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any info on Xeltek Superpro eprom programmers?

S

Sam Kaan

Jan 1, 1970
0
Are these any good? they seem to be very decently priced. Anyone has
any experience with them? I would like to know if the older models in
the series is capable of EVEN/ODD address splitting mode.
 
B

Brane

Jan 1, 1970
0
Sam said:
Are these any good? they seem to be very decently priced. Anyone has
any experience with them? I would like to know if the older models in
the series is capable of EVEN/ODD address splitting mode.


Xeltek's Superpros can be a very good value for money if you are prepared to
do simple servicing of the programmer by yourself. Only pain with them is
that sockets & connectors inside will corrode afte a while, so you will
have to exchange them for more decent ones. Also, PSU unit gets hot and
cheap electrolytics inside tend to eveporate electrolyte over time, so they
are best replaced right away. Later manifests itself as a funny (and
sometimes quite expensive) failures during programming.
Since those are usually blamed on software, they can be undetected for a
long time.

I rememer once a guy with Superpro III has called me for a PLCC68 adapter.

I have had a few PCB's left and sold him one. After a few days, he called
back to say that after making adapter, he couldn't program anything and
that now even his programmer has stopped working !

He came back with an adapter and his programmer. I have tried adapter on
mine Superpro (which I haven't used for a while, so it was sitting on the
shelf at that time) and result was EXACTLY the same as on his model.

After a day or two, I have determined that both programmers have had
evaporated electrolytes in PSU units and corroded socekts and interPCB
connectors inside them. After exchanging that, both programmers started
working like a charm.

All those pesky errors during programming have dissapeared and my
Supepro-III now performs like it is supposed to.

Sure, programming something very exotic could fail, but with everything
obtainable it seems to cope well...

In the past, Xeltek's software was a major pain also, but that has improved
recently,at least for Superpro III. It was their standard tactics to
obsolete current programmer and launch a "new generation".
Since they stop adding new algorithms to all but newest models, user was
forced to upgrade. Even more, they didn't even correct bugs in existing
algorithms. Also, they didn't have a Windows support for a long time and
when they finally did id, it was only for WIn95/98- not for Win2k/NT.

After a while, they DID offer Win2k software, but only for the latest model.
And then- suddenly, all that was available even for Superpro III.

Judging from their prices at the moment Superpro III seems to be still the
best value for money. Hint- if you go for it- get "real" medel III and not
the III/L and get also the 100-pin expander PEP-100.

Schematics for various adapters were secret once, but I have managed to get
ahold a few and make few adapter PCB's.

Do a Google search and you will probably find them.

IIRC software supports various splittings, but can't verify it right now-I'm
in a middle of a conversion Win2k-----> Gentoo Linux and didn't really
setup WIn emulation yet (Wine).

If it works, it will be funny to see Superpro III inside KDE. After living
with DOS version for years. I surely didn't expect to see this to happen in
my lifetime ;o)

Regards,

Branko
 
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