While connecting to a K8055 USB board I accidentally let go of a wire that I had not realised was live as +12v which brushed across the main board and appears to have damaged the controller chip. I am fairly sure this is the problem as I swapped components with a second board and found that when I changed the controller the defective board worked again.
I really do not want to scrap the entire board so I hope to obtain a replacement chip. So far I have not found any links to sites that sell them ready programmed for the Velleman K8055 so I would appreciate if anyone can help with finding one. I could not find a link on the Velleman site and so far I have not received a response to my enquiry from the apparent UK official distributor.
Alternatively I could buy a replacement chip then send it away with the working chip from my other USB board and have it copied. I suspect this could violate copyright but if Velleman are not offering spares I guess they are not looking to profit from this particular code. Again any advise on this would be welcome as would any other constructive suggestions.
Before posting on this forum I sent an enquiry via the www.velleman.co.uk site form but did not receive a reply. I am prepared to buy a replacement chip providing the price is appropriate relative to the value of buying a replacement USB board, but so far I cannot find anywhere that sells them. I would appreciate it if you could send a link to a dealer who can provide what I need.
Please note that www.velleman.co.uk is not affiliated with Velleman.
Other than the URL might suggest, it is an independent distributor of our products.
Thanks for posting the tech support address. I am sure the PIC in question is damaged as when I switch it for one from another working USB board the defective board then works. To save time and money on sending the defective chip to Belgium I would like to know the cost of buying a replacement. Please will you provide the e-mail address for technical support or maybe sales so that I can request a quotation.
please note that I am just a forum user and in no way affiliated with Velleman. What I am about to express are my personal observations and opinions, based on participating on this forum for a while.
Velleman is extremely open with regards to circuit diagrams and PC side software source code (drivers and client libraries). Their staff is helping any way they can, sometimes close to providing custom application code. The one thing they will not publish is the source or hex code of the PIC firmware of any of their kits. This is (apparently) Velleman’s way of preventing far eastern copyright violators from flooding eBay with cheap rip-offs of their kits, shipping from Hong-Kong. I respect that policy.
If you search this forum a little you will find that I did a few things with a K8055 and K8055N, that aren’t possible with the original chip. They do require changes on the PC client software side and they do require running a completely different firmware in a completely different PIC on the K8055N or a slightly hardware-modified K8055. The idea here is that you do need an original K8055(N) board, a different PIC, and a PIC programmer (at least once). Nothing a far eastern rip-off company would be interested in. Let me know if you are interested in upgrading your damaged K8055 to Open8055.
There is another alternative, posted here on the forum by a user named simonvav. Simon’s philosophy is a bit different from mine and he keeps his PIC firmware secret (not exactly sure why, you will have to ask him), but I think his project will get you to something working as good as your original K8055 did too.
Sorry, we do not sell direct.
If desired, you can order a spare IC from your Velleman distributor.
Please note that they will have to special order it for you.