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

How to Read a Datasheet

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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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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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 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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Digilent Expansion Modules

Digilent Pmods — Visual Pmods

As we continue on with our Pmod series featuring one of Digilent’s largest product lines, we find ourselves needing to see what’s going on inside of our microcontrollers and FPGAs as they race through their code at 80,000,000 times a second (or even faster!). Once again, Digilent has a variety of solutions to solve our dilemma. Our visual Pmods range from simple LEDs and a seven-segment display (SSD) to complex OLED and LCD screens.

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Digilent Expansion Modules

Digilent Pmods – Audio Pmods

You may recall a post we had a few days back on the Pmods that offered a DAC. As I mentioned then, DACs are used for a wide variety of applications but one of the most common ways that you see a DAC being used is in audio applications. Digilent’s Pmod line offers several audio peripheral modules that do just that.

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Digilent Expansion Modules

Digilent Pmods: Communication Is Key

We are going to continue with our Pmod series and talk about how you get the Pmod (peripheral module) to do what you want it to do. After all, it is not the best plan (especially in electronics) to just plug something in to a random spot and hope the device works correctly. The vast majority of the peripheral modules in the Pmod line collect or receive data (or both) and need to communicate this data with the host board. A GPS module that doesn’t send its coordinates to the host or an audio amplifier that does not receive data from the host are not terribly useful. Successful communication is key in any relationship, electronic or otherwise.

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