New Programmer baby born at my house...

[Op-Bell]

Mine doesn't have the timer. Looks like the four currently on Ebay all do, since they all appear to have the timer adjustment control to the right of the switch. The model without a timer just has plain blue label over the hole.

<edit> model "ACT" has the timer, model "AC" doesn't. Incidentally, the list price of these things new was AC - $39.95, ACT - $49.95.

[StatFreak]

I bought this one for $38.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=270337132545

Op-Bell, I don't think it will come with the user guide. Is there any chance you could email me a copy?

[Op-Bell]

Good deal, that's the one I would have bought too. The price is fair and it's the only one that I'm sure has a power supply with it.

I don't have a manual or user guide. There's not much to it. Connect power supply, open lid, place EPROMs in it face down, close lid, lamp comes on, wait until lamp goes off, remove EPROMs. I can't tell you how to adjust the timer because mine hasn't got one, but I believe it's a small screwdriver adjustment.

I noticed after a while the UV was seriously attacking the case plastic under the tube, so I stuck some aluminum foil in the bottom of the channel under the tube to protect the plastic and reflect more of the UV onto the EPROMs.

[StatFreak]

Good deal, that's the one I would have bought too. The price is fair and it's the only one that I'm sure has a power supply with it.

I don't have a manual or user guide. There's not much to it. Connect power supply, open lid, place EPROMs in it face down, close lid, lamp comes on, wait until lamp goes off, remove EPROMs. I can't tell you how to adjust the timer because mine hasn't got one, but I believe it's a small screwdriver adjustment.

I noticed after a while the UV was seriously attacking the case plastic under the tube, so I stuck some aluminum foil in the bottom of the channel under the tube to protect the plastic and reflect more of the UV onto the EPROMs.

I will put some foil in mine when it arrives. Does using the foil shorten the time necessary to erase the chips, and does shorting all of the legs together have any effect?

Thanks for the picture. That actually fulfills most of my reasons for wanting a user guide. I wanted to know the tube number for long-term replacement needs (it appears that I will be able to read that off my tube when it arrives), and to either get an idea of the of the µW/cm² rating of the lamp (also should be able to get this from the tube info) or to have a guide to erasure timing for different chips (I can convert these figures from other manufacturer's data as long as I know the rating of this lamp).

[Op-Bell]

Not having a timer, I don't have a scientific way of knowing how long it takes to erase. I leave chips in for "a few" minutes, where "a few" means "until I remember to take them out". All I can say is I have never taken a chip out of it and found it not erased.

The foil is in the bottom, under the tube, not up top with the chips. It doesn't short the legs, though if it did, it wouldn't affect them. I don't know how much it adds to the efficiency but if it was a lot, I imagine the manufacturer would have thought of it.

[stayouttadabunker]

I thought I'd post this fantastic picture of what the UV eraser window glass on a eprom looks like when magnified 60X.
Look at those tiny wires....wow

Double click on picture to really see it!

[StatFreak]

  "mmmm..... pretty colors...."  

"Wow, so, like, um, how do they find people with such teeny hands to like, totally weave and solder all those itty-bitty wires?" 


Seriously, that is a cool picture SB, thanks for posting.

[uniman]

Cool pic Mark!
I liked it so much I stole it. 
Makes a great avatar! 

[StatFreak]

Cool pic Mark!
I liked it so much I stole it. 
Makes a great avatar! 

Oh my pig is SO jealous. He's afraid I'll dump him for a pretty chip face. I did save the file yesterday, so it could turn up one day.

[jdkmunch]

Never dump the pig.

[jay]

Funny my motherinlaw said the same thing to me....... 

[stayouttadabunker]

 

[StatFreak]

Never dump the pig.

Funny my motherinlaw said the same thing to me....... 

That just about says it all.

Should I start a "Name the Pig" contest?

[jdkmunch]

 
sooo funny

[stayouttadabunker]

Okay,

                    ****BREAKIN' NEWS UPDATE****

The eprom eraser came in today....you guys were right on the money...it's the cheapest, flimsiest thing you'd see...
But ,   you know what?  After baking two AM27C512's in it for 20 minutes ("2 on the dial")
I threw the chips in the GQ-4X and the programmer confirmed that the chips were indeed blank....

I'm pleased with it so far...I think it'll work perfect for this amazing hobby we all enjoy...


*****OKAY, back to our irregular programming schedule>>>the comedian's funny hour******

[brichter]

Okay,

                    ****BREAKIN' NEWS UPDATE****

The eprom eraser came in today....you guys were right on the money...it's the cheapest, flimsiest thing you'd see...
But ,   you know what?  After baking two AM27C512's in it for 20 minutes ("2 on the dial")
I threw the chips in the GQ-4X and the programmer confirmed that the chips were indeed blank....

I'm pleased with it so far...I think it'll work perfect for this amazing hobby we all enjoy...


*****OKAY, back to our irregular programming schedule>>>the comedian's funny hour******

Now you just need to try less and less exposure time to see what the lowest interval to blank them is...

[stayouttadabunker]

In the interests of saving money on my monthly electric bill, I will try that...however, I quote this from reply #98>>

[The thing I mainly object to is HSW saying you can over-erase an EPROM. You cannot over-erase an EPROM. Once the charges are gone from the floating gate, you cannot remove any more charges, even if you leave it in the eraser for a year. I know where they got it from - you can over-erase a Flash ROM, because Flash is erased electrically by reversing the programming process and you must be careful not to leave the gate with a positive floating charge. But this isn't a danger with EPROMs.]

[Op-Bell]

I stand by that. In a previous life I worked for a company that made EPROM programmers.

[brichter]

In the interests of saving money on my monthly electric bill, I will try that...however, I quote this from reply #98>>

[The thing I mainly object to is HSW saying you can over-erase an EPROM. You cannot over-erase an EPROM. Once the charges are gone from the floating gate, you cannot remove any more charges, even if you leave it in the eraser for a year. I know where they got it from - you can over-erase a Flash ROM, because Flash is erased electrically by reversing the programming process and you must be careful not to leave the gate with a positive floating charge. But this isn't a danger with EPROMs.]

I was speaking from the perspective of being one of those "Instant-gratification" types, I hate waiting around!

[Op-Bell]

That eraser ought to do it in under 5 minutes for most chips. For reliability, you should leave the chip in the eraser for twice the minimum time. If it reads blank after two minutes, erase it for 4 minutes. Otherwise it may stay partly programmed and give trouble with some low values of Vcc. FWIW, when the programmer programs a chip it applies pulses until it sees the location programmed, then gives it more pulses to make sure. The algorithm varies but can be as much as four times over. It is also programmed at a high level of Vcc, usually between 6 and 7 volts, to make sure it will stay reliably programmed at 5V.

[stayouttadabunker]

Quote[I was speaking from the perspective of being one of those "Instant-gratification" types, I hate waiting around!] End quote


It's no problem really, I ate dinner while the eproms were cooking! 

[tjkeller]

I just got a UV Eprom Eraser from knightdiscounts as seen on ebay:
Eprom Eraser

I did not buy off ebay however.  I went directly to his website at knightdiscounts.com and ordered from there.
He has a Free Shipping Policy if order totals over $20. So I bought the Eraser and a cheap $2 game for my kids. Total was less than $21 so it cost less
to order direct. The eraser is the same cheap over seas unit you see on ebay but I suspect it will work for MY tinkering. I'm still waiting for some eproms
to arrive so I give it a go.

[stayouttadabunker]

It's a real cheap one TJ, but I 've had good luck with it thus far...I haven't a clue how long it'll last though...I hope we'll be laughing about this ten years from now....

[jdkmunch]

I got the same eraser from eBay... it seems to work too-- I have loaded up 7 chips at a time and 30minutes later.. blank!

[StatFreak]

Okay guys, I got my GQ-4X and it works great.

The only problem is that is came with a USB2 driver in a subdirectory. I read both readme files, which said to install the USB driver before installing the main software.
I followed the directions, but there was no installing it. I rolled back using system restore and tried a few times in reverse order, according to directions, and everything else I could think of, including downloading the latest copy of the driver from their site (the INF file was identical).

When I tried to install the new USB driver I got an error stating that one of the segments of the INF file was invalid.

Did anyone else have this problem? Did anyone else install the new USB driver?

When you open the software, the USB driver version is displayed in the message window:

Ready
H/W Re: GQ-4X Re-1.20
USB Driver Re.1.0             <--------- This one.
USB Driver Re. 4.00 Beta 5

I'm not even sure if having the newer driver would make any difference, but it takes my programmer about 30 seconds to burn a 512k chip. That would mean 8 minutes to burn an 8M chip, which seems pretty slow to me.