SchmalzHaus logoUBW FAQ


Q:
Is the UBW easy to use?
A: It depends upon what you want to do. If you just buy one from SparkFun, you can easily be using your UBW in minutes. If you want to build your own board from scratch and write your own firmware, then there are several things you should know how to do. (building boards, soldering, writing C code, microcontroller theory, etc.) If you just buy a board from SparkFun, it will come with a version of Firmware D on it as well as the bootloader, so you can just jump right in with no programming or soldering. How easy is that!

Q: I don't want to download any new firmware. Can I use the UBW as it comes from SparkFun to make my EggBot run?
A: You betcha! (As they say here in Minnesota.) It is really pretty easy. The UBW comes from SparkFun with Firmware D. In order to run your EggBot, you need to be able to write out bytes of data on Port B of the UBW. With FW D, you should execute the following command once after you open up the COM port: (assuming you are using Liberty Basic, and have opened the COM port as handle #com)
Print #com, "C,255,0,0,0"
This command tells the UBW that you want Port A to be inputs, and Port B and Port C to be outputs.
And then every time you want to write out a byte to Port B, you can use the following command: (Assume OutByte is the byte we want to output.)
Print #com, "O,0,";OutByte;",0"
This command tells the UBW you want to output new values on its ports. You are outputting zero on Port A (because they are set as inputs and we don't use them on an EggBot), your OutByte value on Port B, and zero on Port C. Then you just need to do the normal step and direction manipulations of OutByte to get your steppers to do what you want. Use for/next loops between steps to change the step rate.

Q: Do you sell bare UBW boards or completed units?
A: No, I don't. But you can buy pre-assembled and tested UBW boards (the 28-SOIC version) with Firmware D on them from SparkFun. They are inexpensive and are the easiest way to get started. You can also buy nice plated through hole kits from SparkFun.

Q: Do I only get to use the eight port B output pins (B0 through B7)?
A: Well, it depends upon which firmware you load onto your UBW. If you use Firmware C, then yes, all you get to use is Port B, and only as outputs. Firmware C v1.1 also supports reading Port A bits 0 through 5 as inputs. For many things this may be all you need! But if you use Firmware D you will have complete access to all 19 I/O pins, as either inputs or outputs.

Q: How much current can I draw?
A: USB spec defines a max of 500mA from each USB port on a hub. I'd guess that with all LEDs on, the UBW will use about 50mA. So you should use no more than 450mA for your own uses. The firmware does ask the hub or PC for all 500ma when it enumerates.

Q: Can I use the PRG button for anything?
A: Yup. If you write your own firmware (or modify one of the existing ones) you can use that button for whatever you want. (Note the RESET button is hard-wired to MCLR, so it isn't really available for your use like the PRG button is.)

Q: Can the UBW destroy my PC?
A: If you fire a UBW at your PC with sufficient velocity, it may cause damage. Other than that, it would be hard to do. USB is very robust from a physical/electrical perspective. (Software is a whole different ball of wax.) You can't fry your PC with a mis-wired UBW. You can fry the UBW if you do something silly to it, but then you're only loosing a $10 processor that you can get replaced for free. Not bad, eh? If you short power and ground on the UBW, the USB hub will shut down that port without doing any damage to the PC.

Q: Can I power the UBW from a different source?
A: If you have the UBW connected to your PC, then the UBW will be powered by the PC. You can't turn that part off. But if you need to draw large amounts of current, then you can supply your own circuits with your own power supply and just connect the grounds and signals from the UBW and your circuits. Then the UBW won't be powering your circuit, and your circuits won't power the UBW.
A2: If you unplug the UBW from your PC, you can always power it from a 5V supply in a stand-alone mode.
A3: In future versions of the UBW boards, a jumper will be created to allow the connection between UBW +5 and USB +5 to be broken so you can power the board without worrying about conflicting with the USB power.

Q: What does the UBW look like?
A: Check out the pictures here.

Q: So why did you pick the smaller PIC in each case?
A: Cost, really. You can easily substitute a 18F2550 for the 18F2455, and a 18F4550 for the 18F4455. The only difference is less memory on the parts I chose, and thus they were (slightly) cheaper. If you are sampling the part from Microchip for free, then just get the bigger parts! Now SparkFun ships UBWs with 18F2553s on them, which are nicer because of the 12 bit ADCs that they have. They still have only 32KB of Flash and 2K of RAM.

Q: How fast is a UBW?
A: That question is somewhat ambiguous. I'll answer the question I _think_ you're asking: how many bytes/second can I pump down to the UBW? That depends upon what USB "Class" the firmware you are using implement. The maximum theoretical speed of these PIC USB parts is 12Mb/s (mega-bits per second). With Firmware C, I get about 500 to 800 Bytes/second to come out Port B pins. With a custom firmware I wrote for a client, I've gotten over 20K Bytes/second. If somebody develops a firmware based upon Microchip's Mass Storage Class driver, or their Custom Driver, then it should be able to reach 100K bytes/second if not more. Oh, and the RC oscillator on the UBW runs at 4 MHz (or 20MHz for SparkFun version), and the internal PIC PLL bumps that up to 96MHz, then divides down to 48MHz to run the USB engine and the PIC core. Which means that these boards run at 12MIPS (because Microchip has a divide by 4 on their core clock.)
A2: If you are looking for Fosc speed on all UBWs, it is 48MHz.

Q: What's different between the SparkFun version of the UBW board and the initial design?
A: These web pages pretty much follow the original design I did for the UBW board. There are a few differences that SparkFun made when they started building their version.
Q: What is a Bootloader anyway, and how does it work on the UBW?
A: The PIC's program memory is Flash ROM. You can erase chunks of it and write individual bytes into it. What the Bootloader does is it sits in memory from 0x000 to 0x7FF in Flash. Notice that it sits on the reset vector at 0x000! That means that when  you reset your UBW by pressing the reset button, the PIC starts executing code at 0x000, which is the Bootloader. The Bootloader checks to see if you're holding down the PRG button. If you are not, then it jumps to 0x800, which is where your main program (firmware D) starts, and so the firmware starts running. If you _are_ holding down the PRG button at reset, then the Bootloader starts running it's own code, which listens for commands sent on the USB from the Microchip Bootloader application (PDFSUSB.exe). Those commands include things like 'erase Flash', 'program a section of Flash with this new HEX file', etc. The Bootloader does not ever write over itself from 0x000 to 0x7FF, so it is always there, ready to help you if your main program crashes and you need to reload the main program. Note that if you are not writing your own code for the UBW but just using the firmware that I supply, your only use for the Bootloader will be to update the firmware on the UBW. Both the Bootloader and the firmware reside in the UBW at the same time, but only one of them runs (based upon the state of the PRG button at reset.). The Bootloader is exactly Microchip's Bootloader, with a few tweaks to handle the slightly different hardware in a UBW board vs. Microchip's USB demo board. So this page from Microchip, which describes their Bootloader in more detail, is a good read if you're interested. (Download their installer file and you can read the information there.)

Q: Does it matter what baud rate I choose when I open the COM port to the UBW?
A: Nope. It doesn't. There really is no 'serial' link between the PC and the UBW. It is all through USB. USB does not have a 'baud rate' feature in the traditional sense of RS-232. The USB host chip on the PC schedules the bus transactions as quickly as it can, abiding by all of the protocol rules that define USB. (i.e. no fixed baud rate) In a traditional USB to RS-232 converter product, the PC sends 'baud rate change' messages to the converter chip, which then re-programs its RS-232 clock rate for sending/receiving async serial data. The UBW does not currently have a true RS-232 capability, so these messages are simply ignored by the UBW firmware. The UBW simply uses the part of this standard USB RS-232 converter setup to the point where there is a getchar() and putchar() function in the software of the PIC. The UBW does not then actually send that data out its serial port. (It could, if one wanted to, but does not at this point in time - FW D 1.4.2) Instead, it reads the data coming from the PC and processes that data as commands. Thus, it makes no difference to the UBW what baud rate or data bits or parity you use. HOWEVER - it does matter if you select hardware handshaking. Why? Because your terminal emulator may wait until certain handshake lines are asserted before sending data down to the UBW. Since the UBW does not implement any of the handshaking lines, this will never happen and your UBW will appear to be dead. So make sure you DISABLE or turn off any hardware handshaking. Don't use software handshaking either - always set it to 'off' or 'none'.

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UBW USB Bit Whacker by Brian Schmalz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.schmalzhaus.com/UBW.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.schmalzhaus.com/UBW.