Echelon FTXL Hardware - Manual (Page 88)

80 Using the Bring-Up Application to Verify FTXL Hardware Design
Designing Additional Tests
The tests described in Running the Tests on page 70 verify the FTXL hardware
design, focusing on communications between the Nios II processor and the FTXL
Transceiver. Other kinds of test that you should consider running include:
• One or more tests for managing the non-volatile data, including reading
and writing to flash
• One or more tests for verifying communications with the L ON W ORKS
network
These tests require a more complete (but still fairly simple) FTXL application,
including the operating system.
If you use either of the standard non-volatile drivers, you can enable tracing by
setting the global variable nvdTraceEnabled to a non-zero value. If create your
own custom non-volatile data driver, be sure to add some tracing capability to it
for use in the bring-up phase.
After you verify basic communication between the Nios II processor and the
FTXL Transceiver, you should be ready to verify that your FTXL device can
communicate on the L
ON W ORKS network. The simplest approach is to create a
new application project in the Nios IDE using the FTXL Simple template, and
select your hardware design (SOPC Builder system PTF file) rather than the
reference design. If your FTXL Transceiver runs at a clock rate other than 20
MHz, you must run the LonTalk Interface Developer utility and specify the
correct clock rate for the device.
Within the Nios IDE:
1. Load the application into your hardware under debugger control.
2. Verify that your application is running and calls the LonEventPump()
function properly. For example, set a breakpoint on the call to
LonEventPump() and generate an event by pressing the device’s service
pin button.
3. Remove the breakpoint on the call to LonEventPump() and verify that
your FTXL device can send a service pin message. To see the service pin
message, you can use the Echelon LonScanner Protocol Analyzer or a
network management tool such as the LonMaker Integration tool. Press
and release the device’s service pin button to send the service pin
message.
4. If no service pin message is sent, verify that the clock rate used by the
FTXL Transceiver matches that defined in the LonTalk Interface
Developer utility. You should also verify that your channel is properly
wired, and that other devices can communicate on the channel.
5. After you have successfully sent a service pin message, commission the
device using a network manager such as LonMaker. Browse the device’s
network variables and observe that they work properly.