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Digital Clock interfaceIntroduction
The Simkits digital clock is based on the Davtron M803 clock and is a very realistic representation. The Simkits version is available as either a USB device or with a direct connection to the Simkits CCU (main control interface board). The only issue with this device is the cost, approx £350 for the USB version and £300 for the CCU version. In the case of the CCU version, the entire logic processing takes place within the CUU, the clock itself is a display and three push switches.
Another possible solution is the GSA71, manufactured by Flight Illusion. This is a again an expensive option, with the clock costing approx £250 + £100 for an interface card
This clock is available from HomeSim based in Germany. It is the most simple of the three clocks shown here. It is basically a standard 2 line by 16 character LCD together display with 3 push button switches and costs approx £100. The clock functionality is provided by another interface board
Simkit Support DocumentationSimkits provide a schematic of the CCU and a pin-out for the clock connector (CN14), but no details of the functionality for each of the pins.
These I/O lines are dedicated as a combination to drive the sub-assembly Digital clock and cannot be controlled by proprietary software, but only via the SDK.
Four of the lines DCS4-7 are connected directly to the CCUs processor chip, which is an AN2131Q.
The other 3 lines DCS1-3 are connected through a buffer as inputs.
A schematic diagram is available for the Simkits Digital clock that shows DCS1-3 connected to switches, which ground these inputs when activated. DCS4-6 are shown connected to an MSM6775 integrated circuit. The MSM6775 is an LCD driver from OKI Semiconductors, which is capable of driving an LCD display with up to 400 segments. From the diagram it can be seen that DCS4 is a data signal, DCS5 is a clock signal, and DCS6 is a Load (synchronisation) signal.
The device functions by receiving 88 bytes of information, followed by a LOAD signal which transfers 80 bytes to the Segments of the LCD display, the remaining 8 bytes of information are used to multiplex the LCD display so that multiple blocks of 80 byte blocks of data can be switched to the Segments of the display. By this mean the number of segments which can be displayed is 80 x number of multiplexing values, in the case of the MSM6775 this is either 3 or 4 or 5 and hence the device is capable of driving either 240 or 320 or 400 segments of an LCD display.
The Simkits clock display is a seven segment LCD unit, capable of displaying four characters plus a decimal point on the first line and 4 characters plus a flashing colon plus four individual enunciator symbols on the second line. The total number of segments to be driven is 8 x 7 (8 off 7 segment characters) + 1 (decimal point) + 2 (separate colon segments) + 4 (enunciators) = 65.
The schematic diagram shows the Simkits LCD display connected to the MSM6775s SEG64 to SEG80 lines i.e. 17 lines. The MSM6775 has been configured, using the DSEL1 and DSEL2 inputs, to work in ¼ mode and the 4 multiplex signals are connected to COM1 to COM4, thus the number of segments displayable on the LCD is 17 x 4 = 68, this exceeds the number of segments calculated above by 3. The data format will thus be 4 blocks of 88 bits where the first 17 bits are the segment settings for each multiplexed block and the last 8 bits will be the multiplexing signal.
Interfacing to the DisplayAn oscilloscope was used to probe the lines DCS4-6, the initial findings confirmed that the data was in the form described by the MSM6775 specification.
It is even possible to interface this device to a simple logic analyser display. Bus Pirate Investigation
The sequence between sync pluses is shown below:
From the above is apparent that there are 4 packets of data, each packet containing 11 off 8 bit words within each frame, as would be expected from the MSM6775 device specification.. Further probing showed that data was only ever present in words 1, 2, 3 as would be expected from the data format derived above of 17 segment bits. Word 11 was always either 00010000 or 00001000 or 00000100 or 00000010, from the MSM6775 this is the multiplexing signal comprised of 3 dummy bits followed by the C5, C4, C3, C2, C1 bits. Protocol IdentificationThe data stream is comprised of 4 packets worth of 11 word values, i.e. 44 off 8 bit words, a typical dataset is : 10001011, 11101101, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00010000, 10011011, 10111111, 10000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00001000, 10001001, 10110100, 10000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000100, 01001001, 11101101, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000000, 00000010. The next task was to determine how the data mapped to the actual segments in the LCD display. In order to map the data to the display it was decided to capture blocks of data for known clock display values. It is possible to set the time values and monitor (although not set) the voltage values from within Microsoft Flight Simulator. Bus Pirate can be configured to sniff (monitor) the serial data line and display the 8 bit words as hexadecimal values. For example the valid words from the data stream shown above would be 8B ED 00 9B BF 80 89 B4 80 49 ED 00 in hexadecimal and would represent 23.4E LT 3:18 displayed on the clock.
It became apparent that a pattern was emerging and in some cases data could be assumed from previous results. The numbering scheme for the character segments was modified to produce the most logical output. From the above characters a, b, c and d map in a logical sequence, characters g, x, y and z are not so logical with segments 5 and 7 swapped over. The 3rd byte was required because 17 segment signals between the LCD display and the MSM6775 were used.
Each 7 segment character in the display is made up from 7 bits of data, split across the four data packets. Using the matrix above, the Hours 10s digit segments are in MSB-LSB order and shown as packet ID bit number: 2-5, 4-5, 8-5, 10-5, 2-6, 4-6, 8-6. Each 7 segment character will generate a 7 bit data word depending on which character is to be displayed, where an ON segment in the character is a 1 bit and each OFF segment is a 0 bit. The mapping for the characters used in the display and using the matrix shown above is:
In order to verify the results, a simple Visual basic application was produced to allow entry of the 12 hexadecimal values for a captured, known clock display and which would then show the segment representation for the entered values. A number of data streams were captured and their values checked to verify the bit mapping.
Hardware ImplementationThe hardware requirements are:
In order to achieve a professional looking result it was decided to purchase the HomeSim clock to fulfil requirements 1-3 rather than try to fabricate a front panel. Decoder InterfaceThe requirements are:
The interface was based on a PIC 16F88 microcontroller. This device has SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface Bus), which although designed for synchronously reading of single 8 bit byte data, can be tricked in to reading multi-byte data streams. This device also has an internal oscillator, capable of running at 8MHz, this will both simplify the design and minimise cost. The interface components are:
Interface Mapping to the 16F88The limitations of Port A, where RA5 can only be used as an input pin, restrict the port pins available for the LCD interface. It was decided to use the LCD display in 4bit mode, rather than having to split the interface across Ports A and B and taking in to account that four Port B pins are to be utilised for the SPI interface. Using the LCD display in 4bit mode reduces the interface requirements to 3 control lines and 4 data line and hence Port A can be used, leaving Port B for the serial SPI interface. The 16F88 port allocation is as follows:
Timing RequirementsThe SPI interface of the 16F88 will be configured to operate in Slave Mode, will be synchronised by the 200KHz clock signal from the CCU2 on pin DCS5 and is dependent on the timing of the serial data stream, which can be considered to operate in four distinct phases:
The received data will be stored in a buffer area of the 16F88s memory and will be require 44 bytes of memory space. This buffer operates in a similar manner to the MSM6775s data latch, except that it contains the data from 4 latches at once. The buffer will be addressed using an indirect memory access method utilizing a pointer, which will be incremented after each byte is received. The pointer will be re-set after the reception of a byte with a value of 2, indicating the last byte of the last packet within a frame. A separate counter will be used to count the 11 bytes in each packet; this will be re-set at the end of each packet. In order to ensure that a buffer overflow condition does not occur (as a result of a loss of SPI synchronisation), a check will be me at the end of each packet, to ensure that the buffer pointer does not go out of range. An outline flowchart is shown below: The inner loop is the critical 6.5us timing section and is shown in red. This loop manages the reception of the 11 byte data packet. The loop surrounding the inner loop is the section which must execute within 16uS and is shown in orange. This loop manages the reception of the 4 packets within a frame. The outer loop encompasses the relatively long period between the end of one frame and the start of the next, 31.4mS and is shown in green. This loop manages the decoding of the buffered data and the display of the ASCII equivalent characters on the LCD display. The check that the buffer pointer does not exceed a hexadecimal value of 73 is to ensure that a buffer overflow condition does not occur.
The Working UnitThe prototype interface was constructed on veroboard, the code was generated using MicroLabs MPLAB IDE Ver 8.3 and the 16F88 programmed in situ using a PICKit v2. The total cost was £120, the interface itself cost £15, and the remainder was for the purchase of the HomeSim digital clock including tax and shipping. The cost could have been reduced dramatically if an LCD display and 3 switches had been purchased separately and mounted on some form of fabricated front plate. The estimated cost of the Simkits CCU clock, including tax and shipping, is £320. The functionality is exactly the same as the Simkits unit due to the fact that it is being provided by the Simkit CCU2 controller.
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Initially
an arbitrary numbering scheme for each segment of the character was chosen. Each
segment of each character in the display will map to a data bit in the serial
data stream. In order to determine if any mapping were present, one character of
the display was changed so that only 1 segment of the 7 possible segments
changed e.g. changing the hours 10s digit from 8 to 0 would result in segment
number 7 being switched off. Another example would be changing from 1 to 7 where
segment 1 would be switched on. It was also noted that bits 0 2 of Packet 10,
Byte 1 alternated between 1 and 0, this corresponded to the flashing colon
character of the hours/minutes display. A spreadsheet was used to record the
changes across all 12 of the 8 bit words.
