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A project log for AUG1 Computer

Developing a new 8 bit computer, in time for Christmas.

james-otsJames Ots 09/30/2021 at 07:481 Comment

Yesterday I accidentally tried to plug my laptop power supply into my FPGA board. There was a spark as I tried to do so, and now the board doesn't work properly. Oddly enough, it still loads the test configuration off the SD card and flashes an LED, but the JTAG interface no longer works, and the Zynq chip gets burning hot within a few seconds of turning it on. Which is a shame, as I was just getting the hang of VHDL again. It also means I'm going to have to bow out of this year's RetroChallenge (https://www.retrochallenge.org/), although I am tempted to dig out my Z80 breadboard project and do something with that instead.

Discussions

Jeremy wrote 10/13/2021 at 22:10 point

Oops, indeed. :(

Just my two cents' worth:

For what it's worth, a spark when plugging something in isn't necessarily a big deal. By itself that simply suggests that you briefly had either the positive or negative contact attached and not the other, which happens all the time even with something like plugging in a lamp. Obviously the board's non-working state is a clear indicator that something has gone wrong though -- the two things might be essentially unrelated though.

Do you know what voltage your laptop's power supply outputs? (somewhere inside of 15V - 22V DC is fairly common depending on the machine). From looking at some datasheets sounds like the input voltage range on the voltage regulator circuitry is 4.5V - 17V.

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The fact that the board still seems to function, at least partially, despite the non-working JTAG interface suggests that all might not be lost.. I'd speculate that much of the board's hardware may be okay, but that quite possibly:

- the FPGA is damaged/toast

- some of the FPGA /support circuitry/ is damaged/malfunctioning, such as the clock chip

- one or more of the power regulation chips is shot or at least damaged to the point of behaving weirdly

Based on the information available for the board (QMTech Bajie Board XC7Z010) and the power regulator chips it uses (TI TPS563201) and that the issue happened after accidentally using the wrong power supply my bet would be on the power regulation circuitry at a /minimum/ since an input voltage of more than 17V would probably damage them.

Based on pictures of the board there are at least 11 IC chips on the top side: FIVE provide the obvious elements of the main functionality (U1, U7, U8, U17, U16),  THREE more (U6,U9, ?) provide ancillary function -- looks like U9 generates the clock signal, plus FOUR 6-pin ICs (U2, U3 , U4, U5) with inductors (chunky square components labeled L1, L2, L3, L4) nearby that seem likely to be TPS563201 chips providing separate voltages to different parts of the circuit from the same VIN.

U1 - Xilinx Zynq 7000 XC7Z010 (FPGA)

U7 - Micron 512MB DDR3 SDRAM (512MB RAM)

U8 - Realtek RTL-8211E (Ethernet chip)

U16 - PN016 | 92KG4 | CCK (looks like it has a TI/Texas Instruments logo, so probably the HDMI driver chip)

U17 - can't read markings (likely to be the CP2102 that provides USB-Serial given the proximity to the USB port)

P.S.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000323573953.html

http://www.chinaqmtech.com/xilinx_zynq_soc (user manual, hardware schematic downloads available)

https://www.ti.com/product/TPS563201#product-details

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