Hera are a couple of links to the arrow fpga dev boards I have and will use in teaching:
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/search?prodLine=Programmable+Logic+Development+Boards+and+Kits&q=10M08SAE144C8G%20FPGA%20Evaluation%20Kit%2050MHz%20CPU%20172KB%20Flash
I paid $30 and $100 for them but, they are probably a bit more than that. If you buy a new dev board within a couple of weeks of its release it usually is at a discount.
FPGA is great for, like stated, heavy duty on the fly pixel by pixel colorspace conversion, compression/decompession, or encoding/decoding signal standards. And the devices are great for general purpose stuff too. For sure timing is much more deterministic than uP, but less so than CPLD.
But at DMS there is a less electronics focused interest in general. I don’t know if its ADHD or what, but folks today are able to get more result with less effort than those of us who made stuff 30 years ago. I had no arduino I could use to quickly rip out a design. If I wanted to make something digital in nature, I had to spec in a processor onto my design and get it working as appropriate, or hack something together off of a much less developed reference card. Or select FPGA and drop it in. And the systems were much more difficult to learn their languages, and VHDL was no quick learning curve, as mentioned.
I think that given the quicker/easier availability of results for makers, we now have a heightened expectation from makers. They want the thing working, and I mean fast. I ran into this with LabVIEW class. Yes it was interesting and well known to be incredibly powerful. But the notion of spending weeks to get comfortable with a new language with the complexity of LabVIEW put off most folks. And why not? I was able to run my arduino flashing lights on a design I cooked up in literally 10 minutes of class (thanks @Bill).
I fear that technology has advanced. And I suspect that our tools will need to advance and meet the new expectations as well. That being said, I am in favor of having FPGA expertise in house. And I hope for good turnout, and expect you will get it. I got it with LabVIEW initially. But I also want to encourage the good folks at DMS to hang in there, as some of the best topics around are those that take many tedious learning sessions to get rolling well. Examples: FPGAs, LabVIEW, C and other text languages, HSPICE and others, MIcrowave Office, LTSpice, the list goes on and on.
For these slower learning curves, learning may not be pleasant at first. And it might take even a few days to weeks to really start to get dangerous with the stuff. But the impact and usefulness of the art you learn is often proportional to the time it takes to become proficient. In other words, you have a lot to gain in becoming a good VHDL programmer or LabVIEW programmer. So hang in there, and remain patient. And most importantly, be sure to use your new skill outside of class immediately upon learning it. This is where learning really occurs…application and use of your new craft.
I[quote=“semaphore1999, post:14, topic:23980”]
But at DMS there is a less electronics focused interest in general.
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Three years ago, the active folks in the electronics group were more than 20 percent of the by membership revenue of the space. And were also very active in doing infrastructure activity that was necessary volunteer work to avoid having to pay for additional professional services.
Romeo Espana, William Petefish and I repaired the laser cutter multiple times within hours of receiving replacement parts, because the power supply kept failing. (and when a popular tool is broken and unusable there is a huge grumbling from the membership. prolly less so now that there is more than one laser cutter)
When DJ taught a using an Oscope class, it was standing room only.
Lance Preston did a significant amount of electrical wiring at the Monroe location.
Lance and I did a complete audit of the wiring at the current location to save $5000 on the electrician build out at this location so we could move in.
Despite these examples and dozens more I could make, the board (at the time) did several things that angered some of the most active electronics members enough to quit. Electronics was finally going to have enough space for more than two benches and not enough outlets in the room to run them.
I remember shouting at a couple of people, “You can’t do electronics without electrons” and made enough stink that we got a circuit in all four walls.
Despite the board promising that new benches would be made for electronics during the build for the community area; (which I participated in as a volunteer) They waffled out. The electronics committee had to wipe out our budget to buy benches and shelves when other committees had generous spending at move in time.
One of the really high temperature burns was that Pearce Dunlap, Andrew Lecody, and Robert Davidson were all united in refusing to create an email account for me in the Dallas Makerspace domain. Altera (before the Intel buyout) was willing to treat the makerspace as being equivalent to a university and give us a license to Quartus II.
Using the licensed version would have solved all the issues I was having at the time teaching from the free version. But Altera insisted that I have a makerspace email account to participate.
So in my opinion, the reason that there is less going on with electronics in the space today, is that the people who used to teach classes and help makers who were interested but needed help to make with electronics were alienated by earlier makerspace boards. Alienated enough to quit, and leave inexperienced makers without helpful guidance on the bench or in the classroom.
Within 3 days of the last election, I received two phone calls to tell me that the only remaining member of the board from my earlier time was Robert Davidson. I am rejoining because word from the grapevine came to me that the time is right to do so. And I really have to congratulate Art and Lampy on their efforts for the last three years.
The first board still seems to be available; however, the second does not seem to be available any longer.
Well, I found that board for sale from Mouser, which since they are so generous to us (donating about $10,000 per year) I ordered the board from them.
http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=EK-10M08E144virtualkey58250000virtualkey989-EK-10M08E144
So this sells for $50, which seems like a great deal for a FPGA dev board, with a modern, in production chip. You do need a programmer for it, which is pretty cheap
On opening I did find that those all knowing Kalifornians do find the device capable of all kinds of risk for the operator!
Yep, it appears that the current MSRP for those two boards is now $50 and $200 respectively…
But bear in mind that these boards BOTH have integrated USB support.
Some of the cheaper boards you also have to buy a $20-30 usb programmer/jtag cable to program it.
A $50 board that comes with a plain old usb cable to attach it to your computer is not much more expensive than a 15$ dev board and a $20 programmmer.
The $50 board above has a note included; Programming cable not included, available separately…
It does include a usb cable, though…
This is going to sound strange but I would love to figure out how to fix things. How to identify what a broken component looks like and how to replace it or how to even order what’s wrong. its simple but needed by me.
we can show you common problems like a bulging capacitor or loose wire
The first sense you should use in diagnosing a problem is usually not eyesight, but your sense of smell. When things break they will usually release some magic smoke. Sniffing the circuit can help localize the problem area.
After that, you look for components that are discolored, covered in goo, etc…
After that, …
That’s cool with me. I know it’s not a big thing to most but if we could host “fix it nights” where the community brings in broken things to break them apart it might be a really big win for electronics. Not that they need to win anything.
All of this is just in my head and logistics/pr/volunteers are just magic and happen without much effort.
I like the “fix it nights” concept. Maybe the item doesn’t get actually fixed, but some of the collective hive Maker expertise could give a good diagnosis that would help in getting it fixed or deciding that even hospice treatment isn’t warranted.
sniffing the circuit? Are you kidding
No. There is a very distinctive “burnt electrical” smell, especially for windings.
Andddddd learning happens with just deciding to take apart things too. Ayden and I are always cracking open tvs and touching them with metal sticks…ungrounded.
But no really I think deconstruction and figuring out how components work is a great lesson.
I’ve got a 40" TV he is welcome to take apart, you want it? If so, I can drop it off at next off-the-wall film fest.ilm
I’m just kidding. A tv can apparently kill you or at least zap you into next week.
Pa thanks to the knowledge base of Chuck and @jphelps (and ebay) the 8mm is healed and ready to go again! Stay tuned for another party! I don’t think I told you the big mama blew up at the last party.
Should we be scouring eBay for old films - a BYOM.
