Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
By just charlie Thu May 28, 2009 7:46 am
namotu wrote:ahhh thank the lord i finally got this to work...damn finally, thanks for all the help. my red light never goes on though, i kinda liked it though.

anways, now its easy to test cards so i found the ones that work and the ones that dont.


what was the solution?
By namotu Thu May 28, 2009 10:51 pm
i had the ribbon cable pushed al the way in on the reader, and i thought i had it all the way in on the MP too, but like stated above...you really gotta push down till it sinks in completely. i just wasnt doin that.

the LED goes on when im loadin things and saving and wat not, so it all works out now. great product
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By SMC Fri May 29, 2009 2:11 pm
namotu wrote:great product


hahahaaaaaaaaaa, thanx

I know it can be frustrating when you get something new and it doesn't work the first time you turn it on :)

Just a lil quick troubleshooting and double checking and tadda! It's usually connections or incompatible cards.
By eibou Mon Jun 01, 2009 1:30 pm
eibou wrote:Yo, I found a 1gb card that works - Delkin Devices DDCFFLS2-1GB.


I just made the drive hot-swap with this card. When u take the card out, mp won't go nuts and when u put it back, just go to load screen and change the device to f-rom and then back to atapi. That's it. I'm very pleased. Tried this with another 1gb cf-card - didn't work. So all the cards that are compatible, can't be hot-swapped.
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By SMC Mon Jun 01, 2009 1:41 pm
In my experience, some work this way, and some do not.

Keep in mind, as I explained before, that the card reader is like a bridge.... the storage itself is adapted to the CF connection inside the card itself, and there are many different formats of this, and they always change.

So rather than call it a Sometimes Hot-Swap, I just don't mess with it. Most people will not get that to work.

Unless maybe I just don't remember right...... gotta remember all my testing and stuff was over 2 years ago.

Hmmm.

So you're saying that with the Delkin Devices DDCFFLS2-1GB it will?

Checking their website, this is likely because this card supports True IDE Mode ;)

I'll check with the manufacturer and see if I can get a bulk price.
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By SMC Mon Jun 01, 2009 3:13 pm
BTW, here's a bit of crappy Mock for the new studio construction, it's all rough and final CAD's should be done and rendered to look realistic within a week or two, however construction is taking place now. A bunch of stuff isn't shown here, but will give you and idea.

I don't see any point of pics at the moment cause it's just empty rooms, gutted, being wired, then we'll frame.

I'll post pics in a different thread elsewhere when we're a bit further

:)

Image

Image
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By SMC Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:06 pm
As we speak I have Delkin Devices making me prototype 1GB cards so I can test with the readers.

This may be the best solution for this application, and may in fact provide full blown hot-swap support.

:)

Stay tuned..... prototypes should be in next week.
By just charlie Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:47 pm
SMC wrote:As we speak I have Delkin Devices making me prototype 1GB cards so I can test with the readers.

This may be the best solution for this application, and may in fact provide full blown hot-swap support.


what's the difference between that and an ordinary CF card?
By just charlie Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:55 pm
jonestown massacre wrote:^^^
hot-swap support.


sorry if I wasn't clear, my question is what is the technical difference between the cards that could enable hot swap to work? it sounded like in his last post he suggested that Delkin Devices (?) is custom manufacturing a card to his specifications.
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By jonestown massacre Wed Jun 03, 2009 2:05 pm
Keep in mind, as I explained before, that the card reader is like a bridge.... the storage itself is adapted to the CF connection inside the card itself, and there are many different formats of this, and they always change.


Maybe they are formatting the cards to his specs.
By just charlie Wed Jun 03, 2009 2:53 pm
jonestown massacre wrote:
Keep in mind, as I explained before, that the card reader is like a bridge.... the storage itself is adapted to the CF connection inside the card itself, and there are many different formats of this, and they always change.


Maybe they are formatting the cards to his specs.


the mpc only reads fat or mpc-formatted devices so that seems pretty doubtful. there must be something different though if one kind of card is hot swap compatible and all others are not. I'm not too knowledgeable on the differences between CF cards, I'd just like to learn more and get a better understanding of how hot swapping on the xl will work.
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By SMC Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:31 pm
Ok, I have some cards from Delkin on the way.

They MANUFACTURE cards, sothey're not a reseller.

I'll say this for the Ump-Teenth time.....
Think of it like this. My card readers are a 'bridge' for mating the card to the MPC.
It's a lot more detailed than that in how it works, and the way the PCB actually makes this possible,
But the real detailed stuff takes place in the card itself. That's why some work and some don't,
and why some in 'compatible' spec work, and some don't
Because the card itself has an interface in it.
The card itself converts solid state flash storage into 'compact flash' which is really just like the type of connection/interface
So, the way the card handles the connection/interface between the flash storage, and the actual connection itself, is important

Being that they manufacture the cards, they are able to implement specifications.

I will be dissassembling a couple.... maybe jumpering a couple things, doing some tests, andmight be able to have a custom card manufactured that will provide further functionality.

Just the fact that this particular card allows a hot-swap workaround is promising enough in itself.

But I have more in the works.... like it being full blown. And who knows, maybe gutting one of these and going over their documentation and white papers may give me enough infor to find some pre-made to the proper specs in china or something so we can get them real cheap.

One big goal here is to see if I can get this to work on both 1.2 and 1.14

This would allow for the card reader, and full SCSI support to live in glorious harmony :)

What would this mean? Card reader, and internal 9GB SCSI hard drives....... :)

I'm hopeful, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Eibou's discovery here is great enough. I have never seen one hot-swap before, so this is a marked improvement/discovery, and is obviously due to the card itself. Something interested in this card's interface ;)

Hey Eibou, do you have a standard IDE cable in or an Ultra IDE?
Last edited by SMC on Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By scsiforsamplers.com Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:31 pm
eibou wrote:
eibou wrote:Yo, I found a 1gb card that works - Delkin Devices DDCFFLS2-1GB.


I just made the drive hot-swap with this card. When u take the card out, mp won't go nuts and when u put it back, just go to load screen and change the device to f-rom and then back to atapi. That's it. I'm very pleased. Tried this with another 1gb cf-card - didn't work. So all the cards that are compatible, can't be hot-swapped.


Did you swap to a different CF card? Cause that would be the real test - to see if the MPC loaded the new card's FAT table and saw the files on it and everything. I don't think swapping back to the same card is a test of its swappabilty. If you did, my apologies - it wasn't clear to me from your post. :)