What classes do people want in electronics?

I made an earlier post offering to teach the basics of making power supplies in a few classes.

But if there is something people are looking for, I would like to hear about it.

I have not yet done anything with an arduino/Pi/beaglebone etc but I have helped people with various and sundried issues with these gadgets.
Examples My relay is 15volt. How do I drive it from a port pin?
I only have 8 bits digital I/O on this board but I want to control 10 inputs and 10 outputs.
This board doesn’t have an A/D but I need one.

Cheers
Steve

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I have heard good things about your FPGA class and would be interested in that.

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Paging @Josh_Melnick

My feeling is that many can benefit from a class about soldering and building something on a perfboard with point-to-point wiring.

Edit: Several have asked whether I plan to teach classes about linear electronics. I responded that was not my specialty and to post requests here on the forum.

FPGA is a good topic to learn.

If there is enough interest, I would love to revive the VHDL class.
But the Intel acquisition of Altera and new releases of Quartus II and cheap dev boards from Arrow have made it worthwhile to rework all that material so that it costs people less, is easier, and has more awesome things that can be done. That will take a fair amount of work on my part to get ready for.

Linear covers a ton of ground, so I am not sure exactly what is being asked for there.
Most of the linear stuff, I have been asked for help at the space has been audio, 555 timer circuits, PLL stuff and op amps.
And I was always surprised when people approached me on the audio issues, because there are several people at the space that know the ins and outs of audio far better than I. I was really impressed with some of the stuff that David Guill and Stacy and a couple of others have done.
I like the idea of a soldering class, but I didn’t jump in that direction, because I read posts that sounded like others were already teaching assembly stuff eg wirewrap, pcbs, soldering etc.

And I would like to put it out there that I have never learned to use spice or matlab, so if anyone wants to teach a class in those I would be pretty enthusiastic.

Cheers
Steve

Yes, FPGA, Analog Design, DIY Cell Phone, Radio Design? DIY Satellite?
TESLA COIL

FPGA -> VHDL pdfs

http://freerangefactory.org/books_tuts.html

Free to dwnld.
1st half of textbk reviews digital logic design. 2nd half covers VHDL.
Highly recommend both textbk and VHDL bk

Also videos and open source ip cores:
http://freerangefactory.org/

Edit: Before jumping into the deep end of the FPGA pool, you might want to review/exercise your logic design
chops here:

Speaking of FPGA’s I have found a really cheap development board using a Altera Cyclone II FPGA

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LEMKR92/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The board is $22 delivered, and you need a $12 programmer (can program multiple boards)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IRODADK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Altera offers a free version of their software which will allow you to program these devices in VHDL, Verilog, or by creating schematics of logic gates…

The latest version to support these boards is Version 13, service pack 1

It is available for Windows and Linux

https://dl.altera.com/13.0sp1/?edition=web&platform=linux&download_manager=direct

Good cheap way to get started.

Device Handbook, https://www.altera.com/en_US/pdfs/literature/hb/cyc2/cyc2_cii5v1.pdf
Family Datasheet, http://hamblen.ece.gatech.edu/DE2/Datasheets/Cyclone_II/cyc2_cii5v1_01.pdf

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Hope Altera’s free IDE works better and is documented better than what was available on the first go around. One method of entry did not generate any vhdl code and could not get simulator to work on vhdl code that did compile. Some of the tutorials didn’t line up w/ free IDE. Get 3/4ths thru example and then things went nuts. Forums mentioned similar problems, but no effective solutions offered. Very frustrating. ~3 yrs later one can only hope things are better.

There are other fish in the pond…

Great resources. thanks! :slight_smile:

FPGAs are awesome. But they are used to design things that are really demanding in one or more ways.
***You have to have some serious speed to get the job done eg on the fly video processing or DSP
***You have to reduce power requirements in an existing high performance computing setup.
***You need simultaneous processing on a large number of I/O
But an FPGA is a programmable chip. You power it up and it is stupid until you feed it a program.
The program you feed it is NOT from a conventional programming language where you tell a microprocessor what steps to take to run your algorithm. FPGA and other programmable logic are programmed in a hardware description language, like verilog or VHDL.
So as ART said earlier, you have to know enough about digital logic to design something, before you take on learning an FPGA hardware description language. That was why the first class ran for three months and still had another month worth of material to start building anything. The introduction started at ground zero so people did not have to have a heavy previous background.
And yes we had a ton of compiler issues because there was so much going on with the intel acquisition of altera and rollout of new parts and Quartus software revision changes. I have gotten some additional tech support on the issues we had during the last class both from Intel/Altera and my contact at Arrow. So I have a great deal more confidence in the Quartus II compiler/IDE environment for the dev boards we will be using.
On a new class, I would like to split it into three parts so that people already familiar with the early material have the option to skip it or take it as a refresher.
I would also like to arrange to record the entire class series so that I can put it up on a youtube video channel.
This will be a big help to folks that occaisonally miss a class. Also to me, because I wont be coming to the space one extra day to help people not get behind.
But I would want to see at least 15 sign up before offering it, because last time as soon as the college semester started, we lost a third of the class. I would also want to hear from people regarding what days/times work for them so it can be scheduled to be more widely available.
Cheers
Steve

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

https://www.arrow.com/en/reference-designs/deca-development-kit-based-on-the-10m50daf484c6ges-max-10-fpga/178fffd04d89cbb578855555cb159a1a

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.
[/quote]

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.

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The first board still seems to be available; however, the second does not seem to be available any longer.

LiPo charger class. See this post: Recommend me a small solar charger

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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.