PICkit 5 First Look

 Greetings!   

Summer always seems to be the hardest time to Blog.  Between wanting to get outside and enjoy the fresh air and surroundings and working (specifically Blogging), the working is losing.  But things are happening.

First as I alluded to in this post, I have had concerns about the state of my PICkit 4.  I only use it on the processors that a PICkit 3 won't work on.  At this time that is 18F46Q71 that I use in the Brick Buddy 3.  It will sometimes get into a state that only a complete recycle of everything(PICkit, target PCB and the entire PC) is needed.  You cannot buy PICkit 4 anymore through distribution/Microchip.  I have become worried that the one I have will fail, which would really hurt my development.  This is the main reason I purchased the PICkit 5.  I am also hoping that it will do better with the new processors.

I installed MPLAB X version 6.10 (required).  I first tested with a PICkit 4 and the PIC18FQ71 Brick Buddy 3.  As stated in the previous referenced post, this combination and Version 6.05 would not work.  But with version 6.10, it worked just fine.  Changing out to the PICkit 5, still works as intended.  Now I have not tried any of the SD Card/BT features, so I cannot comment on those.  But the USB interface to MPLAB X works as you would expect.  In a month or two I will try to write more as I get more experience with it.  I am especially looking forward to using the SD Card/BT to program Brick Buddy's in a MOC.

 

 

Windows 11 Upgrade

 

Well it was time to upgrade to Win11 on at least some machines.  Taking a big gamble, I did my file server first.  Surprisingly this went very smoothly.  All of the Win 10 machines still had access to files and printers.  Next was my main development laptop.  Again it went smoothly until I tried connecting to one of my HID devices.

In this post from September 2021 and the followup in October 2021, I talk about issues I had with the Jedi JVC Controller software for HID control in Delphi.  These issues only applied to my HP Elitebook 850 G5.  So tracing back into the JEDI HID controller source, I found where the error handler was being raised and then what HID device was failing.  As before it was "HID Sensor Collection V2".  Again it was not showing up in the standalone Microchip HID Test program.  The Jedi HID code indicated that once again it was failing the get attributes call to the Windows HID.dll.  Finally the JEDI HID code would raise the "Device cannot be identified" error.

But under HID devices in the Device Manager this was not listed.  Last time I had changed the HID driver to a generic HID controller and that fixed everything.  After searching around, I noticed a sensor category in the Device Manager and that is where it was.  Changed the driver to Generic HID and the error went away.  

What I did notice is that the error handler described in the second post above, was not present.  It looks like I did it on all the USB Power devices PC applications, but not for the Brick Controller.  So that is now implemented and all is as it was before the Windows 11 upgrade.

Is Windows 11 better, so far I don't think it is better or worse, just different😜

 

 

 

New Brick Buddy and Light Buddy GUI

 

I have been working on this for far too long now.  But it is very close to being done.  As I explained in this post, I am consolidating the LED Styles and Features. This means common code in the PC, Android and the PIC.  This makes software maintenance much simpler and if I expand the LED Styles and/or Features, it will happen in one place and then ripple out to all the software and hardware.

But there is a lot exclusion.  By that I mean for any given style, only certain features may be available.  Then certain features are mutually exclusive.  Finally certain features and the Brightness selection are mutually exclusive.  

Now writing "spaghetti code" to handle this is quite simple.  The problem becomes keeping it running and finding all the loops that were not planned for.  Thus I have been working on leveraging the features of OOP in the Delphi compiler to build simple but highly structured code.  Also I have been building an abstraction layer that the PC/Android can interface with that will control the LED channels on all of the hardware devices.  Again when I make a change, this should ripple through all the devices.  

Simply put, I need a Combo Box with check boxes.  These exist, but the components are not free.  I went with a CheckList Box that was part of the Delphi component pallet.  I only needed one, since only one can be shown at any time.  Each time the CheckList Box is shown, the data structure holding the LED channel information, populates the CheckList Box with the correct features that can be used (grayed out those that cannot be used) and fills the check boxes that are selected.  When a feature is selected by the user, any Features that are mutually exclusive are unchecked and the Brightness selection is checked for availability.  Sounds simple enough, but at least for me it proved time consuming.  Half the battle was just writing down the program flow.

I finally have a working version for the Brick Buddy 3.  Now I need to port this to the Light Buddy 2.  Then this concept moves to the Scripting language.  How long will this take, not sure.   Up til now it has been slow going.  The brain is not as sharp as it used to be😊.  But progress is made and I suspect moving this to the other hardware platforms will be easier than the first go around.  The scripting language will have some road blocks on the first one, but after that it should go fairly fast.

Space-Time Portal Forms

 

In keeping with the current breaking information on UFOs, here is a picture of a portal forming over Northern Nevada last week.  We managed to beat back the invasion, but just about everyone got the MIB "blinky thing", so no one remembers.

Have a great day😁

Break Time Over

 

But that doesn't mean that the building did not continue during the break.  The above picture is what my two older grandsons built in the last week on their own.  The 15 month old grandson tried to join in and had started on his own creation when Dad decided it was not age appropriate.  But he is also a builder.

They started with this kit, which took about two days on and off.  Eventually some form of this will end up in the display, more of powered ship instead of a rover.

Then moved on to more free form building.  This build actually had a theme.  As you can read from this sign it was an Air and Space Shop.

And the Shop even had a swimming pool.

Now where did all this come from?  Obviously it came from Brick stock.  This picture shows the end result. So I am taking this opportunity to re-organize what I have.  It will be several days of work, but in the end I will be better off.

 

Break Time

 Time for coffee and doughnuts 

We will be taking a short one week break.  One recovery time and two, the family is visiting.  

When we return, there will be maintenance on the entire display that will be needed (several LEDs are out),   Plus three module still need to be updated to the latest Brick Buddy controllers.  Finally I need to finish Brick Buddy 2 and 3 as well as Light Buddy 1 and 2, the PC software and the Android software.  That will take me to August without a problem.  I am sure there are multiple unknown problems ahead.  But they will be solved.

Enjoy the coffee and doughnuts.

Brick Fest Live - Day TWO

 We definitely faired better than these two coming back from the last patrol.

I did not talk about attendance.  Saturday was actually very good and we were busy almost the entire day.  Sunday was also good.,  It was busy from opening time until abut 3PM, which is very typical of these events on a Sunday.  I am actually very pleased with the attendance.  There was lots of interest in what we are doing.  Also with Bricks by the Bay being canceled this year, this would be the only event in the San Jose area for the year.

There were the standard Cos players.  Here we have a storm trooper, but there was also Mandalorians and First Order Cos players running during both days.

For those who had a VIP badge (paid the extra), there was the Brick Bot build area.  They kept this behind curtains, so there was no way to know exactly what was going on.  But the line was always fairly long.

What was very nice and is lacking at most Lego User Group Conventions, is the interactive activities for the public.  Now that the pandemic is mostly behind us, there were multiple interactive activities for the attendees.  Here are some of the build tables.

Another nice feature is the black light build area.  As we saw in Omaha at Brick Days with the Aquarium, using bricks under black light to add another dimension to the display.  Here are some more pictures of this area at Brick Fest Live.

This was a great success for us. We had a great time.  Met some very interesting people and dedicated builders.  So we are very happy.  Here are some closing pictures of the backside SL ONE.

And now we march off having completed the mission and get ready for another day.