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Heads up - Parts for DIY SDrive-MAX cheap!


a8isa1

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20 hours ago, a8isa1 said:

prove (or disprove) the driver

got it finished and it seems to be fine so far SteveS (touch wood).

ill do more testing later today.

however, my screen appears to have a fault, the vertical line - see pic. it doesnt seem to prevent use but it illustrates poor quality control at the manufacturer or banggood... ?

 

 

 

IMG_1580.jpg

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2 hours ago, xrbrevin said:

got it finished and it seems to be fine so far SteveS (touch wood).

ill do more testing later today.

however, my screen appears to have a fault, the vertical line - see pic. it doesnt seem to prevent use but it illustrates poor quality control at the manufacturer or banggood... ?

 

 

 

IMG_1580.jpg

Silly question, is that vertical line from the clear safety tape that is still on it? I see you did not pull it off yet. (Just curious)

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3 hours ago, xrbrevin said:

got it finished and it seems to be fine so far SteveS (touch wood).

ill do more testing later today.

however, my screen appears to have a fault, the vertical line - see pic. it doesnt seem to prevent use but it illustrates poor quality control at the manufacturer or banggood...

If it really is a defect you should ask banggood for a replacement.  You can do this through their app.  One thing though, if they ask for more information via email reply back the same way.  Don't go through the app a second time.  You'll just get the same form letter (via email). 

 

Free "saver" shipping out of China is slow.  I guess I'm used to this having purchased many trinkets via that auction site, which will go unnamed :).  Banggood's parcels arrived in a month.  That's shorter than all other Chinese drop shipments I've received but definitely still SLOW.  I deal with it because I refuse to pay premium shipping that is as much or more than the purchase price of the tiny orders.

 

-SteveS

Edited by a8isa1
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I buy a lot of parts from China. It has been my experience for anything going as individual items i.e. a TPA2030 audio IC for instance, you really have a better then average chance of getting something that is a manufacturer fallout if not just plain mislabeled. 

 

Seems to make sense in that I've heard a lot of projects never get done. You find a barrel of TPA2030 in the dumpster outside a factory, sell them on eBay as new. You refund maybe 30% of sales but for the 70% or so of projects that never get put together, nobody knows and you keep the dough.

 

I do get good luck with assembled devices or sub assemblies. Apparently the manufacturers of devices know how the game is played there and use legit suppliers.

 

Some of the stuff, particularly with displays, go under such cost cutting I'm more surprised we get anything that works. :) Stuff designed to work with headers and connectors just soldered directly to the board kind of things. I still have some displays I bought 2-4 years ago made this way and they are still chugging away.

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On 9/2/2019 at 10:48 AM, Crenedecotret said:

You got lucky :) my mcufriend ili9338 screen from Amazon never worked. The screen would remain white while booting the uno. But it's still a great deal.

I eventually ordered from aliexpress where I could just search for the part numbers. I had a hard time finding compatible screens at a reasonable price. Maybe they are getting more rare with newer chipsets coming out?

Envoyé de mon EML-L09 en utilisant Tapatalk
 

FYI for future reference, I found this video, "How to fix white screen of tft touch screen with arduino | TFT unknown driver Fix".  It might be of use for someone building an SDrive-MAX.

 

-SteveS

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Aliexpress has been as reliable as Amazon for me, just a LOT slower.

 

99% of the time I get what I ordered and it works as I'd expect. Sometimes what you get isn't quite what you thought it would be (for example I ordered some Genesis control pads recently and the ones that turned up were about ¾ genesis control pad size) but I've never been stiffed, any problem with a thing immediately gets another one shipped or a full refund. 

 

For ebay the experience drops to 90% reliable but I never try to buy anything that seems too good to be true.

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15 minutes ago, ricortes said:

I buy a lot of parts from China. It has been my experience for anything going as individual items i.e. a TPA2030 audio IC for instance, you really have a better then average chance of getting something that is a manufacturer fallout if not just plain mislabeled. 

 

Seems to make sense in that I've heard a lot of projects never get done. You find a barrel of TPA2030 in the dumpster outside a factory, sell them on eBay as new. You refund maybe 30% of sales but for the 70% or so of projects that never get put together, nobody knows and you keep the dough.

 

I do get good luck with assembled devices or sub assemblies. Apparently the manufacturers of devices know how the game is played there and use legit suppliers.

 

Some of the stuff, particularly with displays, go under such cost cutting I'm more surprised we get anything that works. :) Stuff designed to work with headers and connectors just soldered directly to the board kind of things. I still have some displays I bought 2-4 years ago made this way and they are still chugging away.

Because deliveries take so long I usually like to buy spares but I've been thinking about a different approach.  Since free shipping is available if I want to buy something with 1 or 2 spares perhaps I should split the order amongst different vendors. 

 

-SteveS

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15 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

Arrived from Aliexpress today... $15 ($2.51 ea)

IMG_2340.thumb.jpeg.a32c1db1aacaf6da69f530a9b1f43bc5.jpeg

 

What are the chances these are all 16GB and work fine? 

 

We shall see!

It is my nature to suspect these as "Too good to be true", however IF they check out congrats to you. ? I bought SDcards of a claimed capacity years ago on Ebay, they were not actually an unbelievable low price but did seem to be a really "good deal". Turned out although the cards did report as being the claimed capacity they kept failing in use once I got to a certain amount, files would be corrupt or disappear altogether. Turned out that yeah, they were a scam, as I later got some programs to specifically test the capacity they all failed and thus were "fake" cards. You are really going to want to test them by filling to capacity and see if the files are actually usable and not corrupted before dedicating them for reliable use. Here is a very useful link for info. Again, I hope you actually got an incredible deal but either way this could be useful for anyone. In my case I was refunded the full amount from the seller on Ebay after I threatened to report to Ebay etc. But the sooner one can confirm their cards the better. 

https://www.maketecheasier.com/check-sd-card-speed-capacity/

 

 

 

 

Edited by OldSchoolRetroGamer
fix
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Well I've checked one,

 

25MB/s Write, 85MB/s Read, wrote a 15GB image to the card and verified it ok.

 

I'll do one more but I think they are probably OK

 

EDIT: Second one exactly the same. I'm happy.

 

Edited by Mr Robot
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fake flash storage can sometimes be 'repaired'. i did a cheapo flash drive recently.

the device falsely reports a given capacity. its real capacity is lower and is reliable but anything above that is unreliable.

connect the device and run a program called: h2testw. this will assess the exact amount of genuine storage.

run a program called: MyDiskFix, input the capacity determined by h2testw and start the process. MyDiskFix will permanently set the device to its genuine storage limit.

the flash drive originally reported 32gb but it actually turned out to be 8gb, but at least it is now reliable.

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2 hours ago, xrbrevin said:

fake flash storage can sometimes be 'repaired'. i did a cheapo flash drive recently.

the device falsely reports a given capacity. its real capacity is lower and is reliable but anything above that is unreliable.

connect the device and run a program called: h2testw. this will assess the exact amount of genuine storage.

run a program called: MyDiskFix, input the capacity determined by h2testw and start the process. MyDiskFix will permanently set the device to its genuine storage limit.

the flash drive originally reported 32gb but it actually turned out to be 8gb, but at least it is now reliable.

can you post the utils and what they run on?

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Did any one try to build SDrive-Max using 3.5" TFT touch screen LCD?

I am aware that the current available 3D printed cases are for the 2.8 inches, but for most elderly, larger screens will be better. even thinking of 3.95" screens ?.

It is a matter of drivers. Isn't it?

 

Madi

3.5 TFT LCD.png

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On 9/21/2019 at 10:49 AM, Madi said:

Did any one try to build SDrive-Max using 3.5" TFT touch screen LCD?

I am aware that the current available 3D printed cases are for the 2.8 inches, but for most elderly, larger screens will be better. even thinking of 3.95" screens ?.

It is a matter of drivers. Isn't it?

 

Madi

3.5 TFT LCD.png

The >3" displays aren't just higher resolution but also a different aspect ratio. If they were 480*360 the aspect ratio would be the same(320*240=4:3/480*320=3:2).

I don't know if this would cause an issue, but thought it should be pointed out.

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I have the arduino Uno the one indicated as the Bestest Aruduino.

But unfortunately I have the dreaded:  ili9338 based disply...  I tried 

to use the XLoader program to load the two files in the atmega328-ili9338 folder.

First i loaded the eeprom_writer.hex,  it successfully loaded, then I loaded

the Sdrive.hex from the same folder.   then powered down the unit and plugged in the display.

and all I got was the white screen... :(   is there any other trick to it?  Cheers. 

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47 minutes ago, Waltermixxx said:

I have the arduino Uno the one indicated as the Bestest Aruduino.

But unfortunately I have the dreaded:  ili9338 based disply...  I tried 

to use the XLoader program to load the two files in the atmega328-ili9338 folder.

First i loaded the eeprom_writer.hex,  it successfully loaded, then I loaded

the Sdrive.hex from the same folder.   then powered down the unit and plugged in the display.

and all I got was the white screen... :(   is there any other trick to it?  Cheers. 

Is the screen completely white?  If there is a faint crosshair in one of the corners then you are seeing the calibration screen but the colors are inverted.

 

If that's not the case I don't have a solution for you.   Sorry.

 

However, you can test your screen with the arduino IDE and the MCUFRIEND_kbv library.   The examples include screen and touch panel tests.  You can obtain the library from within the Arduino IDE.   I think you'll find it under Sketches-->Include Libraries. Scroll to the top of the pull down list and click Manage Libraries.  Search for "MCUFRIEND" and install the one named MCUFRIEND_kbv.  The examples are in the libraries folder.  With linux the folder would be in ~/Arduino/libraries.   I don't know where the folder resides for  the Windows version of the IDE.  The example, TouchScreen_Calibr_native, is a good one for a quick test.  It will test the touch feature and display enough for you to evaluate your screen.  Text should be white on a black background.

 

Be aware the ILI9338 screens apparently don't answer with a valid ID, to the program's challenge.  Each of the examples need to be edited.  Usually each example has a bit of code similar to this, IF (ID == 0xD3D3)...  Sometimes the value being tested is different.  Following the test sometimes guess_ID gets assign a value to force the panel's ID.  You want to change this value to 0x9338.  In the case of the calibration sketch the ID is only read and tested.  Just below that test you want to add the following line.

 

ID = 0x9338;

 

Upload the sketch (to your Arduino UNO)

 

Good luck.

 

-SteveS

 

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2 hours ago, xrbrevin said:

you did have the screen connected when you used xloader didnt you?

i was able to use the screen with the MCUFRIEND_kbv library, i ran the various examples, including the one that lets you calibrate the touch screen, and the one that gives information about the LCD. :)

so I know the screen is working :)  my screen said it as ID=0X6809 as indicated at the end of the graphictest_kvb sketch. 

 

i tried xloader without I think? would it make a difference?  (sorry pretty new to this...) :)

 

display info.png

Edited by Waltermixxx
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