
Hi Ethan:
I use the 7660 all the time -- it needs two 100uF caps -- works
great! Can't draw a lot of current, but if the spec fits it is a great
solution.
Right. I've used them before, but mostly for negative LCD bias voltage
for HD44780-type LCDs - they don't need much current at all (I think I
was using 10uF caps, but 100uF is no problem to find).
There is a bit of switching noise (at about the
switching freq of 5 to 10
KHz, IIRC), but it is usually not a problem.
Probably won't be an issue for this application.
There is some loss, which goes up as you load the
device; ie: if you
drive it from +5.0V and load it lightly, you will get close to -5.0V, but
as you draw more current it will drop down to almost -4.0V.
Right. That was what I was a little concerned by - 16 DRAMs do add up
to some measurable current, even at 100-200uA each. What I wasn't sure
about is how quickly the ICL7660 drops off in a real application (vs a
nice clean curve on a spec sheet).
You can
compensate for this by driving it with about +6V instead (eg: a 78L05 with
a diode or two stuck in the ground lead).
Hmm... Hadn't thought of that trick; that might be handy if I need
a little boost.
Another was to go is to use a real switcher like an
LM2674M-5.0, but
configured for -5 instead of +5 -- I use this chip all the time too for
both pos and neg 5V -- very efficient. Drive from unreg volage (eg: +12 to
+20 or so); you also need a 100uH inductor, a schottky diode, and a few
caps. Pricier, but can efficiently source up to an amp.
I've seen mini-switchers like that in the past, 5 lead T-220 package,
IIRC, but I don't happen to have any handy, and I wouldn't be able to
get an order from Digikey for nearly 4 months in any case. I have
to use what's on hand.
Tonight, in preparation, I've been scraping off the broken wire stubs
and such from a previous owner's attempt to hack more memory onto it.
It looks like he mostly added external wires and only cut two or three
traces, but after I hit the old flux with some cleaner, the board should
look nearly good as new.
One thing I hope to find on
funet/zimmers.net tomorrow when the 'net
comes up is a copy of the diag ROM at $9000 that's part of the offical
C= diagnostic dongle - I have one at home, a 40-pin clip for the CPU
that you clamp on, then press reset, then unclamp - inside is a '138
decoder and a 2716 EPROM - according to the docs, the clip forces the
CPU to execute at $9xxx not $Fxxx so it can pick up the ROM contents,
then it copies itself somewhere (zero page?) and performs some
rudimentary diagnostics. It's not as good as plugging in a Fluke 9010A,
but for a machine that mostly works (CPU, low mem, video, decode logic...)
it's a quick way to test things. Fortunately, there's room in the
RAM/ROM board for several sets of ROMs (it uses a 29F010 FLASH with
a DIP switch and a PAL), so even if I don't find the official C=
diagnostic pod code, I'm sure I can bang something out pretty quickly
and drop it into the FLASH instead of the official ROM code at $Fxxx.
If anyone has any comments on 4116 voltage "gotchas", I'd still love
to hear about them.
Thanks for the reply, Gil,
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 2-Jul-2008 at 15:30 Z
South Pole Station
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Ethan.Dicks at
usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html