Issue with Quantar wireline compatibility

[emanuel32804]

Hi folks,

I recently had to replace the SCM on one of my quantar satellite receivers and after doing so I noticed that the wireline is not quite functioning right. Once the unit boots up, it will be solid for about 30 seconds and then the aux light will start slowly blinking and the WL light will occasionally flash to red momentarily before going back to green. It just continues this cycle indefinitely. After researching a bit, I saw in the service manual that the old TLN wirelines are not compatible with new SCMs, but I don't have one. Mine is a CLN6955A wireline and my SCM is a CLN6961F. The old SCM was a CLN6961A. I know A to F is a big jump through the revision history, but I had been having issues with the older revisions with the weird checksum glitch with the unprogrammed areas of the chips. I had also read something about old wirelines using one-time PROM whereas new ones use flash. So when the newer SCMs try to upload to the old wirelines and subsequently cannot do so, they get upset. I did notice when I first put the SCM in that the WL green and red leds were flashing back and forth very quickly, indicating download mode. Does anybody have any thoughts about this before I go and buy a new WL card like the CLN6955E?

Thanks,
E

 

[xmo]

Did you try swapping the firmware SIM from your old SCM to the new one?

 

[emanuel32804]

I have not tried that. Wouldn't that bring back the issue I was having before with the failed checksum? Or is that corrupted empty space on a different chip?

 

[xmo]

I think not.
The EPIC card has an 8-pin EEPROM that holds the codeplug. The station is constantly writing 'stuff' to it. When they get old - they start to give errors. There's a good chance that is all that's wrong with your original card. If you replace that chip you might be able to keep your original as a spare.

 

[prcguy]

I've always been confused by the various Epic cards. I've pulled some out of working repeaters that had no group of EPROMs (the four that usually have white stickers) and no snap in memory modules. Some have only one memory module, some have two and various other combinations. Some have a thick DC-DC converter chip and some don't.

What information is held in the four EPROMS and what is in the snap in memory modules?

 

[emanuel32804]

I've always been confused by the various Epic cards. I've pulled some out of working repeaters that had no group of EPROMs (the four that usually have white stickers) and no snap in memory modules. Some have only one memory module, some have two and various other combinations. Some have a thick DC-DC converter chip and some don't.

What information is held in the four EPROMS and what is in the snap in memory modules?

Ah great questions, I'm seconding these. I'm curious about the differences between the revisions (A, B, C, ... F at the end of part numbers) and the different versions like EPIC 1, 2, 3, ... 6.

 

[xyz321]

XMO is speaking of the socketed (square) PLCC near the front edge of the card. Originally they were Xicor chips that seemed to fail after a while. Mot later used Atmel chips that were pretty solid. I only replaced a few Atmels. We finally pro-actively replaced all those chips. You will have to do a full alignment after replacement tho

 

[emanuel32804]

I gave xmo's suggestion a try and swapped the firmware chip around. I tried both new SCM with old firmware as well as old SCM with new firmware. Interestingly enough, both gave me the same behavior that I had before the SCM swap. I.e, gets through initial boot until WL light goes red, green, red, green. 2 cycles only for a functioning unit, but in this case it keeps doing that. Never gets to the intercom light 4 flashes. Should I just get a new WL board and use the new SCM and firmware?