VGS Post-assembly Troubleshooting Thread

[jcabrer]

It looks like I'm the first person here, and with issues on the VGS to boot!

The assembly instructions were very clear, so no problems there, but the video is no go.

There is a buzzing noise on the audio, but no video. The audio demo doesn't work. At one point I could see horizontal lines, with a slight slant. I'll have access to a scope at work tomorrow, so I'll know more then. In the mean time, if anyone has solved a similar problem, I'd love to hear from you.

I should also mention that I'm using a MEGA, in case that makes a difference.

[wnladmin]

Hi jcabrer!

I don't have a Mega, but try this.

Try connecting digital pin 29 on your mega to the pin marked 7 on the shield. Also connect digital pin 11 on your mega to the pin marked 9 on the shield, and connect digital pin 10 on your mega to pin 11 on the shield.

This *should* get your audio and video working properly.

I'll look into what needs to happen to get the Nunchucks working properly.

Adam Wolf
Wayne and Layne, LLC

[jcabrer]

Well, It looks like VGS cannot work with the Arduino MEGA. The TVout library requires different pins for Video/Sync/Audio when using MEGA. Tha explains the buzzing sound. Video must be going out on pin 11 (PB5 on the 1280) in the MEGA, which is expected to be PB3 on the Duemillanove. If I recall correctly, PB3 is not brought out from the 1280 on the MEGA.

[jcabrer]

Hi jcabrer!

I don't have a Mega, but try this.

Try connecting digital pin 29 on your mega to the pin marked 7 on the shield. Also connect digital pin 11 on your mega to the pin marked 9 on the shield, and connect digital pin 10 on your mega to pin 11 on the shield.

This *should* get your audio and video working properly.

I'll look into what needs to happen to get the Nunchucks working properly.

Adam Wolf
Wayne and Layne, LLC

I'll give it a try tomorrow, but at this point, I may as well just buy an UNO, and maybe look at building a MEGA adapter later on.

[wnladmin]

Alright!

If you wanted to make it work on the Mega, one option besides wire jumpers would be to use a Mega protoshield, something like http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_ ... cts_id=192. I've seen them a bit cheaper other places, but you could do all the needed jumping on that board, and stack the Video Game Shield on top of it.

I'll add a note about the Mega issues to the Video Game Shield page.

Adam Wolf
Wayne and Layne, LLC

[jcabrer]

Thanks for pointing out the link. I was wondering today how I would build such an adapter, and now I know!

My other concern now is that there may be little room to connect the controllers given the extra components on the end of the mega. The protoshield would probably give enough clearance.

[damaru]

Same here with a mega board.

So the TV out library is the problem, it seems that the pin out is hard coded instead of making it assignable.
Is there a possibility that will change ? Or is it only the combination of the VideoGame board with the TVout library
connected to the Mega which will never work ?

If we could reassign the pin out of the library I would assume that it could work no ?

[mdmetzle]

Same here with a mega board.

So the TV out library is the problem, it seems that the pin out is hard coded instead of making it assignable.
Is there a possibility that will change ? Or is it only the combination of the VideoGame board with the TVout library
connected to the Mega which will never work ?

If we could reassign the pin out of the library I would assume that it could work no ?

TVout uses timer 1 to generate the sync signal on the OC1A pin which is device specific; on the m1280 this is PINB5 (mega pin 11). Thus the sync pin cannot be changed, the video pin can changed to any pin though preferably the highest on a port or the 3 and 4 cycle render modes will not work.

[damaru]

can we just recap how to connect to the mega:

+ digital pin 29 on your mega to the pin marked 7 on the shield
+ digital pin 11 on your mega to the pin marked 9 on the shield
+ digital pin 10 on your mega to pin 11 on the shield.

what about the nunchuck ?

[wayne]

damaru,

We actually got a mega earlier this week so we could do a blog post on how to get this working with an Arduino mega. This week we'll show how to do it with regular jumper wires, and when we get a Mega protoshield, we'll show how to do it and keep it looking snazzy.

Adam Wolf
Wayne and Layne, LLC