San Jose Tek: Miscellaneous

Cubieboard2 NAND install

I followed the bring up instruction that most of cubieboard site describes, and I could boot cubian from SD card. However, when I tried to install the boot image to NAND, I was not able to boot the system successfully. Although cubian-nandinstall was completed without any errors, it did not boot without SD card. It took for a while that I found out the cubian-nandinstall message saying "*** Read http://tinyurl.com/qyee5k2, if the board won't boot from NAND ***". I followed the link, and this is the instruction how to solve the issue. Basically, it needs to burn NAND with lubuntu and then burn it again with cubian-nandinstall.

Burn NAND with lubuntu image using USB OTG
Download and extract PhoenixSuit. (My host is Windows, so I used PhoenixSuit instead of LiveSuit.)
```
http://dl.cubieboard.org/software/tools/livesuit/PhoenixSuit1.0.7.rar
```
Hold FEL button of the cubieboard2 and connect the USB OTG port to PC. While the driver installation, the FEL button needs to be pressed. If driver is not found, manually install the driver under the extracted PhoenixSuite driver folder.

Download and extract lubuntu desktop image.
```
http://docs.cubieboard.org/tutorials/a20-cubieboard_lubuntu_desktop_releases
```
Launch PhoenixSuit.exe and press "Firmware" tab. Select the img file downloaded above and press "Upgrade". Before writing the image, unplug and plug back in the USB cable by pressing FEL button.
When it is completed successfully, unplug the USB cable. The next step is to prepare for the cubian installed SD card.
Prepare for SD card with cubian
This is done easily using "ImageWriter" which can be downloaded from following link.
https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer
Download cubian SD card image file from the link below and unzip the file.
http://cubian.org/downloads/

Connect SD card to PC and launch "ImageWriter". Make sure it detects the SD card.
Select the image file and press "Copy" to start writing the image to SD card.
Burn NAND with cubian-nandinstall
Insert the SD card to cubieboard2 and and boot the board. Once system boots successfully, all you need to do is run a command which is "cubian-nandinstall".
If the command is not available, you need to install the tool.
```
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cubian-nandinstall
sudo cubian-nandinstall
```
It will take for a while to finish it and after it is done, it asks to power off the system.
Select "Yes" and power off the board. When you boot next time, remove the SD card and it should boot from NAND.

Hardware:
    Cubieboard2
    MicroSD Card

Summary:

Reference:
http://cubian.org/2014/06/30/troubleshooting-nandinstall-on-a20/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeULfhdX1CY

Quick overview of the I-Racer HardwareI purchased I-Racer to start my RC car project, and it is a nice starter kit that supports Android apps to remotely control the car via Bluetooth.
Hardware components
These are the major parts list that I-Racer is probably using.
Some parts were hard to guess by checking the marking on the chip.

MCU: ATMEL ATMEGA48-10AU
LDO: CYT6206
Battery: ATL462849, 490mAh, 150mOhm, L 48mm x W 28.2mm x H 4.3mm
Bluetooth Module: SKU80711
I found a good website that is also investigating the I-Racer hardware.
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/33140
Motor driver circuit
After the circuit investigation, I created a clone of the motor driver circuit.
I am not 100% sure this is exactly same as the one on the board though...
Next step is to simulate this circuit using SPICE.

Hardware:
I-Racer
Fluke Multimeter

Reference:
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/33140
https://sites.google.com/site/augmentedrccarbattle/

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