Hunched over the Test Setup

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

I have spent the day hunched over the test set up.  I am trying to get 
boards checked out to send to Michael and Arne.  Sigh!  I started with 
Memory board A good and board B bad.  After about 6 hours of testing 
everything, Memory board B was good and A was bad.  I had not done anything 
obvious that should have changed which one was working.  I am sick of 
looking at these boards.  Something is very sensitive and just drifts in 
and out of working.

At the moment, both A and B are working, and I have done something.  So I 
will study it more.

There is tremendous motivation for me to get a different memory board 
solution.  I think the ECP is it.  But I want to make sure I understand the 
problem first.  Meanwhile, I am working on running a remote computer next 
to the telescope.

It appears that the problem is extra clock pulses on the long cable to the 
Memory board.  You all may recall that I put a filter on the Memory board 
and this made such a big improvement that I thought the problem 
solved.  But it appears to be just greatly reduced.  I do know how to do 
this in a foolproof way, I was just trying to be cheap in my design, and 
now I am paying the price.

Why am I looking at Memory boards to test the Stamp/Scanner boards which I 
am trying to ship.  Well, I want to understand the problem.  When I test a 
Stamp board I do a complete system test.  If the memory board dies in the 
middle of the test then I am not sure I have a good Stamp board.  Sigh!  I 
will get there.

I think I would rather do this than try to hunt down terrorists.  That 
looks to be really hard.

Tom Droege