have a good one bye

ok

i guess i could look back at some of the chip uarts and figure out which logic to string together

Good chatting with you all but time to move on to the rest of my day. 

I ahven't found a full-featured UART yet, but I've just been browsing quickly while also here on the chat. But there are a few avaiable.

The Cyber COortex looks interesting. I thike that there are three languages included. And PASCAL - that was always my favorite language.

Out for a bit a washing dishes is calling

I just hopped over to opencores and they have a number of UART cores on the site.

@Duane Its a spartan capable of running two arduino cores . It was a Kickstarter project that seemed to have promise.

I bought from the Cyber Cortex web site.

Crusty - Did you get your through the Kickstarter funding?

Crusty -I haven't run across the Cyber Cortex AV

Pinewoodsdavid - Have you looked at opencores.org yet? They have a number of modules and might have a UART ready to go.

Crusty - I've experimented with the Papilio and its Arduino core but I haven't yet tried to put custom FPGA fucntionality along side the Arduino. I would expect doing that with the PicoBlaze would be easier as it's designed specifically for that purpose.

thanks duane i will look around

Has any one come across the Cyber Cortex AV, I bought one but their forum seems to be devoid of any comment?

Pinewoodsdavid - I think you can find UART cores here and there that would get you a pretty good jumpstart on that part of the design.

@Duane, I like the idea of PicoBlaze instead of the Atmel AVR cores, will be playing with this set up soon.

Thise are some pretty good sized panels. I would think they would definitely be worth optimizing.

it seems like the hard part will be to design a uart to talk to the gps, and then making a rtc

the rest seems kind of easy

Solar track would be a pretty good use of an FPGA. I would think you could do most, if not all of teh job in the FPGA. Maybe with a little PICOBlaze core for any processing required

@Duane Will definitely look at this link as the solar cells generate half a GBP per kW generated. So cost of project is easily covered.

Pineywoodsdavid - Sparkfun has a lot of good modules like than. I've got one of their gyro modules to play with.

Crusty - I think it would. The Papilio link I posted uses a servo core put into the FPGA as well as motion tracking. With solar cells, it would be different than witha  camera, but most likely easier to implement

Would FPGA make a good basis for a solar voltaic tracking system, my north facing bank could track with advantage.

Talk to you later Adam

Crusty - Do you have any current hobby projects that you would lik included in another slideshow Max is putting together? He's looking for photos, diagrams and or descriptions.

Sadly gents I have to go as the wife calls 

@duane I will research this cheers.

Here's one at the Gadget Factory. It doesn't have an anti-rat device attached, but it does do motion tracking: http://www.gadgetfactory.net/2012/06/new-video-for-the-servo-tracking-with-the-papilio-one/

@adam I did have this project of yours as a possibility.

Well the VGA system I am currently working on would adapt quite nicly to a cheap infra red vision system. 

Crusty - The ones I've seen use regular web-cameras. Someone used a Papilio FPGA board to build one not long ago.

I've seen a few air rifles and nerf guns with target tracking vision systems built on to them.

@adam radar or vision technology?

@crutsy I like that idea FPGA controlled rifle 

You can get small FPGA or CPLD yes Xilinx Cool Runner is one of them 

@adam I share your interest in air arms , but the age thing makes me too slow to track and shoot, may be a tracking module for the rifle?

Adam - in the MCU world, we can get chips that are pretty incredibly minimalist and are small and inexpsenive enough to be dedicated to a single function. Do FPGAs have small low-functionality chips along suimilar lines?

My wife volunteers at weekends at a cat rescue can help you get one ;)

@Crusty Air rifle ? 

the best rat trap is a cat. very organic solution

David I like thise ideas 

I've looked on sparkfun, and there's a nice gps module which doesn't use too much current. i figure it can wake up once a week to adjust an onboard rtc

Any one got a project for a better Humane rat trap, were over run with the furry beast with all this rain?

i think i will make a translucent reindeer for Christmas, with a red nose that starts glowing on Christmas eve. i'll have the body of the reindeer change colors depending on the temperature, and it will be blue below 32F

Pineywoodsdavid - That sounds like a pretty intersting project.

I just ordered new PCBs for a motor driver design. I'll use a set to drive the motors on my current robot project. I doubt that they boards will be back in time for this slideshow he's putting together so the hack-job version of teh driver might have to go in.

well i would like to make some kind of outdoor lawn ornaments that are solar powered, and change color based on the holiday. it would use gps to adjust time and date, and it could also turn blue when it's below freezing.

Pineywoodsdavid - Do you have any hobby projects you'd be interested submitting to Max for another slide-show blog?

hopefully it should make sense

I'll look forward to reading it.

you put them within the same library (initally the work library is fine) you can then use the component and port map commands to pull in a module. The simulation tool or synthesis tool will then pick up the correct entity. I have a Ask Adam blog about this with Max at the moment it is large ish two parter though 

Hi Pineywoodsdavid

Speaking of modules - one of the things I still haven't wrapped my head around relates to the use of modules. When writing something, for example, with a PWM, I2C and a few other specific functions, would I put each of those in a separate file and "link" them together during the build processe, or do I just have multiple "module xxxx / endmodule" blocks?

it is great, I am actually as we speak just working on a I2C master, as an example for a student I have been helping out a little 

hi everyone

I'm not very far into it yet, but so far it looks like a very valuable tool. I'm expecting it to be very helpful when I'm trying to build PWM and I2C modules.

People keep making comments about subjects and I think ahh i have done that it will make a nice blog so the list grows. Max has a backlog of mine I think 

what do you think of chip scope I like it a lot. 

One of the nice things about being a rookie is that I have a pretty small list of things I'm capable of blogging about. It makes the subject decision much easier.

Now that I've gotten my ChipScope license issue settled, I want to start to try and build a PWM output so that would be a very relevant topic.

I was thinking about bloging about PWM's at some point mind I have a lot to blog about lol 

To date, none of my robots have used FPGAs and I'm still not quite far enough along to have put any PWM or communications in my FPGA eval boards, so that part will have to be unshown for now.

I have a few interesting ones, one solar panel based and a few others

I think any stage of development is fine.

I'm afraid there's not much to see with my robot yet, but PCBs and other parts are on order.

That is a interesting idea,  do they have to be completed ;) 

He's looking to put together another slideshow, but this time with photos / graphics and or descriptions of people's hobby projects.

Always jet setting about is max 

Max said he may not be able to join us today as he's in a Xilinx panel at the moment.

Fun. I've only been there once. I enjoyed the space center more than Disney World, but that may be because I was there as an adult but before kids came along.

We are thinking of Disney World in florida as it has been a while since we last visited 

Very nice. Any region in particulare you are interested in?

Just looking at coming to your side of the pond for a vacation 

How are we all this evening, it is good at the moment 

How is post-Olympic life over there?

Hello

Good morning all

Our weekly chat will commence on Thursday 16 August at 12:00 noon my time (Central Time), which is 1:00pm Eastern Time, 10:00am Pacific Time, and 6:00pm UTC/GMT in Sheffield, England, where my dear old mom lives.

As usual, we will follow our usual practice of leaping from topic to topic with the agility of young, fearless mountain goats.