Using plipbox with latest emu68, os3.2, latest roadshow and pistorm32 lite

[tlgrooms]

I have recently set up my pistorm32 lite in my 1200 and installed os3.2, on the latest emu68 and the RTG picasso96 drivers. I own Roadshow also and have tried installing the plipbox.device driver and Roadshow on it. It installs OK and starts OK. I have set a fixed ip and set up the dns servers and gateway, all configured properly but can't get it to work. The debug shows it sets the ip address properly and netmask but I can't get out. Tried pinging names and direct ips. Not getting anywhere. Tried pinging my router directly with it's ip and cannot ping it. I can ping localhost and my ip and it shows working ok, just can't get out.

Is there any kind of problem with using the plipbox with emu68 and the pistorm32 lite? I have set up the hard drives and installed os 3.2 and everything else appears to be working fine. Is there something I am missing? I have used the plipbox on my 1200 before without a pistorm without any problems.

[luvwagn]

if your micro-SD card for PiStorm is setup for Stealth Mode (long hold of ctrl-amiga-amiga for reboot which makes the Pi disappear entirely), then i'd boot that way and see if suddenly your Plipbox is working. If yes, then you know it is a PiStorm/emu68k related issue. If no, then its something else?

[craziazkowboi]

I resolved a very similar issue by putting heatsinks on the LAN interface CPU/MCU in the plipbox - it was reaching temperatures above 70 Celsius very quickly and likely causing the chip to shutdown - hence why you still get an IP Address (the Arduino nano chip was cool and stayed working) but data would not go anywhere. Also use USB to power the Plipbox, not the 9V barrel connector and also check the Arduino is a real Arduino and not a Chinese clone as the clones were also known to cause problems.

There used to be an issue for this, but it has disappeared from the GitHub site, even as a closed issue? I’ll add it to my blog in the coming weeks.

https://amiga1000parceiro.blogspot.com/2023/01/amiga-1000-68030-upgrades.html Amiga 1000 68030 Upgrades amiga1000parceiro.blogspot.com

You may recall, and/or have sen on GitHub, My Amiga 1000 was having a problem where it would suddenly just stop communicating after a few seconds or sometimes minutes. I think the issue is chips running too hot and shutting down - hence the frustrating issue of the Plipbox responding to the Amiga, but not communicating on the network.

I thought it may have been the AtMEGA chip, but it was not the AtMega. It looks like it was the AMS chip, the screen print on the PCB says U1, AND also the chip on the ethernet board that were running super-hot.

With a thermo-camera, I registered the chip on the Ethernet board at 62.5 Celsius that was even using USB for power!! The AMS chip (TRIAC?) registered at over 70 Celsius when using the barrel power connector, and in both cases that was without the network doing anything.

I changed my power to use USB, and I have added Arduino heat-sinks (the little copper heat sinks you can buy for Raspberry Pi and Arduino's). On both chips, this has reduced heat to about 40 Celsius, and 50 Celsius when doing a big download (35Mb from Aminet). The AtMEGA chip was running a very cool 26 Celsius, no need for a heat sink. It's now running better than it ever has!

In the past, this would have failed within seconds for me. I have now upgraded my firmware back to 0.6 and am using the 0.6. driver. Again this would have been impossible a couple of weeks ago. I'm getting about 30 CPS (~240k bits/second) using the 0.6 firmware and driver, and no crashes in the past hour of testing.

Note to put a heatsink on the AMS chip, I had to cut the plipbox enclosure around the top of the heatsink - it sits about 0.5mm too high. It's worth it. My DATA LED also no longer works, I’ll look at it later, but possibly a victim of the heat? 

On 11 May 2023, at 4:51 am, tlgrooms @.***> wrote:

I have recently set up my pistorm32 lite in my 1200 and installed os3.2, on the latest emu68 and the RTG picasso96 drivers. I own Roadshow also and have tried installing the plipbox.device driver and Roadshow on it. It installs OK and starts OK. I have set a fixed ip and set up the dns servers and gateway, all configured properly but can't get it to work. The debug shows it sets the ip address properly and netmask but I can't get out. Tried pinging names and direct ips. Not getting anywhere. Tried pinging my router directly with it's ip and cannot ping it. I can ping localhost and my ip and it shows working ok, just can't get out.

Is there any kind of problem with using the plipbox with emu68 and the pistorm32 lite? I have set up the hard drives and installed os 3.2 and everything else appears to be working fine. Is there something I am missing? I have used the plipbox on my 1200 before without a pistorm without any problems.

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[tlgrooms]

if your micro-SD card for PiStorm is setup for Stealth Mode (long hold of ctrl-amiga-amiga for reboot which makes the Pi disappear entirely), then i'd boot that way and see if suddenly your Plipbox is working. If yes, then you know it is a PiStorm/emu68k related issue. If no, then its something else?

I wasn't aware you could do this. I will give it a try and see if it works with my sdcard. Thanks for the info.

[tlgrooms]

I resolved a very similar issue by putting heatsinks on the LAN interface CPU/MCU in the plipbox - it was reaching temperatures above 70 Celsius very quickly and likely causing the chip to shutdown - hence why you still get an IP Address (the Arduino nano chip was cool and stayed working) but data would not go anywhere. Also use USB to power the Plipbox, not the 9V barrel connector and also check the Arduino is a real Arduino and not a Chinese clone as the clones were also known to cause problems. There used to be an issue for this, but it has disappeared from the GitHub site, even as a closed issue? I’ll add it to my blog in the coming weeks. https://amiga1000parceiro.blogspot.com/2023/01/amiga-1000-68030-upgrades.html Amiga 1000 68030 Upgrades amiga1000parceiro.blogspot.com You may recall, and/or have sen on GitHub, My Amiga 1000 was having a problem where it would suddenly just stop communicating after a few seconds or sometimes minutes. I think the issue is chips running too hot and shutting down - hence the frustrating issue of the Plipbox responding to the Amiga, but not communicating on the network. I thought it may have been the AtMEGA chip, but it was not the AtMega. It looks like it was the AMS chip, the screen print on the PCB says U1, AND also the chip on the ethernet board that were running super-hot. With a thermo-camera, I registered the chip on the Ethernet board at 62.5 Celsius that was even using USB for power!! The AMS chip (TRIAC?) registered at over 70 Celsius when using the barrel power connector, and in both cases that was without the network doing anything. I changed my power to use USB, and I have added Arduino heat-sinks (the little copper heat sinks you can buy for Raspberry Pi and Arduino's). On both chips, this has reduced heat to about 40 Celsius, and 50 Celsius when doing a big download (35Mb from Aminet). The AtMEGA chip was running a very cool 26 Celsius, no need for a heat sink. It's now running better than it ever has! In the past, this would have failed within seconds for me. I have now upgraded my firmware back to 0.6 and am using the 0.6. driver. Again this would have been impossible a couple of weeks ago. I'm getting about 30 CPS (~240k bits/second) using the 0.6 firmware and driver, and no crashes in the past hour of testing. Note to put a heatsink on the AMS chip, I had to cut the plipbox enclosure around the top of the heatsink - it sits about 0.5mm too high. It's worth it. My DATA LED also no longer works, I’ll look at it later, but possibly a victim of the heat?  … On 11 May 2023, at 4:51 am, tlgrooms @.***> wrote: I have recently set up my pistorm32 lite in my 1200 and installed os3.2, on the latest emu68 and the RTG picasso96 drivers. I own Roadshow also and have tried installing the plipbox.device driver and Roadshow on it. It installs OK and starts OK. I have set a fixed ip and set up the dns servers and gateway, all configured properly but can't get it to work. The debug shows it sets the ip address properly and netmask but I can't get out. Tried pinging names and direct ips. Not getting anywhere. Tried pinging my router directly with it's ip and cannot ping it. I can ping localhost and my ip and it shows working ok, just can't get out. Is there any kind of problem with using the plipbox with emu68 and the pistorm32 lite? I have set up the hard drives and installed os 3.2 and everything else appears to be working fine. Is there something I am missing? I have used the plipbox on my 1200 before without a pistorm without any problems. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#217>, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASPNKZ7FAG6OT5VF3ZUVO43XFPPRXANCNFSM6AAAAAAX5DN2N4. You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.

Thanks for the response. My usb connector on the plipbox buts right up against the back of the 1200's case, no way I can plug in a usb connection. Maybe I can figure out some way to get it out far enough to try it. I have only used it with the barrel connector.

I'll check your other info tonight when I get home from work and can take a look at it. Thanks again!

[craziazkowboi]

Heatsink on the AMS chip I think will solve the issue. I use a mobile-phone charger to provide power via USB 5v 2.5amp. I would not use power from the computer USB as that is only 0.5amp, and the plipbox needs more I think.

On 11 May 2023, at 6:21 am, tlgrooms @.***> wrote:

I resolved a very similar issue by putting heatsinks on the LAN interface CPU/MCU in the plipbox - it was reaching temperatures above 70 Celsius very quickly and likely causing the chip to shutdown - hence why you still get an IP Address (the Arduino nano chip was cool and stayed working) but data would not go anywhere. Also use USB to power the Plipbox, not the 9V barrel connector and also check the Arduino is a real Arduino and not a Chinese clone as the clones were also known to cause problems. There used to be an issue for this, but it has disappeared from the GitHub site, even as a closed issue? I’ll add it to my blog in the coming weeks. https://amiga1000parceiro.blogspot.com/2023/01/amiga-1000-68030-upgrades.html https://amiga1000parceiro.blogspot.com/2023/01/amiga-1000-68030-upgrades.html%EF%BF%BC Amiga 1000 68030 Upgrades amiga1000parceiro.blogspot.com You may recall, and/or have sen on GitHub, My Amiga 1000 was having a problem where it would suddenly just stop communicating after a few seconds or sometimes minutes. I think the issue is chips running too hot and shutting down - hence the frustrating issue of the Plipbox responding to the Amiga, but not communicating on the network. I thought it may have been the AtMEGA chip, but it was not the AtMega. It looks like it was the AMS chip, the screen print on the PCB says U1, AND also the chip on the ethernet board that were running super-hot. With a thermo-camera, I registered the chip on the Ethernet board at 62.5 Celsius that was even using USB for power!! The AMS chip (TRIAC?) registered at over 70 Celsius when using the barrel power connector, and in both cases that was without the network doing anything. I changed my power to use USB, and I have added Arduino heat-sinks (the little copper heat sinks you can buy for Raspberry Pi and Arduino's). On both chips, this has reduced heat to about 40 Celsius, and 50 Celsius when doing a big download (35Mb from Aminet). The AtMEGA chip was running a very cool 26 Celsius, no need for a heat sink. It's now running better than it ever has! In the past, this would have failed within seconds for me. I have now upgraded my firmware back to 0.6 and am using the 0.6. driver. Again this would have been impossible a couple of weeks ago. I'm getting about 30 CPS (~240k bits/second) using the 0.6 firmware and driver, and no crashes in the past hour of testing. Note to put a heatsink on the AMS chip, I had to cut the plipbox enclosure around the top of the heatsink - it sits about 0.5mm too high. It's worth it. My DATA LED also no longer works, I’ll look at it later, but possibly a victim of the heat?  … <x-msg://4/#> On 11 May 2023, at 4:51 am, tlgrooms @.***> wrote: I have recently set up my pistorm32 lite in my 1200 and installed os3.2, on the latest emu68 and the RTG picasso96 drivers. I own Roadshow also and have tried installing the plipbox.device driver and Roadshow on it. It installs OK and starts OK. I have set a fixed ip and set up the dns servers and gateway, all configured properly but can't get it to work. The debug shows it sets the ip address properly and netmask but I can't get out. Tried pinging names and direct ips. Not getting anywhere. Tried pinging my router directly with it's ip and cannot ping it. I can ping localhost and my ip and it shows working ok, just can't get out. Is there any kind of problem with using the plipbox with emu68 and the pistorm32 lite? I have set up the hard drives and installed os 3.2 and everything else appears to be working fine. Is there something I am missing? I have used the plipbox on my 1200 before without a pistorm without any problems. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#217 https://github.com/michalsc/Emu68/issues/217>, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ASPNKZ7FAG6OT5VF3ZUVO43XFPPRXANCNFSM6AAAAAAX5DN2N4. You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.

Thanks for the response. My usb connector buts right up against the back of the case, no way I can plug in a usb connection. Maybe I can figure out some way to get it out far enough to try it. I have only used it with the barrel connector.

I'll check your other info tonight when I get home from work and can take a look at it. Thanks again!

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[stephbb75]

I had the same problem. Flache your Plipbox in version 0.5 and it works. In V0.6 try to put NOBURST in the file "ENVARC:SANA2/plipbox.config" (but it didn't work for me).

[RolopoloRolo]

I had the same problem. Flache your Plipbox in version 0.5 and it works. In V0.6 try to put NOBURST in the file "ENVARC:SANA2/plipbox.config" (but it didn't work for me).

Yes you have to do this. I have never known the plipbox work without specifying noburst. Also I raised the task priority of the device and that seemed to make the plipbox far more stable, in the end it always fell over with extreme transfers, such as a copy of a whole CD-ROM file by file but for general use it worked. Of course raising the task pri of the device to 20+ (which I stuck with) made the mouse a little skittish while transfers were taking place. I only have this experience on an A500. Get a card slot network adaptor, they are so much better.

[G4DDS]

I have a plipbox v0.6 firmware on an A1200 kickstart 3.1. I have my own little "test" distribution based on workbench 3.1 containing just the plipbox drivers, roadshow etc. (basically just all the networking stuff).

With the PiStorm32 lite plugged in but no Pi distro (so it boots natively from the A1200), plipbox configures itself and Roadie displays the IP address and network access is fine.

If I then install the latest distro (currently Emu68-pistorm32lite-20230510-bdffce.zip) on the Pi 4 (2Gb RAM), the plipbox fails to configure with the error message: Interface "plipbox" configuration attempt timed out.

It seems after trying a few things that setting the NOBURST option in file ENVARC:SANA2/plipbox.config has fixed it. As it works fine on a vanilla A1200 in both BURST and NOBURST modes it points to a problem with the PiStorm builds.

[RolopoloRolo]

Quite possibly. My only experience has come from using an A500 with a plipbox and emu68. It was a while ago, perhaps 6 months ago and most certainly it needed the noburst set to work at all. With the noburst option it was rather slow, about 10% of the speed of a A1200 with a Pistorm and a PCMCIA network card. I seem to recall that a lot of people claimed it never worked at all without noburst being set and that was just not Pistorm users when searched around on the web. The Plipbox is a little marvel but a bit of a sloth with Emu68.

[tlgrooms]

NOBURST also worked for me. Thanks guys for the info.

When I reboot the machine I have to power off the plipbox to get it to reset and work. Is that normal? Anyway to do it without restarting it every time as well?

[G4DDS]

NOBURST also worked for me. Thanks guys for the info.

When I reboot the machine I have to power off the plipbox to get it to reset and work. Is that normal? Anyway to do it without restarting it every time as well?

There is a mod where you connect the reset line from the amiga port (that the plipbox plugs into) to the reset pin on the Nano using a diode. I have done the mod and it works a treat. Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me find the page where the mod is described in detail.

[craziazkowboi]

The v3 plipbox works a lot more reliably and worth looking at.  One of the issues I had with previous Plipboxes is an undersized resistor connected to RBIAS on the pre-built Ethernet modules.  They had/have 1K instead of the 2.32K.I used a heatsnk on the ethernet MCU to get a reliable v2 device.  The ethernet MCU was overheating and shutting down, causing the frustrating loss of transmission, but still showing as ‘up’.Cheers!On 26 Jul 2023, at 8:34 am, G4DDS @.***> wrote:

NOBURST also worked for me. Thanks guys for the info. When I reboot the machine I have to power off the plipbox to get it to reset and work. Is that normal? Anyway to do it without restarting it every time as well?

There is a mod where you connect the reset line from the amiga port (that the plipbox plugs into) to the reset pin on the Nano using a diode. I have done the mod and it works a treat. Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me find the page where the mod is described in detail.

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[G4DDS]

I've only had my plipbox a couple of months so I assume it is a v3 (it came with firmware v0.6). Seems to work fine for me with the NOBURST option set (only needed when using it with the PiStorm though). The only annoyance was having to power off and on every time to reset it but this is now fixed with the diode mod which causes the Nano board to reset when CTRL-A-A is used to reset the Amiga. I'm sure there is faster and neater solutions out there but I'm happy with the plipbox until we get a driver to utilise the Raspberry Pi WiFi (fingers crossed).

[craziazkowboi]

I like my plipbox too, it does the job for me, I also use NOBURST but I dont have the reset issues you have experienced, so Im no help but you have a solution!  However, if I am using the pistorm, I use musahsi and the wifi on that, as it is 10x the network speed - no issues on my Amiga 1000.  Unfortunately still need to wait for Emu68 network (sniff).You can find the instructions here:pistorm/a314/software-amiga/ethernet_pistorm/README.md at main · captain-amygdala/pistormgithub.comRegardsOn 27 Jul 2023, at 9:41 am, G4DDS @.***> wrote: I've only had my plipbox a couple of months so I assume it is a v3 (it came with firmware v0.6). Seems to work fine for me with the NOBURST option set (only when using it on the PiStorm though). The only annoyance was having to power off and on every time to reset it but this is now fixed with the diode mod which causes the Nano board to reset when CTRL-A-A is used to reset the Amiga. I'm sure there is faster and neater solutions out there but I'm happy with the plipbox until perhaps we get a working driver to utilise the Raspberry Pi WiFi.

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