DIY F18a alternative

[c1ph3rpunk]

I found them on Amazon too. About $25 here in the States. Not sure what they were on Ali.

Was about to order one from somewhere else, no idea why I didn’t even check Amazon first. Duh. Thanks for the poke reminder.

[productiondave]

I got mine from ebay. Ships from china so it might take a while.

[LeoBinkowski]

US and Canadian Amazon are different. I couldn't get it for less than $42 CDN on Amazon, but only $19.95 on ALI, even factoring the 3 dollars shipping it is half price.

[RenderEng]

do you have the link for the tang nano 9k at 19 cad I just got a new one and it was 24 freight. Maybe BC is more expensive ?

Make sure you get the 9K model.

[RenderEng]

So anyone was able to repro the f18a yet ?

I was looking into this I think is a good fit on the back of the NABU. Make a 3d plate to match this.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001 ... 1132494460

The VGA breaker I made has no screw holes. I need to think in something that could be attached to the same black plate. Any suggestions are welcome

[productiondave]

I have received all the parts and boards. I'm planning to solder this weekend.

I do have a question though.

Am I right in understanding that the dip sockets go in this order.

FPGA with female headers into two male headers that came with the FPGA unit on top of the board.

Then underneath the board I solder the two rows of machined pin headers and these go into the machined socket. Finally I put the regular socket into the existing nabu socket and push the machined socket pins with all the other stuff into that.

Why do we need the regular socket. Is it to provide clearance,?

Can you share a photo showing this stacking arrangement in your nabu?

Then

[RenderEng]

I added some pictures to the github.

The normal socket goes over the original NABU socket and has 2 functions: clearance and to protect the NABU socket against machined pins (they are larger in diameter)

[RenderEng]

I submitted some pics and updated assembling instructions to the github,

[RenderEng]

I also left the description of the jumpers. They are inversed.

[productiondave]

Okay - thanks. The updated instructions on GitHub are much clearer to me now. I feel confident that I know what I need to do.

I will hopefully have some time this weekend to do solder it together and test it.

I think i have managed to flash the fpga. When I did that with erase/program/verify, I was getting verify errors. But no errors on erase / program. Is that normal? If that's not normal, then I am stuck - because I wasn't able to flash the bitstream file with a successful verify.

I am using the gowin IDE programmer utility on windows 11.