Datron 1062 DMM

[dml]

Having got two of these 1062 units mostly - nearly - working, I figured it would be a good idea to back up the eproms in each one and perhaps diff them to see if one has newer firmware. I also figured this would be straightforward ...hah.   

The eproms are UV-erasable jobs with 3 on the MPU board and another on the interface board. They are all 32kbit (4kbyte) TMS2532 (TI) devices. That should have been the first clue things were not going to go smoothly.


So the first hurdle I ran into was the fact my TOP2004 programmer, freshly dug out of old boxes, doesn't work anymore with Windows versions later than Vista ...or something. Another annoying case of USB driver problems that turns equipment into doorstops after a few years. And I didn't feel like spending $$$ on a new programmer for this - so I resolved to hack my way to success.   


After messing about with too many versions of the TopWin software on my spare Win7/64bit PC - none with a working USB driver - I decided to set up a virtual machine with Windows XP/32bit and hopefully sidestep any OS compatibility troubles.

So I started with VirtualBox. I always give VirtualBox another chance, even if I always end up regretting it. And I did. Every step of the way.

The short version of the VBox story - sidestepping issues with mouse integration, loss of input and therefore control in fullscreen mode and other fun - VBox would not recognise the TOP2004 programmer USB device, and so would keep disconnecting it. While trying to resolve this, it got confused about which machine the programmer was actually supposed to be connected to - host or guest, and then neither could see it because it looked 'busy'. The icing on the cake was what happened when I pulled the USB plug out. It caused the host OS to bluescreen. Not just once, but all three times I tried it. Not the virtual machine - but the host. Not nice.   


So after hours of messing with VBox and enjoying the bluescreen effect, I ditched that option and tried to export the VM to VMWare player free/noncommercial version.

However VBox couldn't export the VM to the portable OVA format, due to some ... issue, with the existing disk image. I had to make a copy of the system drive using command line tools, in a different format, attach that drive to the VM, delete the old drive from the VM, test it still worked, then export the  modified VM in OVA format. Are we having fun yet.

So after all of that, I get the VM of Windows XP with TopWin software etc. and try to import it into VMWare player v14. Except VMWare player v14 doesn't recognize my PC's CPU, because Core i7 CPUs made in 2010 are 'deprecated' because everyone has newer ones now, except me. And of course that means it won't run the VM. So I have to uninstall VMW v14 and go find VMW v12 before it turns into a dead link... 


After getting VMWare v12 set up, I try out the programmer and it acts like it's responding ok. Good! I then go read the TMS2532 datasheet more properly and look it up in the programmer device list.

The TMS2532 is not supported by my programmer. The nearest equivalent is a generic 2732/25v with 3 of the pins swapped around, just to make sure we're paying attention...

So I construct a small adapter on veroboard and attempt to read and then program a spare TMS2532. It reads all FF's but when programmed, it only manages about 500 bytes and then fails, leaving the remainder as FF's.     

Digging through forums and websites indicated that timing could cause write failures - and there are several different speeds supported by the Top programmer software. So I wasted more time UV-erasing and re-burning the same spare IC over and over at different writing speeds, and then trying different 2732 devices from the support list with different speeds.

In all combinations the writing would generally manage about 500 bytes but usually not much more than that - and sometimes it was interleaved with FF's as well.   


The next 'experiment' was trying every version of TopWin + USB driver combination I could get my hands on. This was helped greatly by each version having slight variation on the same name, slightly different install path and with installer version numbering that didn't match the installed version on the main window. After 3 or so versions are installed, you have no chance of figuring out which one is which. But this is just a VM, so who cares!

This exercise turned ugly when v6 of the Top software installed a USB driver that caused the VMWare guest to bluescreen-reboot in a loop. This one took some time to undo.   


After determining none of these versions of the software were working properly, or in the same way as each other, I uninstalled them all, force-uninstall-and-deleted the driver that kept reinstalling itself and BSOD'ding WinXP, and went back to TopWin v1.44 - which was able to at least read the IC without throwing errors, even if writing failed every time.


I had one final idea - the only good one during the whole exercise. Writing failed somewhere around the 500 byte mark, but it varied. It wasn't a nice tidy binary address which suggested a pinout or compatibility problem. It was something 'fuzzy' like voltages or timing, and I had tried timing.

Beginning to doubt the programmer was getting enough power over the USB cable, I dug out a double-USB cable from an old DSO and plugged it into the programmer.

The next attempt at writing the IC was successful.      

I then read all of the Datron eproms from both units and verified a couple by burning copies to the spare IC and testing it in one of the units. Everything working nicely.


/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Boiling this down a lot, it seems there is a winning combination for using these older Top programmers on Win7...Win10 for backing up these eproms - and it looks like this:

software:

* WinXP 32bit VM image downloaded from Microsoft
* VMWare v12 free noncommercial (or workstation, if you have it)
* topwinen3x.exe [which turns out to be TopWin v1.44 when installed)

hardware:

* TOP2004 programmer (or another version from this era)
* high current USB port (or a double-plug USB cable with lower powered ports - and mine aren't supposed be low power!)
* 2732 -> TMS2532 adapter (pins 18,20,21 rewired as follows...)
    2532    2732
    21     ->   20
    20     ->   18
    18     ->   21

The generic ???2732 device, (or AMD2732) from the device list can be used to do the programming.

The writing speed I used, from the selection of available speeds was: 'Speed'. There are other writing speeds available in TopWin such as 'High', 'Mid', 'Slow' and 'Slowness' but you want... 'Speed'.      (the device I used is TMS2532JL)


Credit for the adapter pinswap guide goes here: http://www.primrosebank.net/computers/pet/projects/roms/pet_roms.htm



Note: It is initially confusing that the datasheet for both ICs have the Q data pins numbered differently. One counts from 0, the other from 1. At a glance this makes the pinouts look more different than they actually are - but only 3 pins are exchanged.

I haven't seen 1062 firmware on the web - if anyone knows of a repository for these I'd like to look at the versioning to see if there are newer updates. I could also donate the images I have just extracted. They are different, with a few years between the date codes.

I have no idea if 1061/1062/1071 firmware is the same, or compatible. From what I can tell, the 1062 is a 1061A with a specific combination of options so they may use the same firmware. It would be interesting to confirm this.

The 1071 achieves an extra digit through block averaging, which will be done in the firmware. I haven't studied the schematics closely enough to know if there is more to it though.

My units are both marked with option 'LS101', having Ohms & AC/RMS but no current option, being standard for 1062.

[Testtech]

1071 FW is on KO4BB.com

[dml]

1071 FW is on KO4BB.com

Thanks. I diffed the 1062 images against the 1071 and they're all very different. The 1071 code uses a lot more space.

One of the 1071 images (M18) begins with a 2kbyte block of FF's (half of the rom) which makes me doubt those were read ok - unusual to have padding at the start of a ROM. Only one chip though - the others look normal.

The two sets of 1062 roms are much closer but still a lot of diffs. One is dated '86, the other '87. The later one uses slightly more space.

[dacman]

The 1062 is (usually) a 1061A with options (Ohms and ACV).  The LS101 has a 50 pin rear input connector, accepts SCPI commands, Ohms, and ACV Option 12 which is about twice as accurate as Option 10 but takes up the space of both Opt 10 and Opt 30 (Current) therefore Opt 12 and Opt 30 are mutually exclusive.  AC/DC current was an option for both the 1061A and 1062, but only with Option 10.

[dml]

The 1062 is (usually) a 1061A with options (Ohms and ACV).  The LS101 has a 50 pin rear input connector, accepts SCPI commands, Ohms, and ACV Option 12 which is about twice as accurate as Option 10 but takes up the space of both Opt 10 and Opt 30 (Current) therefore Opt 12 and Opt 30 are mutually exclusive.  AC/DC current was an option for both the 1061A and 1062, but only with Option 10.

Thanks for the extra info. Some of this is not too clear from the docs alone. In fact some of the docs are titled with 1062 but only refer to 1061,1071 within (etc.). This more or less explains why.

[dml]

1071 FW is on KO4BB.com

The 1062 firmware has been added to the repo.

I'm tempted to try the 1071 firmware in a 1062 to see what happens. I expect it to fail because one of the 1071 images looks bad to me but I might just try it anyway.

(If anyone manages to extract a fresh set of 1071 images it could help with that test!).

[DC1MC]

The EPROM image with lower 2K empty is valid for M18, I'm currently disassembling the software for these Datrons that use the same hw platform. Very interesting adventure 

There is/was on the forum a single set of bad imaged from Capt Bulshot, that had a reader failure, but the M18 looks fully unprogrammed and the other have two identical 2KB halves.

If you concat them in this order: M18 + M35 + M30 and apply a IDA Pro setting the vectors in the last 8 bytes, especially the last two where the start/reset address is you will see valid code.
For the mapping, the 12KB are mirrored from 0xD000 to 0xFFFF and 0x9000 to 0xBFFF ( yes there is a 4KB gap).
The firmware is assembled ORG $9000, even if at startup the 0xFFFE is read for the startup vector, somewhere 0x9800.
So there is a good chance that nothing will blow, the explanation for M18 looking half unprogrammed is that in some schematics it's represented as 2516, a 2KB device.

Also if you want divest of any of the Datrons please contact me 

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

[dml]

The EPROM image with lower 2K empty is valid for M18,

Ok good to know. I'll give them a spin later and report the damage

I'm currently disassembling the software for these Datrons that use the same hw platform. Very interesting adventure 

I started doing the same last night using an old open source disassembler. I don't have a full IDAPro license any more and I don't think the free one does 6800 (?), not that I checked too closely. I'm good with most of the Motorola processors so I can read this fairly easily.

Anyway I quickly decided it would take more time than I really have right now to make sense of the code, so after a bit of mucking about looking for the routine entrypoints and confirming some sensible looking routines, I have left it for another day.

Now that I know you're busy with that project already, I'll probably just wait and watch

If you concat them in this order: M18 + M35 + M30 and apply a IDA Pro setting the vectors in the last 8 bytes, especially the last two where the start/reset address is you will see valid code.
For the mapping, the 12KB are mirrored from 0xD000 to 0xFFFF and 0x9000 to 0xBFFF ( yes there is a 4KB gap).
The firmware is assembled ORG $9000, even if at startup the 0xFFFE is read for the startup vector, somewhere 0x9800.
So there is a good chance that nothing will blow, the explanation for M18 looking half unprogrammed is that in some schematics it's represented as 2516, a 2KB device.

Thanks for the info. This will help if I do any more digging or hacking around in there.

Also if you want divest of any of the Datrons please contact me 

;-)

[dml]

So I did get around to conducting the experiment with different EPROM sets in the Datron 1062. The results are fairly interesting.

I started with a copy of the 1987 firmware revision from unit #1 installed in unit #2 (1986) and found that it boots up now straight into DC volts mode without the 'Error 0' and without the intermittent blank display on bootup. Hmm. Need to look into that a bit more closely.

And it does work normally in all modes, passes all TESTs.
 

I then tried the 1071 firmware in the same 1062 unit, for lols. This apparently works too. And I seem to have gained +1 digit.   o__O




However when running TEST, it fails every step except for the display (Error 5,6,7). Given that it passes these tests with the 1062 firmware installed, and the readings look the same, it seems to be the FW test criteria - maybe the extra digit throwing it off.

I'm also not sure if there may be a stored-calibration format mismatch - but the various modes do appear to read correctly near-zero with the terminals shorted, at least. So I'll assume for now its 'okay'.

Perhaps with a better understanding of the FW code and some hackery, it can be made to pass the TESTs too :-)


Extra notes...

These results are with the IEEE board disconnected. Otherwise the Datron gets really upset during startup and remains stuck on 'Error 0 + REM'. The IEEE board has its own FW (M3) and I guess these need to match for comms purposes. I'll try reflashing that later when I have more time to see if it corrects the problem...

This is my second attempt at trying the 1071 FW in the 1062. The first attempt produced a really exciting random segment strobe on the display and fun sounds from one of the boards - like a relay-turned-oscillator. I didn't leave it powered up very long like this. In fact I couldn't reach the power button fast enough.

This could have been due to one of the EPROMs flashes being bad, or a dirty pin, or the IEEE board still being hooked up with the wrong FW on it.... Don't know. But a second attempt with a fresh erase/burn and the IEEE disconnected is working without those fireworks.

The front panel (in fact, the whole case) still needs a thorough clean on both units. I'll get to that once I'm done with the fixes & experiments.

[DC1MC]

Damm it, now that the secret is out  , how can I get cheap Datrons anymore, if the 1062, works with the 1082 firmware I'm doomed. 

For 1071, a full recalibration with erasing the calibration memory may be need it, it's not possible that the values are similar.

 Good work and cheers,
 DC1MC

[dml]

Damm it, now that the secret is out  , how can I get cheap Datrons anymore, if the 1062, works with the 1082 firmware I'm doomed. 

...sorry :-)

(face-palms, having only scooped 2 so far - not enough for a tower!)


In fact I'm not sure how well the FW really works - as you say it needs re-calibration and testing all ranges etc. For now, I can only say it boots and looks convincing. 

[capt bullshot]

Damm it, now that the secret is out  , how can I get cheap Datrons anymore, if the 1062, works with the 1082 firmware I'm doomed. 

For 1071, a full recalibration with erasing the calibration memory may be need it, it's not possible that the values are similar.

 Good work and cheers,
 DC1MC

Anyway, running a 1062 with 1071 FW won't upgrade the specs (didn't check if there's a significant difference), just adds a digit or two. Of course, that row of nice orange digits looks cool
So now I'll have to fix my good ol' ALL03 to upgrade my 1061 to a least a 1061A
In comparison with an HP34401A, the Datrons are rather drifty, you'll have to warm up them for at least one (better two) hour.

[dml]

Anyway, running a 1062 with 1071 FW won't upgrade the specs (didn't check if there's a significant difference), just adds a digit or two. Of course, that row of nice orange digits looks cool

Yes fair point. Even if the schematics are a match in the key areas, there could have been some selection involved afterwards. And I haven't checked the schematics for diffs yet.

Still, given that the 1071 gains extra digits through block averaging in firmware, I will assume for now that the extra digit is at least a meaningful one and not a random number Even if it is just an assumption for now!

So now I'll have to fix my good ol' ALL03 to upgrade my 1061 to a least a 1061A

Enjoy!

In comparison with an HP34401A, the Datrons are rather drifty, you'll have to warm up them for at least one (better two) hour.

I noticed that - but I'm plenty happy with this for the fun repair journey and the sub-$100 pricetag.

[dml]

Have now confirmed that re-flashing M3 on the IEEE board with the '87 firmware allows the '86 unit to run all of the '87 firmware with the IEEE board connected, and without lock up on startup.

Will try the same for the 1071 firmware another day...

[coromonadalix]

Nice findings 

[Johnny10]

I was wondering what you did to clear the Fail 5,6,7 errors.
My Datron 1062 LS is acting flaky.

After a 2 hours running it it will reset itself to power-on parameters.

On power-on it will Fail 5,6,7 sometimes I0-P.
Sometimes I can zero sometimes not.

Your thread seemed to go off towards firmware issues, just wondering if you went through all the basics.
Re-seat IC's
Change Caps

Thanks

[DC1MC]

All the firmware and stuff it's to be done AFTER recaping AND reseating of the chips (except for the NVRAMs of course).
 - On ALL of my (4) devices the PS elcos were done, and the voltages were a) noooisy and/or b) incorrect, so recapping of the PS MUST be done first thing, also check the 5V regulator wiring, they tend to rotten due to corrosive flux .
 - On almost all of my devices, now and then some tantalum cap explodes (favorite is the AC board), so this must be done next, along with reseating or actually removing, cleaning of the pins and reinserting of the ICs.
 - After this, if some strange phenomenons persist (time drift, noisy readings), it's time to carefully measure and eventually replace the optos, another  spawn.

 After all of the above it's done, we can talk about firmware versions, replacing references and things like that.

 Good luck,
 DC1MC

[dacman]

The six electrolytics on the front of the analog board are high failure capacitors and part of the power supply (+/- 40V inverter).  I used to "repair" 1062s so they would blank on power-up and thus warm-up without burning the display.  (There are about 3 or 4 critical ICs that if are too slow the TI will not blank on power-up.)

[DC1MC]

The six electrolytics on the front of the analog board are high failure capacitors and part of the power supply (+/- 40V inverter).  I used to "repair" 1062s so they would blank on power-up and thus warm-up without burning the display.  (There are about 3 or 4 critical ICs that if are too slow the TI will not blank on power-up.)

So, to generalize, let's postulate 1 be:

[1] All polarized capacitors in a Datron device must be replaced immediately.

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

[Johnny10]

These are the 6 you are talking about?

[DC1MC]

These are the 6 you are talking about?

Yup, it's like in Matrix: "Sargent, your people are already dead"
Actually it's really strange, it's not like they're under a terrible stress, but still if you measure them you'll be amazed, mine usually have something like nanofarads value and tens or 100s of ohms ERS.

 Cheers,
 DC1MC

[wn1fju]

I concur with the previous post.  Measured the six (blue) Philips electrolytics on my perfectly working Datron 1062.  For the six rated values of 10, 10, 33, 33,
47, 47 uF, I got 5.58, 4.1, 24.58, 24.8, 18.5, 13.24 uF with ESRs of >20, 13.1, 1.38, 1.5, 18.7 and >20. 

Sure convinced me to replace them!

[dacman]

Those six capacitors are presently made by BC Components, which is part of Vishay and they are still high failure.  (021 ASM series although for same physical size the voltage needs bumped up.)  I'd buy another series or brand.  The 138 series is OK.  I used to want to replace parts with OEM parts, but I learned the hard way that these capacitors do not like longevity.

[Johnny10]

Before and after scope shots...

Electrolytic Capacitors replaced with Nichicon of the next highest Voltage.
NE 5534 Op Amp Replaced
M1  6N136 OptoIsolator replaced


Signals are:
Yellow: TP3  2nd Null Detector Output
Cyan: TP5  Integrator Input
Magenta: TP4   Integrator Output

[velik_kazakov]

Before and after scope shots...

Electrolytic Capacitors replaced with Nichicon of the next highest Voltage.
NE 5534 Op Amp Replaced
M1  6N136 OptoIsolator replaced


Signals are:
Yellow: TP3  2nd Null Detector Output
Cyan: TP5  Integrator Input
Magenta: TP4   Integrator Output

Hi, what type of opamp you use on the place of NE5534. Need to tuning one 1061A and one 1065 at home (1065 start to reset itself in the last month).