SD Adapter

[TuxTheWise]

Okay, I could fix an old Dreamcast of mine and now, with a spare unit, I can finally make my SD Card adapter.

I've checked the serial port from inside and the pins are small and really close to each other. I'd like to mount the adapter without taking my serial out. Any tip about soldering these very small wires? I'm not that good at soldering, but I can get practice before actually doing it. But maybe someone can help me with some technique or extra equipament I may need.

And another question, I remember looking at two SD schemes: one with the pins directly attached to SD and another with an intermediary IC. What would be the point using the buffer? (schemes)

Thanks.

[SWAT]

Use "SD Card Interface 2", this is more easy.

[Neoblast]

And faster

[TuxTheWise]

Ok, I'm ready to mount my SD adapter. I decided to solder the pins in the main board (getting the resistor and capacitor terminals as contact) instead of the serial pins, it seems much easier.

Anyway, in the site of the japanese dude that made the scheme, there is a note saying that you may need to remove the capacitors if you're getting reading problems. Was it necessary to anyone? Should I be worried about that?

[SWAT]

Do not worry. Remove capacitors need for increase the speed. It is not necessary to do.

[Neoblast]

It just enhaces the speed a lot... but as swat said it's not neccesary...

[TuxTheWise]

Okay, wires are now all set in the board and I have all the things I need. It should be working by the end of the week. I can't wait for it *-*

[Guaripolo]

hi, i've assembled the sd adapter, with the jj1odm bin loader, the card is detected, but no file is listed (it appears empty, but the sd card has some files inside). I was reading that the dectection of a sd card in spi mode requires some commands, so i assume that transmission and reception is working, but i don't know how it is being done with jj1odm code, maybe my circuit is wrong. So, now i got this teories:

1) circuit is wrong, there's a wrong tx/rx
2) memory doesn't support spi mode/don't work with dreamcast sd adaptor
3) some kind of fault, wrong-bad capacitors make bad currentç

Thanks in advance!

[SWAT]

You use SD, SDHC, miniSD or microSD with adaptor?
You did not try to use it in DreamShell?

[Guaripolo]

i'm using a kingston 512mb sd card. I did not tried dreamshell still (i got no cds), but i was looking at kallistios sd driver source, and seems that the card detection involves some operations between dc and sd card, so i suppose that it's working at some point. Now i will try dreamshell, another sd card and see what happens. Thanks!

[TuxTheWise]

It's alive \o/
I'll post photos soon

Edit: I could run RECV, transfer rate is a little slow but man, it's freaking amazing to see a game booting without a disc. A great start for iso emulation!

Thanks for all your hard work SWAT, I love you man! (in a not gay way of course o.o)

I've used a Kingston C02G made in Taiwan (2gb SD).

For some reason the jj1odm loader haven't work for me, no matter what format I've used. Both FAT and FAT32 worked fine in Dreamshell though

[Guaripolo]

(05.02.2010 23:05)TuxTheWise писал(а):  For some reason the jj1odm loader haven't work for me, no matter what format I've used. Both FAT and FAT32 worked fine in Dreamshell though

so maybe that is my trouble, jj1odm loader detects my card but show no files, i will try Dreamshell, thanks tovarich!

EDIT: my dreamcast doesn't have the EMI capacitors, the places are empty instead. It's a HKT-3010 NTCS-J

[SWAT]

Congratulations!
Just for reference, DreamShell support file systems FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32

[TuxTheWise]

Kind of technical question. Since in SPI transfer speed is controlled by master, in theory Dreamshell could use higher speeds for SD transfers right? Is there any way to configure it using the console?

[SWAT]

DreamShell uses the maximum possible speed of SCI port - 5 Mbit/sec (~600 Kbytes/sec).

[TuxTheWise]

I asked that because you this that before;

(03.02.2010 17:02)SWAT писал(а):  Do not worry. Remove capacitors need for increase the speed. It is not necessary to do.

I thought you could actually use higher speeds.

[SWAT]

I think the increase in speed will not be significant. This is not the main.

[TuxTheWise]

(08.02.2010 11:34)SWAT писал(а):  I think the increase in speed will not be significant. This is not the main.

Okay, thanks for the info
I'm a happier man now with SD + Dreamshell

Well, if there is anything I can help, just let me know. I'm pretty sure it's beyond my skills, but offering help won't hurt anyway.

[SWAT]

Help never hurts. Test the games, I need to know what works and what does not.

[TuxTheWise]

Alright. My university tests end about Wednesday, then I'll finish my adapter (I need to set things into a case, make a connector, etc). So I probably will start testing games about Thursday or Friday, and start a new topic for it.