ISD1700 series Winbond chipcorder

I have constructed a very rudimentary Jeopardy machine for competitions during in-services at our EMS agency. It has four controllers going to a simple PIC controlled box that lights the appropriate LED’s for three seconds while creating a buzzer that is different for each team. I have some additional upgrades planned for the unit.

1. Add voice capabilities for each team’s buzzer.
2. Add wireless to a couple of controllers
3. Make the controllers touch sensitive so there are no switches.
4. Add a Led or LCD indicator to each controller so the team knows that they have buzzed in first.

I have started on the voice item first. I have received a Winbond ISD1750 voice chip. It allows either SPI interfacing or old fashion push buttons. I am prototyping on an stand alone circuit with the button controls, small output speaker, input line, etc. I wired the unit per the pin outs on the datasheet for the chip. If I hold the FT (feed through) button and pass a sound to the chip through the audio in jack, it feeds the sound to the speaker like it is supposed to. If I hold the REC button the led turns on like it is recording; however, when I momentarily press play I get nothing but a quick flash on the led. If I hold play I get a buzzing sound. The erase seems to work erasing the blank recordings.

I see a lot of mention of needing chip programmers on the ISD devices. The data sheets never even refer to needing a recorder. Can these chips be used for my purpose? I am also having trouble finding actual instructions on the operation of the chip. I have looked at the briefs and datasheets.

Any suggestions? I am a bit surprised that I am having issues even recording simple sound.

Thank everyone for their help,

Rickey Bell, Paramedic

Hi Rickey,

If you use the Mic input, it will work. A simple condenser mic (available at Radio Shack) will do fine.

If you need to use the AnaIn (pin9) input, then FT (pin22) must be held low during recording. It will then record from the analog input.

The ISD2500 series was much easier to use in pushbutton mode, but it has been discontinued.

The Winbond website and the ISD1700 datasheet frequently say "For technical details, please refer to the Design Guide". That is NOT the "AN-CC1002 Design Considerations for ISD1700 Family.pdf" document that is available on their website! In order to get the "Design Guide" (I1700 Design Guide Rev 1.1.pdf) I had to email them and request it. That is the only document I've found that bothers to tell you that the devices come from the factory with the AnaIn input and the Aux (Voltage) output disabled in pushbutton mode.

In order to reprogram the device's analog path configuration, you need to use the SPI interface. If you need more info on that, or have any other questions, let me know.

- Mike

Thanks, I have emailed the support people for the document. I will give it a try later, I will have to build the resistor network it calls for to use the mic. Shouldn't be much trouble. Do you have any code you can send me as an example for the SPI interface? PM or post is fine.

Thanks Again.

Hi Rickey. I found a very large improvement in microphone audio quality by changing the resistor values shown in the datasheet. It shows 3 - 4.7K resistors surrounding the microphone. The top one that connects to Vcc, change to 1K. The other 2, change to 10K. Where the 1K meets the 1st 10K, you see a 4.7uF cap. Use a 220uF. Perhaps it was my microphones preference, but it was just a standard electret mic.

For your application i have found this to do what you are trying to do. I am still trying to get the SPI working on this board though.

http://www.cowlacious.com/AudioProd.htm

Regards,
Gary D.

Hello Rickey,

I am wondering if you could send me the documentation for the ISD1700 that the mfg sent you, [email protected]. I'm hoping to use SPI to communicate w/ the chip, but the datasheet via digikey seems more like a 2 page summary. I can't find anything that shows the SPI commands. How's your project coming. Fully integrate the chip?

Thanks, Alan

I will have to look.

Alan - I sent you everything I have on the ISD1700 series.

- Mike

If I can be of any help, let me know.
Working on a message system playback only for Repeater Controller.

Using a 16F877-04I/P MCU with a ISD17240PY Voice Chip via SPI interface in
Master Mode. May have to change my mind as of tonight reviewing a DESIGN GUIDE for the ISD1700 Series saying I should use the SLAVE MODE.

Any Comments or Suggestions for those who have worked with the 1700 Series Voice chips?

This is quite a bit of setups to perform prior to initiate READ, WRITE, PLAY, RECORD, STOP, etc commands. The document I am talking about is easily found by Google Searching "ISD1700 Design Guide".

Like to work with another Amateur Radio Operator on this project.

Dennis, N5VRP
Texas

Hey guys,

I'm new here, but you seem like you have some experience working with the ISD17000 chipcorder series.

I've been having luck communicating with the chipcorder over the SPI interface; however, I'm having one BIG issue.

My PIC controls two chipcorders and while one is recording, the other one is playing back. It works fine, usually for about 5 minutes, at which point the play command continues to work, but it's no longer records. I can tell visually because I have the LED option enabled.

The only way to get it to work again is to do a hardware reset, then a hardware global erase. If I try these same commands via SPI, it doesn't work.

I guess my questions are this:

1) Has anyone see this behavior, where the "record command" (0x41) seems to just not work after a few minutes?

2) I notice that once the record stops working, the CMD_ERR bit does get set. But does this really even do any good? It tells you there's a problem but there's no way to get the thing reset and working again... except for that hardware reset / global erase thing I mentioned earlier.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thx,

Joel

Hi Joel,

It looks like you're farther along than I am. After a 9 month period of inactivity I'm finally starting to program my PIC and trying to get the ISD1700 up and running. (FYI, it's hard to do hobbies when you're writing a Master's Thesis and moving cross country to start a new job, haha.)

But my initial efforts to get the SPI communications working have been unsuccessful. What PIC are you using? I'm using the PIC16F887. Would you mind posting your code settings?

Any luck with the bugs you were having? Maybe if I can get up to speed, we can tackle this as a team.

Thanks, Alan

Hi Joel,

This forum thread might help, although they do all their SPI commands via bit banging. Good luck

http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/show...6106#post86106

Alan

Hi Joel,

I think I might have an answer for you if you're still working through your issue. I have my ISD1700 and PIC recording and playing. I also had the same issue where it appears to stop working. One of the things I realized is that if I send a record command or play command that blinks the LED, if I send a read status without the fourth bit enabled for the LED, the LED will not come on or blink for the record and play respectively. So I realized that the chip was still recording although the LED wasn't playing. Any new command you send should set the fourth bit to keep the LED working.

How's the programming coming for you?

Alan