V10 FlowKit V2 and Ghost

[jay_dee]

Hi, I've looked at these before and in theory they could be very valuable but unfortuantly remain baffled at how to use them.
A few pointers would be greatly appriacted.

I have FlowKit2 hardware, can this be used as an ICD tool with GHOST to work on chip in custom project PCBs? pic, pi PICO etc..

Even with a Flowkit V2 attached, The GHOST button is always grey out?
and I see no obvious way connect FLOWKIT V2 to a target microcontroller. It just has rows of Analoge and digital pins which I assume can act as a basic scope into FC.

Thanks. J.

[chipfryer27]

Hi

Have you looked in the WiKi?

https://www.flowcode.co.uk/wiki/index.p ... Technology

You need to compile before it will work. I've only ever used it with the Multi-programmer boards and I have found the stepping through of a chart very helpful indeed.

Regards

[jay_dee]

Hi,
Yeah I read through that but it did really help me set it up.
paraphrasing, it says connect hardware, click GHOST.

A) I can only get a greyed out GHOST button. maybe there is something to enable ghost elsewhere in the project and re-compile ?

B) I looked the old Flowkit Data sheet and the Ghost docs...i can't see anywhere how you actually connect it to the ICD pins of the PIC.

FKv2 (Small).jpg (63.68 KiB) Viewed 57 times

Matrix, have seemingly stepped back from supplying hardware prodcuts to general users and reverted to their educational customers. (fair enough) There is no shop anymore so I dont even know how anyone would know about or buy a FlowKit V2. Would seen a shame, if its still fully functional.

I see there is a Youtube from a few years ago, but it looks at the development/training board that has a fix single PIC and GHOST embedded on the board. Great for training but not suitable to de-bug a custom PCB and PIC. (best i can tell) I thought that is what the Flowkit was for.
Flowkit V1, was great it sat between the PIC and PC and could be used to ICD ECIO's etc.. but then the ECIO were discontinued. (again, fair enough)

There is so much that is really good about the FC prodcuts...but outside if the excellent forum support. info can be a bit thin, unless you know where to look. J.

[chipfryer27]

Hi

Stupid question, but do you see the board on your PC Device Manager when you plug in? If not you may need to download drivers.

When a Ghost board is detected the icons become available. Then you can select pins etc. Well as far as the multi=programmers go, and you then compile to target.

Guessing that Flowkit II will be a bit different and a brief look on Matrix site doesn't show it as an available board. I'm sure documentation will be somewhere though.

I'll see what I can find, as I have brochures etc going back years.

Regards

[chipfryer27]

Hi

Old forum had more info

Attached is the pdf and you will need drivers. Theses will be available somewhere on the main Matrix site.

Regards

[jay_dee]

Good shout on device manager, it looked like I had the original driver installed...did not play well with Win10.
I found another driver Ben put up, after clearing old, reinstalling and a PC reboot. We now have Ghost Button. Well done!
Driver was on old site.
https://www.flowcode.co.uk/mmforums/vie ... hp?t=16552

Its taken a hour of playing about but I've found that default settings, (Untick Overide Comms Pins), use...
FKv2 Pin D9 = CLK
FKv2 Pin D8 = DAT
I could not find any documentation on these pins and there relation to ICD CLK and DAT... but it seems to work.
Thanks, I'll see how I go.

[chipfryer27]

Hi

Glad it is up and running.

When using Icon Step Through feature (allows you to step through your program an icon at a time on HW), D9 provides the clock pulse whilst D8 is used for Data.

Regards