Have you ever wanted to log FPGA pins on a host PC? Well, Digilent forums user hamster has done a project showing how, which you can find here!
One of our regular contributors to the forum let us know about an awesome project he worked on. He managed to use the Basys 3 with a low-cost ultrasound rangefinder.
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.
This week’s throwback features one of the first tri-fold brochures we did, coming up on 11 years ago! Interesting to see the old product lineup. The D2 is probably the oldest board you see there, within the first four or five that Digilent ever built.
Our applications and systems engineering manager, Sam B., has had an exciting project sitting on his desk for a long time that we finally get to see. Originally, his project was the Zedbot, a Linux-based robot that uses the Zedboard.
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.
MPIDE comes with a nice serial monitor where you are able to print out values that your system board has measured onto your computer screen. But if you are able to print things onto your computer screen, wouldn’t it make sense if the chipKIT board also accepted and processed values that we typed into the serial monitor? It would make a lot of sense, which is probably why we can do just that. Let’s find out how.
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.
One of our lesser known products that definitely deserves some more attention is the Electronics ExplorerTM Board. This is an incredible piece of hardware that everyone interested in electronics should have. When I first started in electronics, I used the popular Analog Discovery. After using the EE Board, another analog design product offered by Digilent, it has become my new favorite.
At this point in reading the blog and going through the learn material, you might realize that there is a lot of FPGA code. It doesn’t look like C, it doesn’t look like Java…what is it?
Digilent is excited to announce that the Analog Discovery Canvas Max is now available for individual purchase! Originally included with the Analog Discovery Studio Max (ADS Max), the Canvas Max …
Last month, I described a simple stateless web application using Python and Plotly’s Dash module. It created a dashboard allowing users to select waveform channels, update rate, and the number …
Software defined radio (SDR) replaces traditional radio frequency (RF) hardware with programmable software, giving you dynamic control over modulation, bandwidth, and frequency. This technology allows for wideband, flexible experimentation across …
Fritzing is a free tool that allows users to create clean and professional images of electronics projects for teaching or sharing. Digilent uses Fritzing in all of our intern-created projects, and we’re working closely with Fritzing to have a bin of Digilent parts soon.
