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What's Stopping You Building Your Next Project with an FPGA? (Please, Don't Blame the Cost!)

rscasny

The community does a ton of projects with MCUs. If they do the job for you, that's great. But the element14 community is about learning, experimenting and roadtesting. In this spirit, I am proposing that you should try building your next project with an FPGA (SoC), if it suits the application, of course. What's stopping you? Oh, some members have voiced the cost issue. Granted, some FPGAs do cost a lot. But chip manufacturers are rolling out economical chipsets that most makers, pro-makers or experienced hobbyists can afford. (If you can't, then apply to a RoadTest and if you win you can get a dev board for FREE.) I think FPGA / SoCs will move into a more important place for electronic designers, especially for IoT applications. Perhaps it's time to experiement with one. What's stopping you?

 

Here's a link to a current roadtest:Digilent ARTY S7 Dev Board (Xilinx Spartan 7)   Apply today!

 

Randall Scasny

RoadTest Program Manager

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  • in reply to rsc

    Here's the kind of thing you can do with them, drive 9216 WS2812B smart pixels

     

    image

     

    http://makerlogic.com/ezpixel/

  • in reply to Workshopshed

    I hope you are powering the LED's externally.

     

     

     

    DAB

  • in reply to DAB

    When using lots of WS2812 LEDS it's very, very, very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very,very, very important to provide them ample clean power and control signal.

    Ensure that you don't get any excessive under or overshoot of the control signal.

     

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    Any signal overshoot and insufficient power can blow up WS2812B LEDs.