fischertechnik community forum

Hello Frans. Do you think that an "ALTERA Cyclone II (EP2C5)" or a Core EP4CE6 board ( http://land-boards.com/blwiki/index.php?title=Cyclone_II_EP2C5_Mini_Dev_Board ) could serve for first experiments? Those are old cheap boards but hard to start because you need so much extra around it. I have dif...

Hello Florian, Hello Frans, I would have no idea how to do the integration between the FPGA and an FT-controller. This is hard engineering stuff. Is there already publication about your work? The link between the TXT and the FPGA is the standard I2C line. All communication is done through this chann...

I wanted also to try out FPGAs. However the tool chain and learning curve prevented me from doing it. Also the logic levels. So still sticking with Arduino and STM 32 Nucleo. Yes the learning curve for FPGA is steep. Also, the verilog programming language is used much less than the C language. This...

A view inside the box with the DE0-nano soc module. I just purchased a 64MB flash module and it needs to be mounted in the box. The flash module is controlled via SPI. There are still plenty of free I/O pins available. Now I have to read the datasheets and write the verilog driver. This additional f...

Seems like you are just printing any part you have a spontaneous need for. Yes 3D printing is also a part of the hobby just like electronics. I have over 10000 FT parts. Sometimes with one piece to print you can replace a whole series of existing FT blocks giving greater stability. For everything w...

Overview of the pic and place robot. The robot has to pick up the color disc and place it in the matrix according to a drawing. The input module for this is still under development, although most parts are ready. The pic and place table can also be controlled with the X,Y and Z axis. Once a drawing ...

Once again, a small update: Prototype 4x4 block for the matrix 8x16 with color disks. This way I can use colored discs with the pic and place robot. The color of the discs is displayed on the neo-pixel matrix. There is still a lot of work to be done for the supply and removal of the color discs. Wit...

Detail Z axis module Pic and place unit. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50886968358_0e030081ff_b.jpg HD on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoopa_hs/50886968358 https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50886968328_9ccf99e095_b.jpg HD on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoopa_hs/5088696...

Here a screen shot from the TXT program with Robopro to edit the neo-led matrix. On the PC, the matrix can only contain 1 color. On the neo-led matrix different colors can be used. With this RoboPro program solution I can still determine the colors in the neo-led matrix. It was a bit of a search for...

The neo-led matrix is connected. With only 3 wires, the 128 LEDs are controlled. Very practical and simple.
Refresch time leds: 256 Hz, 3900 usec.



HD on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoopa_hs/50859461681

Frans.

Thanks Peter! Here is a PC TXT screen dump for the setting of both characters: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50810865081_d5ed80e2cb_b.jpg The neo-led matrix 8x16 consists of 2 modules: ADA1487 Adafruit NeoPixel NeoMatrix 8x8 - 64 RGB LED Pixel Matrix. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/508097...

New project with the De0-Nano Soc board: "The Pic and place robot". This pic and place robot consists of an 8x16 matrix where the balls can be placed. The drawing can be made by selecting 2 characters or by making a drawing. The basic software for this goes via the TXT controller with the Robopro so...

About this post: https://forum.ftcommunity.de/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6504 It is not a real bug or error but it is a problem by design. What I found in my motor pwm test is the following: If you take 1024 x the TXT pwm period you get exactly that trigger the 5 sec problem. It is remarkable that it wou...

The next test is the XS motor with reduction box. This is a more practical application. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50709659947_3e3bb0df49_b.jpg HD on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoopa_hs/50709659947 This is the setup of the XS motor coupled to the encoder disk for 76 pulses per ...

Overview of motor positioning with the TXT and the FPGA (via I2C). The big difference is that the TXT uses the built-in motor encoder pulse. With the FPGA I use the quadrature decoder mounted on the motor shaft. The TXT is controlled via distance input, the FPGA is controlled with abolute position v...

To program the De0 Nano Soc board for good motor control, I first examined the motor control of FT. For this I made a setup with 2 motors so I can also test them in synchronous mode with FT. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50629423357_0533601e43_b.jpg HD pictire Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/ph...

I checked the signal tap analyser of the quartus. This is a very powerful tool where you have a logic analyser without having to use extra i/O pins. It also proves to be very useful to examine internal activities at very high frequencies. The only drawback is that it uses quite a lot of resources an...

I found some videos for the setup of the signaltap in Quartus. This simplifies the startup quite a bit. I think there will be pros and cons with a signaltap. An external LA also has a lot of settings and especially the different serial protocols for I2C and SPI. Whether these are also available in Q...

After quietly rereading everything I will first read the manual about the signal tap in quartus and try to use it. It looks quite powerful. I see that this document contains 213 pages, so a lot of work to read and to use. I now suspect silence on my part for several weeks...

Frans.

There it is! Registers _are_ memory. If you implement 512*8 bit in logic then you'll unnecessarily consume a lot of logic resources. Registers can usually easily be placed in block ram. This will save you a lot of your precious logic blocks. No, it's not that simple. There are multiple tasks runnin...