Posted by Zigmond Floyed on September 30, 2010 at 8:42pm
A few days ago I read the information available about the ArduPilot Mega board and also reviewed the schematics. I searched for the information on this site as well as the SourceForge repository. Since I design embedded systems for a living, I thought that I could understand the design very quickly. Understanding the software from the source code was quite easy; however, the schematics proved to be quite a riddle. There are so many pins on the pair of on-board processors that end in never-never land, that I must ask, this forum to please explain what they are for. In addition, I wonder if there is provision for communication between the Mega1280 and the Mega328 and if there is how it is accomplished?Answers, anyone?Thanks,-Zigi
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Thanks for responding to my question about the ArduPilot Mega CPU-CPU communication. BTW-I wrote SourceForge repository and I meant to say GoogleCode.
You say that there is a single line that that passes PPM signal. Unfortunately this info remains ambiguous to me at that level so here are some more specific questions:
1. If there is a single line for communication between the 1280 and the 328 what are the pins numbers on each CPU that this line connects?
2. Is the communication one way as in the 1280 feeds PPM signal to the 328 and does not receive any information back from the 328?
3. Is there a provision for "real" inter-processor communication on the board that will allow cooperation between the two uPs?
Replies
You say that there is a single line that that passes PPM signal. Unfortunately this info remains ambiguous to me at that level so here are some more specific questions:
1. If there is a single line for communication between the 1280 and the 328 what are the pins numbers on each CPU that this line connects?
2. Is the communication one way as in the 1280 feeds PPM signal to the 328 and does not receive any information back from the 328?
3. Is there a provision for "real" inter-processor communication on the board that will allow cooperation between the two uPs?
Thanks,
-Zigi
The 328 talks to the Atmega1280 via a single digital pin, which reads PPM.