Some problems about usrp motherboard that i make by myself

although there’s no PCB of USRP motherboard, i make the PCB by myself.
there’s no change of the motherboard, according to the schs. after
finishing the PCB and all components soldering, i burn the eeprom of the
motherboard by /gnuradio/usrp/firmware/src/usrp2/burn-usrp4-eeprom.
finally, its leds blinks. that’s a small success for me. when i plug in
the rfx400 and run benchmark_tx.py, there’s a sign that it’s working
because it displays it’s transmitting signals with
… unfortunately, the receiver receives
nothing… then i use the probe to detect whether USRP works, and the
probe displays that it can detect the USRP and the daughterboard. it’s
the same as the board bought from Ettus. i’m confused. the
daughterboard is also ok on the USRP motherboard bought from Ettus.
anyone can help me? i don’t know how to deal with this problem… thank
you for your help!

who can tell me the reason? any help will be appreciated…

tonygc wrote:

that it can detect the USRP and the daughterboard. it’s the same as the
board bought from Ettus. i’m confused. the daughterboard is also ok on
the USRP motherboard bought from Ettus.
anyone can help me? i don’t know how to deal with this problem… thank
you for your help!


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On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 08:48:46PM -0700, tonygc wrote:

who can tell me the reason? any help will be appreciated…

Bringing up new hardware (even if you think it’s a perfect copy of
somebody else’s design) is always a challenge. It requires a wide
range of skills, patience, test equipment and the ability to figure
out how to debug a problem.

Most people I know learned these skills by working side-by-side at a
bench with people who had more experience than they did, both looking
at the same board…

A couple of things to check:

Are the power supplies as expected?
Do the clocks look good?
Can you load code into the FX2?
Can you load an FPGA image into the FPGA?

Good luck!
Eric

thank you for your reply, Eric! our team plans to integrate USRP with
other
functions, so we first want to copy the USRP motherboard to convince our
PCB
design. PCB has been tested, all is ok. after finishing the soldering,
first
load the firmware of FX2(with build_eeprom.py), then LEDs blinks. the
daughterboard can be detected by Probe. but can’t receive any signals,
neither transmitting… is there something we omit? in addition, how to
test
whether FPGA image is loaded into FPGA?

Eric B. wrote:

Most people I know learned these skills by working side-by-side at a

the

the USRP motherboard bought from Ettus.
anyone can help me? i don’t know how to deal with this problem… thank
you for your help!


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You haven’t provided enough information for us to begin to help you.
Did you make the PCB Layout yourself, or did you use existing drawings?
Did you do electrical tests on critical traces? How did you do the
surface mounting? Did you check pins for shorts after soldering? Etc.,
etc., etc.

It’s worth pointing out that you could still have a software problem,
too.

Some hints to check for are the serial configuration interfaces into the
AD9862 ICs - there could be a bad connection here causing a misconfig on
the IC. There could also be a problem with the board power or ground.
There could be impedance mismatches. Perhaps the (FX2?) EEPROM is
corrupt?

~Jeff

On 7/21/2010 11:48 PM, tonygc wrote:

who can tell me the reason? any help will be appreciated…


~Jeffrey L., K1VZX

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 07:50:10PM -0700, tonygc wrote:

thank you for your reply, Eric! our team plans to integrate USRP with other
functions, so we first want to copy the USRP motherboard to convince our PCB
design. PCB has been tested, all is ok. after finishing the soldering, first
load the firmware of FX2(with build_eeprom.py), then LEDs blinks. the
daughterboard can be detected by Probe. but can’t receive any signals,
neither transmitting… is there something we omit? in addition, how to test
whether FPGA image is loaded into FPGA?

There could be any number of things that you have omitted…

Either you, or somebody on your team will have to really understand
what is going on, how code is loaded into the FX2, how the fpga image
is loaded, etc, or you will have no hope of debugging this.

Once you have an understanding of what you expect to happen, then you
can look to see if it’s happening. If it is, good, go on to the next
thing. If it isn’t, then figure out why what you expect to be
happening isn’t happening.

Suggested reading:

USB 2.0 Specification
FX2 Technical Reference Manual
The USRP schematics
The source code for the FX2: usrp/firmware/*
The source code for usrp/host/apps/usrper.cc
The source code in usrp/host/*
Datasheets for all parts on the board
The FPGA source code

Eric

thank you for your reply, Eric. we tested the motherboard, source code
can be
loaded into FX2, and usrper can be used to configure something. that
means
FX2 works well. we use usrp_benchmark_usb to test the board, it doen’t
work.
something wrong with FPGA. but the clock of FPGA and ADCs are all OK,
and
FX2 to FPGA connections are also ok. it seems rbf cann’t load to FPGA,
why?
can you give me some guide? thank you again.

Eric B. wrote:

daughterboard can be detected by Probe. but can’t receive any signals,
Once you have an understanding of what you expect to happen, then you
The source code for the FX2: usrp/firmware/*

bench with people who had more experience than they did, both looking
Good luck!

the
the
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On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 12:04:13AM -0700, tonygc wrote:

thank you for your reply, Eric. we tested the motherboard, source code can be
loaded into FX2, and usrper can be used to configure something. that means
FX2 works well. we use usrp_benchmark_usb to test the board, it doen’t work.

What do you mean by “doesn’t work”? That’s very vague.

something wrong with FPGA. but the clock of FPGA and ADCs are all OK, and
FX2 to FPGA connections are also ok. it seems rbf cann’t load to FPGA, why?
can you give me some guide? thank you again.

How do you know that the rbf isn’t loaded?

Does

$ usrper load_standard_bits

give you some kind of error?

If you’re using a different model of Cyclone, the precompiled rbf
won’t work for you. You’ll need to build one that’s appropriate for
your device.

Take a look at the Cyclone datasheet and read up on how it’s loaded.
With a logic analyzer, you should be able to watch all the relevant
signals between the FX2 and Cyclone. It’s been a long time since I
looked at that datasheet or code, but there’s some combination of
signals that indicates “start loading”, “loading completed
successfully” and “loading failed”.

Eric

1 run usrp_benchmark_usb, displays:
Testing 2MB/sec… uUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuUuU
then, nothing goes on.
2 run “usrper load_standard_bits”, after seconds, it’s finished. no
error.
running all “usrper …” orders are ok, no error.
3 cyclone is the same as that of USRP.
thank you for your guide.

Eric B. wrote:

What do you mean by “doesn’t work”? That’s very vague.
$ usrper load_standard_bits
looked at that datasheet or code, but there’s some combination of


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