What Is a Debugger?
As an an engineer, regardless of your specific engineering sub-field, you are going to have to use a debugger at some point in your career. Interestingly enough, most people, whether it …
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!
Arms and Motors and Sensors, Oh My!
I’m very proud to say that my For Cheap Robots project is still going strong! As some of you may recall, at the beginning of last month, I announced the beginning of my For Cheap Robots series here on the Digilent blog. Since then, I’ve added several more tutorials to the list and gotten a huge amount of positive feedback. I want to thank any and all of you who here who follow the Digilent Blog and decided to pop over to Instructables to check it out!
Digilent Zynq-Based Boards in The Zynq Book
I recently found another exciting example of Digilent boards in an academic textbook! The Zynq Book is a handy tool for a deeper understanding of “sophisticated” devices and as the first look at the Zynq System on Chip (SoC). In fact this is Digilent’s mission: to bring engineering to every interested person through affordable materials.
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.
Digital Fundamentals Textbook Overview (11th Edition)
In the world of technology, progress happens so fast that it is almost impossible to find a good and up-to-date source for digital design. That’s why I am so excited that I found Digital Fundamentals, (the 11th edition) by Floyd.
Announcing the Basys3–Our Newest FPGA Education Board!
This past month, we have been busily working on the launch of our newest educational board, the Basys3!
Proximity-Sensing LEDs Part 2: On a PCB
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I designed the proximity-sensing LED circuit to eventually move it on to a printed circuit board, or PCB. This was my first experience with PCB layout, and thankfully it was successful! The board I designed is in the picture below. We ordered 6 “prints” and soldered them in our MakerSpace. I also included extra vias (electrical connections between the layers of the board) so that we could connect multiple boards together.
Proximity-Sensing LEDs Part 1: On a Breadboard
Who doesn’t love interactive LEDs? This project started because I wanted to make a simple circuit that I could later move on to a printed circuit board (PCB) that I designed myself. (The original goal was to learn PCB design and layout.) This idea was given to me by my manager, Larissa, and was inspired by Evil Mad Science’s Octolively. Being an analog enthusiast, I came up with my own design that doesn’t use any ICs.
Back to School and Looking Forward: A Letter from Clint Cole
After 15 years, we’re still hard at work building better tools for engineering education. We’re working more closely than ever with leading companies like Xilinx, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, and Linear Technology, and our shared mission is the same — to create tools and technologies that give students access to the most relevant technologies. And I can honestly say that we’re all still loving our jobs! Since joining with National Instruments almost two years ago, we’ve gained access to a larger group of world-class engineers and improved our manufacturing processes, but we’ve maintained our laser-focus on producing the best, lowest-cost teaching and learning kits for engineers.
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.
Digilent Pmods – Digital-to-Analog Converters
Previously, we had the chance to take a look at the LS1, which is a great Pmod to use with line-following robots such as Susan. Today, we’ll take a look at five of the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) Pmods. Four of them are conveniently named DA1, DA2, DA3, and DA4, and the last one is a R-2R circuit.
What are Arrays? Different Dimensions Explained
Some of you may have wished at one point that there was a way to conveniently keep track of a series of inputs that you are providing to your system. Luckily, an array is an excellent way to solve this predicament, and it has the added bonus of being easy to use!
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.
History of the PmodLS1
As you learned from James’ post, Digilent offers 63 Pmods! Each of those products has its own story of its conception and evolution. One of those products that had a very interesting beginning is the PmodLS1.
A few weeks ago while chatting with James (another intern) and Gene (our co-founder) we were discussing how the company began and how the board design process works. In this discussion we discovered that the Pmod LS1 has a beginning in education at Washington State University.
Digilent Pmods – an Introduction
What is a Pmod? What does it take to become a Pmod? How did the Pmods come to be in the first place?
TFT LCD Display with PING Ultrasonic Sensor
A good display is hard to find. So when I came across the Adafruit’s 1.8″ 18-bit color TFT LCD display with microSD card breakout I couldn’t wait to get it working on our chipKIT boards.
3D Modeling with Blender
We have made a few posts showing off our 3D printers and some of the classes on 3D printing that we have done here at Digilent. Garrett Mace from macetech.com showed us some of the basics on how to use various 3D modeling software like AutoDesk Inventor, Autodesk 123D Design, OpenSCAD, MeshMixer, and SketchUp. Today, I’m going to introduce some of the basic modeling tools available in the free but robust Blender.
Nexys vs. Basys
At Washington State University, the electrical engineering department uses Digilent FPGAs in several classes. Students are allowed to pick from a variety of our FPGAs. The main choice is between the Nexys or Basys lines of FPGAs. As a student, I hear a lot of confusion from students about the differences between the two series of boards. I figured that students can’t be the only ones who have questions about the difference, so I decided to write a quick summary of the differences. I’ll be using the Nexsys 4 and the soon-to-be newest member of the Basys series as an example. I’ve compiled two lists to highlight the differences between the two.
FPGA Products: What They Are & How to Use Them - Digilent / How-To Guides and Technical Workflows – Digilent Blog
Online Embedded Linux Course for ZYBO: Hands-On Training
If you have gone through the Embedded Linux Hands-On Tutorial created by Kaitlyn and now want to learn more about embedded software design using ZYBO and Linux, check out the online embedded software design class …
What Are Op-amps and How Do I Use Them?
Operational amplifiers (op-amps) are everywhere, in everything, and can do just about anything. Well, okay, maybe not quite, but there is no doubt that they are one of the most useful ICs ever to hit the market.
AC to DC conversion
Are you wanting to build something that requires DC power but changing batteries would either be inconvenient or just plain annoying? Here’s a simple how-to for converting AC mains voltage to rectified and regulated DC voltage.
WF32 Pin Diagram
I’m a big fan of the chipKIT WF32. It’s a powerful little board with a WiFi card and SD card reader built in, but there’s a lot more to this board than meets the eye. There are a ton of communication lines, external interrupts, output compare pins, and more hidden in all those GPIO pins, but how do you tell what is what? That’s where the WF32 pin diagram comes in. I’ve compiled, color coded, and listed what each pin is capable of.
Uses of Different Soldering Tips
Many of you have likely done some soldering before, but if you are like me, you may not be familiar with all the different soldering iron tips that are out there. I know that I used to be under the impression that there were only two types of soldering iron tips and only one useful type–the one currently on the soldering iron.
Shift Registers
Earlier, I made a post on how a shift register is operated in practice. But what exactly can a shift register be used for and how does it work? As always, the answer will depend on what you are trying to do (yes, we do have to play by reality’s rules).