Author: James Colvin
Digilent Expansion Modules / How-To Guides and Technical Workflows – Digilent Blog

What is a Datasheet & How to Read One?

Here at Digilent we have a ton of products with a large amount of documentation and examples (like our Learn site and our Instructables page) letting you know how you can use our products. Within all of these, there are statements about what each product is (and is not) capable of in addition to the recommended operating condition. Some of you may be wondering, “How do we know these things?” Much of the information presented is determined from a datasheet. But where do we find this sort of information in the datasheet, or how do we even read a datasheet? Let’s find out.

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FPGA Products: What They Are & How to Use Them - Digilent / How-To Guides and Technical Workflows – Digilent Blog

Types of Computer Memory: RAM vs DRAM vs SRAM

Computers have several difference ways of keeping track of the information that it is given. Most people in the world, which included myself until recently, might think there are only two kinds of memory: the “random access memory” (RAM) that computers have, and the flash memory that you can put on a thumb drive and carry around in your backpack without an issue. However, despite knowing that these two types of memory are not the whole picture, it was my personal experience that trying to learn more usually resulted in my eyes instantly glazing over; this is rather unhelpful in terms of actually learning something. Keeping this in mind, we’re going to do a broad overview of the different types of RAM, hopefully without the glazing over effect.

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Digilent Expansion Modules

Digilent Pmods: Input Pmods – Tactile User Input

Today, we’re going to check out the last chunk of the input Pmods™ that Digilent offers. This set of inputs are slightly different than the inherent sensors that we saw last time. Although these Pmods are designed to give the system board information about the outside world, but this time you are their whole world. These tactile Pmods are designed so that they respond when you physically interact with them. It’s kinda like playing outside…in the comfort of your own home.

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Digilent Expansion Modules

Digilent Pmods: Input Pmods – Sensors

It is time to check out another set of the Digilent Pmods! Last time, we looked at a subset of the input focused Pmods, the analog-to-digital converters. Today, we’re going to take a look at more of the input Pmods, most of which incorporate ADCs into their design structure. These ten peripheral modules are all inherent sensors, reporting the temperature, location, light level, or movement without the user needing to physically interact with them.

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Product Applications – Digilent Blog

Halloween Box Monster

With Halloween coming up soon, I decided to make a cool Halloween prop using Digilent products. After grabbing a chipKIT uC32, a couple of shift registers, a bunch of LEDs, breadboard jumper wires, and a PmodMAXSONAR, I was able to make a distance detecting Halloween Box Monster.

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Digilent Expansion Modules

Digilent Pmods — Motor Output

As we continue on with our exploration of the Pmods, after checking out some of the Output Pmods like the DAC, Audio, and Visual Pmods, we find ourselves at the final set (at least for now) of output Pmods. These five Pmods all drive different types of motors including servo, DC, and stepper motors. Through these Pmods, you can get your project on the move, whether its a robot arm, a box monster, or a line-following robot.

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Digilent Projects – Blog

Simon Says… with LEDs!

At one point or another, we have all played the “Simon Says” game. In this game, one person, Simon (or Susan, Chad, or whoever happens to be the leader), will say “Simon says” and tell all of the other players to do something, such as raise their left hand. The catch in this game is that if the leader tells the other players to do something without saying the words “Simon says” and the other players do it anyway, they’re out. I personally really enjoy playing Simon Says, but I thought it could even be more fun if you could play Simon Says with a bunch of LEDs…

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How-To Guides and Technical Workflows – Digilent Blog

Pulse-Width Modulation

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is a technique that takes advantage an electronic device’s capability to rapidly “pulse” one of its digital pins between logic high and logic low voltage states. The idea is that the switching between the two voltage states in a desired pattern will produce an “average” voltage somewhere between the high and low voltage inputs. If, within a given period, the pin is at a high voltage level more often than a low one, an overall higher voltage (but less than the full strength input voltage) will be observed.

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Digilent Expansion Modules / How-To Guides and Technical Workflows – Digilent Blog

Pmod Communication: Serial Peripheral Interface

A while ago, we learned that one of the ways that Pmods are able to communicate with their host board is through SPI. We learned then that serial peripheral interface is a type of communication protocol where the “master” board and the “slave” device (in this case, a Pmod) are able to send bits of data to each other at the same time with the host board controlling the timing of the communication. Although this is a nice overview, it is my personal experience that theoretical overviews are not the most helpful in actually implementing what we are learning. This begs the question: how do you use SPI? Lets find out!

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