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QCard C User Guide

Table of Contents

PART 1 GETTING STARTED

Chapter 1: Getting to Know Your QCard Controller

Chapter 2: Using Your PowerDock

Chapter 3: Your First Program

PART 2 PROGRAMMING THE QCARD CONTROLLER

Chapter 4: The IDE: Writing, Compiling, Downloading and Debugging

Chapter 5: Making Effective Use of Memory

Chapter 6: Real Time Programming

Chapter 7: Failure and Run-Time Error Recovery

PART 3 COMMUNICATIONS, MEASUREMENT, AND CONTROL

Chapter 8: Digital and Timer-Controlled I/O

Chapter 9: Data Acquisition Using Analog to Digital Conversion

Chapter 10: Serial Communications

Chapter 11: The Battery-Backed Real-Time Clock

PART 4 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Chapter 12: A Turnkeyed Application

PART 5 REFERENCE DATA

Appendix A: QCard Electrical Specifications

Appendix B: Connector Pinouts

Appendix C: Schematics (zip)

Appendix A

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QCard Electrical Specifications

General Specifications

 

               Property

Value

                              CPU

Freescale 68HC11F1 microcontroller with 16 MHz clock speed and 4 MHz bus speed.  Paged memory expands the processor’s address space to 1 Megabyte.

     Onboard Memory

512K Flash
128K RAM (or optional 512K RAM)
320 bytes of EEPROM
Optional battery backup of 128K RAM

        Real-Time Clock

Optional battery-backed real-time clock

                   Interrupts

21 interrupts support the 68HC11’s on-chip I/O subsystems

      Communications

Serial 1: RS232 or RS485 hardware UART at up to 19.2 Kbaud

Serial 2: RS232 software UART at up to 4800 baud

       SPI: Fast synchronous serial peripheral interface (SPI) at up to 2 Megabaud

                         Power

5 VDC at 150 mA
+8-26V if WildCards are used that require the greater voltage

      Timer-Controlled                      Digital I/O

CPU Port A provides 8 bitwise programmable I/O lines, including:

·  3 or 4 input capture functions facilitate accurate detection of pulse edges and measurement of pulse widths with a resolution of 2ms

·  4 or 5 output compare functions make it easy to create complex waveforms and pulse-width modulated signals up to 20KHz at 50% CPU load, and,

·  A pulse accumulator facilitates frequency measurement and pulse counting up to 2MHz

Two lines of Port A are optionally used for a 2nd serial port.

        Analog to Digital                 Conversion

CPU Port E provides 8 input channels of 8-bit resolution analog to digital conversion
at up to 100 kHz sampling rate, 0-5 V input range.  These inputs may alternately be used as digital inputs.

                Connectors

              WildCard Port Connector:   24-pin, 0.1” pitch, dual row
                             Field Connector:   24-pin, 0.1” pitch, dual row
                           Serial Connector:   10-pin, 0.1” pitch, dual row
      Power (and JTAG) Connector:   7-pin, 2mm pitch, single row

      Runtime Security

A watchdog timer and clock monitor ensure orderly reset or restart after an error

             I/O Expansion

The QCard directly hosts 4 WildCards.  If mounted on a PowerDock, hosts up to 8 WildCards.  Wildcards available include:

4 x 20 character display and 5 x 4 keypad

16- or 24-bit resolution A/D

12-bit D/A

Isolated AC or DC solid state relays

64 or 128 Mbyte Compact Flash memory

Logic level, high voltage, and high current digital I/O

Fully buffered dual RS232, RS422 or RS485 UARTs at up to 56 Kbaud

Power

Your PowerDock (which optionally provides power for your QCard) includes a high-efficiency switching regulator with surge suppression, transient filtering, and EMI/RFI filtering to provide clean supplies for the onboard analog and digital electronics.  You need only supply regulated or unregulated DC power in the range of 8 to 26 volts.

Surge Suppression

The raw input is protected by a “varistor” rated at 33 Volts DC.  This metal oxide surge suppresser protects a QCard powered by a PowerDock by clamping high voltage spikes before they have a chance to do any harm.  The varistor has no effect if the input voltage is less than the maximum specified, or 26 volts.  Above 33 volts the device starts to conduct current, and it acts like a short circuit to high voltages, thus clamping the voltage spikes.  To prevent this varistor from consuming current, you should make sure that the maximum DC voltage supplied is always less than 26 volts.

EMI/RFI Filter

Additional protection is provided by an electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency interference (RFI) filter that prevents high frequency noise from invading the circuitry via the power input, and also prevents EMI from propagating back to the external power supply.  The EMI filter is implemented by a two stage PI network of inductors and capacitors. The output of the first stage filter, called  V+raw, is passed to the Wildcard module bus for supply to Wildcard modules that require their own unregulated DC power.  This unregulated voltage is free of high-frequency and high-voltage transients.  If you design custom add-on Wildcard boards, we recommend that you use V+raw as the input for local 5 Volt regulators.  It is good design practice to place local voltage regulators on each board, as this minimizes noise problems and improves modularity.

The QCard Controller and PowerDock assembly is designed for reliable low noise operation.  It is implemented as a state of the art 6-layer surface-mount board.  Two inner layers are dedicated ground and power planes, providing low-impedance return paths for digital current spikes.

 

Parameter

Min

Typ.

Max

Units

Conditions

Input Voltage

8

 

26

Volts

 

Power Usage

 

0.75

 

Watts

No Wildcards

Power Usage – per Wildcard

 

0.5

 

 

Each Wildcard

Operating Conditions

 

Parameter

Min

Max

Units

Conditions

Operating Temperature Range – Electronics

0

70

°C

Industrial Temp also available
(-40 to 85°C)

Humidity

0

95

% Relative Humidity

At 0 to 45°C, no condensation

Memory

 

Parameter

Standard

With –MM Option

Units

Flash

512

512

KBytes

RAM

129

513

KBytes

EEPROM

512

512

Bytes

Battery-Backed RAM

128

 

KBytes (with –BB option)

Compact Flash Wildcard

 

64-256

MBytes

CPU I/O (CPU Ports A, D, E)

 

Parameter

Min

Max

Units

Conditions

I/O Voltage Range

-0.1

5.3

Volts

 

Input Low Voltage

 

1.0

Volts

0.2 x VDD

Input High Voltage

3.5

 

Volts

0.7 x VDD

Input Leakage Current

 

±1

mA

 

Output Low Voltage

 

0.4

Volts

at 1.6 mA

Output High Voltage

3.7

 

Volts

at –0.8 mA and VDD=4.5 V

Output Source

 

25

mA

<65 W output drive impedance, one pin at a time, observing max power dissipation limits.

Output Sink

 

25

mA

<65 W output drive impedance, one pin at a time, observing max power dissipation limits.

Note:    We recommend limiting total package power dissipation accruing from I/O current to 800 mW or less, to assure that the junction temperature remains below 125ºC.

8-bit Analog To Digital Conversion

 

Parameter

Min

Typical

Max

Units

Conditions

Number of Input Channels

 

8

 

 

 

Sampling Frequency

 

 

100,000

Samples per second

 

Input Voltage Range

-0.1

0.0 to 5.0

5.1

Volts

 

Nonlinearity

 

 

1

LSB

 

Absolute Accuracy

 

 

2

LSB

 

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