Hi Alex,
Welcome back.
Thanks for spotting the dead link on the downloads page, I've fixed it. In any case, that was just for Arduino Mega based boards, so doesn't apply here.
In terms of getting your V4.0 to work with the latest firmware, there are a couple of required changes.
- The addition of an ST-4 connector.
- A new 1k resistor is required to be connected between pins 12 and 31 of the ATMega (IC1). (see quote below)
I believe you've found pictures of the conversion already, however in those pictures, it shows a conversion with just the 4 direction pins connected. This was changed slightly in later versions, so you'll need to wire up slightly differently if you want to be able to use the hand controller.
I've attached two pictures. The first shows the pinout of the ST-4 connector, which is basically the same as the ubiquous ST4 pinout, with the only difference being the otherwise unconnected pin 1 is used for speed selection.
The second shows the connections that must be made to the AstroEQ board. The six pins on the connector must be soldered to the corresponding microcontroller pins (note this is a top down view, make sure to flip it if looking at the bottom of the board).
Additionally as shown in the second picture, a 1k resistor must be connected between pins 31 and 12 of the ATMega. Without this resistor the AstroEQ will be unable to talk to EQMOD or the config utility as it will jump into standalone/handcontroller mode.
Once those changes have been made, you'll be able to update the controller to the latest version of the firmware. You'll be able to use your modified controller with either A4988/A4983 drivers or DRV8824/DRV8825 drivers. You won't be able to use the TMCxxx or DRV8834 drivers.
In terms of Windows XP, the you won't be able to run the configuration utility, you'll have to do that on another computer. This only has to be used when making changes to the configuration or updating the firmware. It's not required when using EQMOD. Once the controller is updated you'll be able to connect it back up to your existing XP setup and it will work fine.
If you have any problems, let me know. As it happens I have an old V4.0 board sat on my desk (purely for nostalgia), so if anything goes wrong we should be able to get you back up and running.
Kind Regards,
Tom.
Hi Henk,
V4.3 hardware is possibly the issue. In the later hardware versions there was a resistor added which is used for hand controller detection. Without this resistor the new firmware will not be able to run detection properly and incorrectly switch into push-button mode.
To remedy this, you'll need to add a 1K resistor pins 12 and 31 of the ATMega162 (IC1) which should allow the older hardware to support the newer firmware.
If your board has the ST-4 connector attached, you should also solder a wire between pin 12 of the ATMega162 and pin 1 of the ST-4 connector (the pin closest to JP2 on the board).