Picaxe 28X1 firmware A.4 has a bug, get a replacement

Community General Discussions
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1

As discovered by members of LMR, there is a bug in one version of one kind of Picaxe.

Phil and Limpa described their problems in two different nodes on the site. This thread aims to bring all info together, so we can write a walk through about it.

 

Phil wrote:

 

Recognising Buggy Version:

I don't use the Rev-Ed program editor so I can't give specific instructions but when your program is downloaded there is a confirmation dialogue. I'm using the command line compiler on Linux which reported "PASS - programmed PICAXE-28X1 (40X1) vA.4 successfully.", I assume that something similar is seen in the Windows Program Editor.

I suggest that if that confirmation string contains vA.4 then you have buggy firmware. I assume that any future purchase from Rev-Ed will contain a later version of the firmware, and the A.4 firmware seems fine for other things - I have successfully connected up an SRF005, switches and LEDs.

Chips Affected:

The only chip I am aware has a servo/servopos problem is the 28X1 with v A.4 of the firmware. I assume that different chips have different firmware but it is possible that, say, 28X1 and 40X1 share similar code and therefore the 40X1 might have the same problem.

Symtoms:

The servo and servopos commands move the servo clockwise and the server buzzes; however if you use the appropriate pulsout commands the servo works correctly.

Additionally, as both Limpa and I discovered, if you perform a servo command on another output then servo commands on the proper servo port work. To get port 0 to work you need to fidde with port 7, port 1 fiddle with port 0. This is not a solution in most cases and the servo port is in a funny state so if you stop issuing commands it will turn on after about 12 seconds, and stay on for over two minutes.

Getting Replacement:

I emailed Rev-Ed technical support (and posted to the picaxe forum) describing the problem and, after they investigated and fixed the problem, they shipped me replacement chips.

 

Limpa is still waiting for a replacement chip.
(R)ik will see which version of the 28x1 ik bought back in October.

 

8ik

 

 

 

 

 

2

guess I am safe

This is the dialog window I get after uploading a (empty) program:

picaxe28x1_version.png

And here is the options dialog from the main menu item "view":

picaxe28x1_options.png

When I click "Firmware?", this appears:

picaxe28x1_options_firmware.png

The important number to notice is (in my case) 3. As far as I can tell, that is good number. 4 would be bad. 5 is good again. At least for a 28x1 version of the Picaxe chip.

8ik

3

OMG

Yeah I’ve got the problem to… I tried everything with the code, and when I made a mistake and there was somewhere in the code servo 7,150 it worked (well not perfectly unfortunately) and I screamed Eureka through the whole house, but I started changing the code and now I *u**ed up again :frowning: Gotta send it back too i guess…

BTW I got it brandnew (for a week now) and I got a stupid A.4 too… why do they still send them if they know they have a bug?!

4

Do they know?

I am not sure if every seller of picaxes out there does know about the bug. I have yet to find find a webpage dedicated to this bug.

Outside LMR of course…

8ik

5

all of which still leaves to wonder
whether version A5 also solves Chris’ problems with serout.

6

Well it does solve chris’
Well it does solve chris’ issue, though I’m at a loss as to how. Also from the notes that rev-ed posted on the fix, it doesn’t have any link to the serial issue unless CTC was doing some pwm/servo commands while trying to write to the display. I’m thinking it was a different problem with that 28x altogether, just happened to be the .4 version.

7

Well… you can also put this

Well… you can also put this before your code too, and then the servo’s should work:

Start:
servo 0,150
servo 1,150
servo 2,150
servo 3,150
servo 4,150
servo 5,150
servo 6,150
servo 7,150
low 0
low 1
low 2
low 3
low 4
low 5
low 6
low 7
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