ADS1278-SP: Software issue with Evaluation Board

Hi Richard,

Could you try downloading and re-installing the following software installers in this order and seeing if it resolved the issue?

1. ADCPRO
2. ADS1278EVM-CVAL GUI (For ADS1278-SP) or ADS1278EVM-PDK-SW (for ADS1278)

I have seen it happen in a few cases where some of our ADCPRO plugins modify the base ADCPRO installation and cause problems for other plugins. Usually, reinstalling both the based ADCPRO application and the EVM plugin has resolved the issue.

Best regards,
Chris

Hi Christopher,

Thanks for the suggestion, I did as you directed, and running the software got further, but I still have errors.  I restarted my computer and that didn't help.  When the error messages say to restart the system I pressed on the button in the upper right hand corner of the bottom card.  I also tried pulling out the power from the lower card.

Error messages below.

Thanks,

rich

Hello Rich,

Please confirm that you have an external power supply connected to the MMB0 board on J2 barrel connector.  The External bench supply should be set to +6V with a current limit of 1A or more.

If power is not present, you will get the exact same errors that you have reported, although there could be other conditions that result in the same startup errors.

If external power is present, the 4 green LED indicators on the MMB0 board should be illuminated, as shown below.

Regards,
Keith Nicholas
Precision ADC Applications

Hi,

It's a 7V (that was in the documentation) 3 amp wall adapter.  The four green lights are on.

Thanks,

rich

Hi, to make sure we're on the same page, I have the correct board and revision, and the switches are in the right position, or anything else that's important, I'm attaching two images, one of the mother board, the other of the evaluation board.  Currently I'm stuck.  Previously, other engineers have tried to get the software running on their computers with a physically different board and also ran into problems that have not been resolved.

Thanks for the help,

rich

Hello Rich,

You have the correct boards, and all jumpers and switch positions look correct from the pictures.  Also, the AC adapter that you are using should work well with the EVM hardware.

A few more hardware checks that you can do:

1.  Measure the voltage on TP3 (REFP) with respect to AGND (TP1).  This is the reference voltage and you should measure very close to 2.5V.

2.  Measure the voltage on TP5 (VCOM) with respect to AGND (TP1).  This is the common mode voltage generated by the ADS1278, which is simply a voltage divider between AVDD (+5V) and ground, and should also measure +2.5V, +/-0.1V.

This may simply be an image distortion and not real, but when I look at the image of the ADS1278 board that you sent, it looks like one of the pins (pin 77, AGND) on the ADS1278 may be touching an adjacent pin (AVDD).  If this is the case, then this would explain why the board does not correctly start.

3.  When a board does not properly communicate, it is usually related to the device drivers not correctly installing due to virus protection or some other IT settings.  You need administrative rights on your PC to install the software, including drivers.  If you have a personal laptop, you could try installing the software on it to see if it is related to your company PC.

Just to make sure the software was still correctly installing (on my TI owned laptop), I deleted and reinstalled the software, and everything worked as expected.

Regards,
Keith

Hi,

I made the following measurements on the board, and all appeared well.

TP3 -> TP1 = 2.502V
TP5 -> TP1 = 2.472V

I couldn't tell anything definitive by looking for a short at the CQFP. So I measured
across C26 (AVDD and AGND) and there was no short. I have a magnifying glass here at home but would have to go in to use a microscope.

Next I moved to my home computer. I downloaaded the software again based on the links you posted, installed the two files, and then restarted the computer as instructed. I got the same error as on my work computer: the download failed. So I reinstalled the software again and repeated the test. The same failure.

My work and personal computer has admin rights.

The software kept on telling me to reboot the motherboard, I did, and it had no observable affect. Or is that effect? :-)

So this is failures on 4 computers, at least two sets of TI hardware, and three engineers.

Thanks, what's next? :-)

My best,

rich

Hi,

Below is a screen shot.  I found it odd that the firmware version is 0.0.0/

Perhaps this will help.

Thanks,

rich

Hi Rich,

Unfortunately, I do not think there is an easy way to determine if this is a hardware issue (bad connection between boards or some other fault), or a software install issue with the drivers.

I did some more digging on this issue, and it appears that the drivers for the ADS1278EVM-CVAL plug-in have not been signed.  However, the commercial version of the EVM, ADS1278EVM-PDK, has updated the plug-in with signed drivers.

You can use the standard ADS1278EVM-PDK-SW plug-in with the ADS1278EVM-CVAL board.  I suggest loading this software and see if this helps resolve the issue.

1.  You can find the ADS1278EVM-PDK-SW at this LINK.  

2.  You will need to make a small change to one of the initialization files to use the ADS1278EVM-PDK-SW with your board.

• Navigate to the following folder on your PC:  C:\Program Files (x86)\ADCPro\plugins\evm\ADS1278
• Since this is a protected directory, copy the following file to your desktop and open using Notepad:  adcpro_evm.ini
• Go to the last line and change EEPROMVerify from TRUE to FALSE;  

• Save the updated file and copy back into the folder:  C:\Program Files (x86)\ADCPro\plugins\evm\ADS1278

3.  You should now be able to open ADCPro and use the commercial version of the ADS1278EVM plugin.

Please let me know if this resolves the issue. 

Regards,
Keith

Hi,

I followed your instructions on my personal (not work) computer.

It definitely made it further than it did before and I *think* it's installed.  It's late here (almost 9) so just a quick feedback to you, and thanks for your patience.  I'll try to get back to this as soon as I can.  I'll paste in a screen shot ... does that look correct?

Once this gets going I'll try to duplicate the steps on my work computer.

Thanks!

rich

OK, I couldn't resist, I clicked a few buttons.  I think it's working (forgot to paste in previous message).

Hi Rich,

It does appear to be working based on your screenshot.  The drivers for both plug-ins should be the same, so I think the ADS1278EVM-CVAL should now also work, if you want to give it a test.

Regards,
Keith

Hi,

I applied to your suggest to my work computer and it looks like things are working there.  The software did hang and crash a few times, but it looked to be usable.  Now that the system is "on the air" I have to put it down for a bit, as I'm juggling a number of tasks.  For the next step, I'll be feeding live inputs into the system with the ADC configured to our application.  

Thanks for your patience, and I think you can close out this ticket.

My best,

rich