Electronics-Lab.com Blog

embedded-lab.com writes:

The goal of this project is to construct a simple 0-9999 seconds count down timer with an alarm and a display. The time is set through two tact switches and the count down seconds are displayed on a 4-digit seven segment LED display. The project uses PIC12F683 microcontroller for all I/O and timing operations and MAX7219 IC for driving the seven segment LED module. The time out condition is indicated by an audible alarm from a buzzer.

0-9999 seconds count down timer using PIC12F683 microcontroller - [Link]

embedded-lab.com writes:

Pulse width modulation (PWM) is a technique of controlling the amount of power delivered to an electronic load using an on-off digital signal. The key idea behind this technique is that the average DC value of the digital signal, and hence the power delivered to the load, can be varied by varying the duty cycle of the signal. This method is commonly used for controlling speeds of DC motors and brightness of lamps. The switching mode power supplies are also based on the PWM technique. In this tutorial, we will discuss about the PWM pins of the chipKIT Uno32 board and illustrate the concept by controlling the brightness of two external LEDs.

chipKIT Tutorial 5: Pulse width modulation (PWM) - [Link]

This project shows you how an accelerometer works, how it can be used to detect tilt and also how we can display that tilt -value- visually on a large array of LEDs on my DE0-Nano FPGA breakout board. chris @ pyroelectro.com writes:

After building a 40 pin breakout board for my DE0-Nano I wanted to test it out with something fun but not overly complex. The DE0-Nano has an on-board accelerometer which can sense changes in acceleration and tilt, so I figured why not try to do something cool with it.

This article will show you how an accelerometer works, how it can be used to detect tilt and also how we can display that tilt ‘value’ visually on a large array of LEDs on my DE0-Nano breakout board. This way whenever we need to see if something is level, we can use this simple but fun tool to know, although don’t count on multiple decimal precision here!

DE0-Nano FPGA Tilt Sensing - [Link]

Breakout board for PIC16F628/88/1827/1847 microcontrollers

This is an improved version of my 18-pin PIC16F series breadboard module that I have used in many of my PIC tutorials and projects published in this website. The new version has got a +5V power supply regulator on-board and a 2.1mm female barrel jack for DC input from a wall adapter. The 18-pin PIC16F series microcontrollers are still very popular among hobbyists and beginners because of their compact size, low cost, and simplicity. The PIC16F1847 is the latest release in this series and is equipped with lot more peripherals and enhanced features than its predecessors. This breakout board will be helpful for rapid prototyping with the PIC16F1847 microcontroller. Since the predecessors of PIC16F1847 share the same pin configuration, this board can also be used with popular PIC16F84A, PIC16F628A, and PIC16F88 microcontrollers of the same series.

Breakout board for PIC16F1847 microcontroller - [Link]

Cygni is a general purpose development board based on LM3S3N26 from Texas Instruments. This is a Cortex M3 ARM microcontroller running at 50 MHz with 64 KB of Flash and 12 KB of SRAM.

Cygni – 50 MHz ARM Cortex M3 with USB Device support - [Link]

Magnusk designed the Pipistello Spartan 6 development board with the same IO headers as the Papilio One. It features 64MB of RAM running at 200Mhz, the FDTI FT2232H High Speed USB IC, HDMI output, and a micro-SD card holder. [via]

So the only option left was to make my own board – basically merging the FPGA and LPDDR from the LX9-Microboard with the form-factor, wing interface and tool-set from Papilio, then adding all the needed interfaces on-board (and then some more to make it more interesting).

Pipistrello: Spartan 6 development board with 64MB of RAM, High Speed USB, and HDMI - [Link]

This article goes through the process of building your own i/o expander breakout board for the DE0-Nano Altera FPGA demo board. The PCB built easily connects to a breadboard where you have access to each individual FPGA I/O pin.

DIY DE0-Nano Breakout Board - [Link]

Eridani is a LM3S3651 based general purpose development board with USB Host/Device/OTG. You can buy one here. This documentation should help you use it effectively. All of the details on how to setup toolchains for this board are filed under getting started.

Eridani – 50 MHz ARM Cortex M3 with USB - [Link]

Procyon is a general purpose development board with special features for Ethernet, USB, and audio applications. It is based on Luminary Micro/Texas Instruments LM3S9x9x series of parts. The initial MCU is LM3S9B90.

The board contains the following features:

• 80 MHz, 100 Pin Cortex M3 Processor
• 16 MB SDRAM accessed on a 50 MHz EPI bus
• USB Host/Device/OTG port
• microSD card slot (Attached to SSI1/SPI1)
• 10/100 Ethernet
• I2S header for DAC output interface
• Up to 24 GPIOs available
• 3 UART, 2 I2C, 1 CAN, 2 SPI/SSI (one shared with microSD card)
• 10-bit ADCs
• General purpose timers: four 32-bit or eight 16-bit
• FTDI/Basic UART debug/program interface, on 16 pin GPIO/configuration header
• Three 10 pin headers for daughter boards
• 20 Pin JTAG Header
• User LED and User switch

Procyon – 80 MHz ARM Cortex M3 with SDRAM, Ethernet, SD, USB - [Link]

Brian designed a CPLD expansion board for the Raspberry Pi. It features a Xilinx XC9572 CPLD, and a i2c buffer connected to Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins, and I2C port. [via]

CPiLD allows for easy breadboarding with fewer wires as it can reroute pins. It also provides a simple board to learn about logic circuits and hardware description languages.

CPiLD: CPLD board for Raspberry Pi - [Link]