I've got a plan....if I have the time

So I decided what I want to try to do with the Nexys FPGA. What I'm planning on doing is to have around three or four 8x8 LED matrices hooked up to make a scrolling display that I'll be able to update with a keyboard hooked up to the board. It'll probably take me the rest of the semester to do if I can even figure out how to accomplish it but it sounds like it'll be a lot of fun either way.

Starting something new.....again....

Nexys 3

Nexys 3 VGA out

Papilio One

So since I've returned to school after the summer break I've been receiving a lot of new toys to play with. One such toy was an FPGA board called the Papilio-One. It's a pretty neat little board that I hope is going to provide a change of pace from the MCU stuff. The other new thing is also an FPGA board called the Nexys 3. My professor is letting me play with it for the semester so I hope to figure out whether or not I would want one by that time. 

It can see!

So here is a cool video that I just made showing that the PIC now can receive input with an IR LED and two IR transistors. FUN!

Something besides an LED

So my wife suggested that I try to make something run that wasn't an LED. Lucky for me this is what I've been planning on doing from the beginning.....I was just waiting for parts. There were many problems for some strange reason, all figured out, but not very fun. The strangest one was that the motor would stutter for a bit then even out. For some reason lowering the voltage down to 5.5v - 6.0v solved the problem. Here are some pictures as well.

Yay, goodbye to free time

Well the new semester has started. I can see the time I'm going to be spending on staring at code dwindling to nothing. The only good side of this is that I can ask so many questions about PIC to other students that they might start to avoid the lab....still fun for me though. On another note I've spent most of the afternoon sorting out parts that I got today so I'm almost ready to say screw it and let everything be messy......but then I wouldn't be able to find anything. Here's what some of it currently looks like.

Got the Clock Running

 So this chip was a bit of trouble because it does not have its own internal oscillator. The fun part was trying to figure out why it only worked when I touched the first three pins with a finger and then pushed the button. Eventually I figured out that pin one needed +5v applied to it. Yay, works.

Analog to Digital............?

Well it kinda works now. Actually it works just fine, my brain just kinda knows how it works. What I originally did was chop up the code trying to get it to work and replaced certain lines until I got it working. It was actually kinda fun. The best part though was wiring it all up on the breadboard and having it actually work..... off to try and mod the code again.