OK, here’s my take on the reset method by connecting the 5V rail directly to ground. I understand that it is not good for the VB hardware to do this, but this is how I would do it to prevent damage to the regulator or other electronics in the VB:
1) Connect an I/O pin of my micro to the base of an NPN transistor. Then I’ll connect the collector to 5V and the emitter to ground with a series current-limiting resistor. At all times the I/O pin will be at logic 0 and the transistor will be off, so it’s an open circuit with very little leakage current.
2) To reset the VB completely (thus going through all the initializations and program loading again), I simply output a logic 1 on the I/O line of the micro, which turns the transistor on and connects 5V to ground via the series resistor. This will create a small(ish) current between the 5V rail and ground, determined by the series resistor. The pulse is nearly instantaneous this way because as soon as the power goes down the micro also resets and thus the I/O line of the micro drops immediately to 0V, thereby turning off the transistor and instantly releasing the reset pulse. Then the VB boots up again. At speeds that fast and with a low-current pulse, I have a hard time believing the regulator would sustain any damage or get heated up at all. But again, this is just my theory and I have yet to test this.
What do you think, DogP? I’ll watch for your PM but like I said, I’m not in a hurry or anything.
Thanks for the tip on the reset vector though, that will definitely be useful at some point. I need to go back and read all the programmer info again.
OMG I finally found it! I’ve literally spent hours trying to find this thing. It’s called the “Stealth Assault” by Radica and this is what it looks like:
Now I need to find more information on it.