New Video Alert: Pmod Monthly Episode 2
What are some of the communication protocols commonly used in Digilent Pmods? Find out by watching our latest video, featuring James Colvin.
What are some of the communication protocols commonly used in Digilent Pmods? Find out by watching our latest video, featuring James Colvin.
We have a new member of the Pmod family — our latest addition is the PmodMIC3. The Digilent PmodMIC3 is a small microphone module with a digital interface. An improvement …
It’s been awhile since we last had some specific focus on Pmods, so I decided that we should get back to our favorite blog series (or at least my favorite). This week we’re going to check out some of the Pmods that occasionally get overlooked– the power Pmods. These Pmods include screw terminal modules, transistor modules, and power monitors.
Some of the Pmods, such as the PmodOLED and the PmodCLP, need a higher operating voltage to run their screen than is normally supplied by system boards. This predicament could be solved by using an external power supply to power the screens, but that can get pretty inconvenient especially if you want your project to be portable. A slightly easier method that does not require a power supply is a boost converter circuit.
Robots that run around on motors are pretty sweet. These motors traditionally tend to be DC motors that are controlled through the use of an H-Bridge, which can change the flow of current so that the motor is able to run forwards or backwards. H-bridge modules, such as Digilent’s PmodHB3 or PmodHB5, also tend to have two pins labeled as Sensor A and Sensor B that measure which direction the motor is rotating. The two sensors, A and B, will be wired to the outputs of components known as Hall effect sensors. Unsurprisingly, these measure the Hall effect. But rather than having the “word in the definition” problem, let’s learn some of the practical details.
Recently I released a collection of projects going over how to use LAbVIEW, the chipKIT Max32, and the PmodACL to do some neat stuff with accelerometer data. These include filtering, multidimensional vector plots, and tilt measurement.
Recently, one of our hardworking interns started a new video series. You may have seen James’ blog series about Pmods. Now there’s a video component as well! James begins the series by introducing Pmods and talking about their history.
Happy Groundhog Day! At Digilent, we have Punxsutawney Sam the groundhog to tell us whether we’ll have more winter to look forward to. Our 3D-printed friend is here to tell us whether winter will wane!
When working with microcontrollers, it’s pretty straightforward to have your system board “listen” for an input that you would give it and have it do some sort of action to show that it noticed your input, such as pressing a button to light up an LED. Listening to a set of inputs and then comparing them to a predetermined set, like in the Simon Says game, is a little more involved but definitely doable. But what if we did not compare to any internal values and the system board has no idea how many inputs we might provide?
It’s time for another Pmod feature! Today, we’re going to check out the Connector Pmods. Rather than just being strictly limited to a pure input Pmod or pure output Pmod, all of these Pmods are able to easily communicate with the system board in both directions. Although many of these Pmods might be chalked up to simple “pass-through” modules, I certainly wouldn’t label them that way. These Pmods offer some invaluable features that are otherwise not so easily obtained.
Today we’re going to compare two different ways of increasing the functionality of a system board: Pmods and shields. Those of you have that have been following the Digilent Blog know that Pmods are Digilent’s series of peripheral modules with 6-12 pins that can easily be connected to appropriate pins on a system board to provide extra functionality and include audio amplifiers, GPS receivers, USB to UART interface, seven-segment displays, accelerometers, H-bridges with input feedback, analog-to-digital converters, and much more. For the rest of you who have been in this sector of the electronics industry, you know that shields are a type of board that you can plug directly on top of your microcontroller in a nice pin-to-pin fashion for expanded functionality. Although you might suspect which of these two items I prefer, we’ll check out the advantages of both of them.
In the not too distant past, we made a couple of posts on Pmods that can help drive motors as well as a post on stepper motors. Today, we’re going to check out running multiple servo motors on a chipKIT board. Why would we want to do this? Well, aside from the nice feeling that comes from successfully doing some extreme multitasking, we’d also be able to run some super cool mechatronics projects, such as a robot arm!
A small post for Digilent’s largest products. All three rebranded NI VirtualBenches are now sold by Digilent and supported by WaveForms on Windows Fastest and highest bandwidth mixed signal …
Digilent is thrilled to announce exciting expansions to the well-respected Analog Discovery Pro family – the ADP5470 and the ADP5490. They’ll join the ADP5250 to round out the Analog Discovery Pro …
Let’s talk about clocking. It’s crucial to the functionality of FPGA boards and digital design in general, as all synchronous logic depends on clocks. In this article, we’ll define some …
Digilent recently released updated versions of the WebDAQ 316, 504, and 904. These devices are internet-enabled dataloggers, capable of logging data from a variety of sensors like thermocouples, IEPE accelerometers, …