Video of the M-32TL printer in action

Here's a video of the M-32TL printer being driven by my Verilog driver module:

It's a hand-held cellphone video, and a bit unsteady. But you get the idea!

This is set up to use the Digilent Adept async parallel interface over USB to load the symbol sequence to be printed into a test module. Then a click on one of the virtual "buttons" causes the test module to push the symbol sequence into the FIFO module. When printer module sees the FIFO isn't empty it takes over from there, spinning up the printer motor, firing the print hammer at the right times, and spinning down the motor when the FIFO is empty.

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I'm not sure why the Lattice iCEblink40-HX1K board fails so often. It always seems to fail in the area of the voltage regulator. I took it down to my hardware lab and gave the regulator and related components a good heating again, to try to resolve what I suspect are failing solder joints. After the board had cooled sufficiently I gave that area a good spraying with contact cleaner to try to remove some of the flux leftover from my previous repair. Now it seems to work reliably. We'll see how long that lasts.

I also discovered that the iCEblink40 with the HX1K FPGA is not available anymore. You can still get the version with the LP1K FPGA on it, though. It looks like the two boards have the same connector configuration, and the FPGAs use the same build environment, so I could switch if this one gets too cranky. But I think it'd be better if I just finish the Spartan-6 based replacement board for the P170-DH calculator and stop futzing with the iCEblink board.