Now with everything built and wired up to the Arduino, I had one last step. I needed to get my PC to share its processor utilization data with the Arduino. I figured I would be writing up some software in C# to do this, but found an even simpler way....
While I do have a working system, I still am not done with the project - I'd like to ditch the Arduino and use a PIC or AVR to drive the motor. I'd also like to get the entire assembly mounted in a more gauge like enclosure. Something that would look...
Did a preliminary BOM today and selected a few key components, incl. the Spartan 6 variant I'd like to use and the SDRAM and Flash devices (may go with a BGA SP6 package with more IO...no risk yet to the design, regardless of what I choose). All...
For those interested, I setup a working directory on git for this project (https://github.com/sfgit/FPGA_Arduino_Shield). I've uploaded a few libraries today also for the FPs and a !very! generic PCB (just the imported board shape and some parts...
As the project unfolds, I've planned to produce some content - could be a video, could be a doc - that details the process I'm going thru. The first video in that series is posted now on YouTube and available for viewing at: This video really...
Completed the first part of the FPGA wiring for Master Serial / SPI mode - i.e. configuring the FPGA from SPI flash. Created a video that details some of the nuances and aims to explain the wiring in the schematic a bit. Files uploaded to...
I've uploaded the SPI Flash schematic to git. I'll do a video discussing this schematic & the connections between the Flash and the FPGA device @ the top level and how that ties into the backend Arduino and any other top-end boards you might...
Uploaded files to my git repository with the JTAG wiring completed. Video to follow. The basics are pretty straight forward:- Broke out JTAG signals- Add pullups to ensure JTAG is always in a known state- Add terminations - Generate...
FPGA decoupling can be tricky to sort out without some guidance. Thankfully, Xilinx provides a pretty comprehensive PCB Layout guide that has specific recommendations for decoupling schemas for the PCB, based on specific parts and pin counts. I...
Uploaded a heap of stuff to git. Working on video now. This includes two layers of top level documents that show sheet to sheet connectivity between SPI and the FPGA and also have the breakout for the FPGA IO and other various items. Added...
Updated the schematic over the weekend to clean up the wiring and group signals, sheets, etc. more intelligently. A new version of the source files and a PDF can be found on the git repository. A direct link to download the PDF can be...
Uploaded video no. 3 explaining the schematic overhaul, JTAG wiring (w/ a little background on JTAG - though focused on the implementation), and discussing the decoupling. For a detailed discussion of JTAG, I suggest having a look at...
Made a number of little tweaks this weekend and uploaded a new SRAM document, new SPI multiplexer doc, made tweaks to the top level to integrate these elements and just finalizing some bits here and there. Complete details in github. See...
Uploaded video number 4 to Youtube, showing both SPI Multiplexing with a TI Bus Switch, and also implementing Asychronous SRAM (128K x 16). Next up, power supply!
Had some fun tonight playing around with PCB routing. You can see in the PDF in git or the PCB file (you'll need altium to open it) that I'm all about "pretty". :) Still a fair bit to finalize the routing and design and such but moving...