Benj wrote:Looks like we may be able to switch off the charge pump using mLoader and only bring it back on when programming. This means that if you power up the board the charge pump will be active but after using Flowcode/mLoader to program it will be disabled leaving the cap free to sit at a much more pleasant 5V. Not sure when this mLoader mod will be made but I have asked for it to be done asap, if it works ok then I will post the update here.
If you can do this via mLoader, I presume the charge pump is controlled by the onboard PIC used for the USB interface and programmer. If this is the case, perhaps an alteration to the firmware in this onboard PIC could have it turned off on powerup also?
Benj wrote:I'm told by a colleague that the cap getting warm is probably heat being transferred from the regulator via the copper on the board which is not strictly bad but far from ideal.
Although that is a possiblity, being an Electronic engineer myself, I would sugest that putting 37V across a 25V Cap could also be generating excess heat.
On another note though, I've been looking in to this "Unknown chip type in data file" error...
I've basically been reverse engineering the HEX file to figure out just what data is stored in there.
I think it could be caused by the fact that my HEX file doesn't contain the chip type that it is for.
The HEX file is basically a text file that contains a string of HEX data. (I did post the file I'm disecting in a previous post)
The first line contains the program. (because my program is so small, it only takes one line in the file)
The second line contains the Config headder info.
The 3rd line... I can't identify what it is, but it doesn't contain the chip ID, my guess is an "End of file" marker.
The main problem i'm getting while trying to program things is... if you do not specify the chip type in the command line, drop down box in mLoader, or the data file, programming will always fail.
Therefore, another sugested edit to mLoader is that if no chip type is given, perhaps it should either assume it is for the chip in the programmer and attempt to program it, or ask if it should.