Jasper2610 Posted May 3, 2011 Posted May 3, 2011 (edited) Unless you are going to say you will hang one off the fpga, then 4 off that, then... dont say youre going to do that :) Yeah that was the plan, LOL. At the risk of sounding ignorant, whats wrong with doing that? Digital Logic is all about chaining NAND and NOR gates with each other, a 3 way NAND gate is just 2 NAND gates chaind with an INVERTER. As for LED's and back lit buttons maybe and independent power supply and transistors triggered by a digital signal? ideas? The FPGA won't only be a mux, but a register to hold the switch states until the MUX picks up a change in one. And I'm really want to minimise the code off chip to talk to Helios, so it will transcribe and output code directly to DCS or Helios, that either will instantly recognise. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @ metalnwood >> ^^^ that the kind of post i love to see, lots of option for me to choose from, i love it 8D ^^^ Edited May 3, 2011 by Jasper2610 TehgRa (n-TehgRa-tea)
metalnwood Posted May 3, 2011 Posted May 3, 2011 Yeah that was the plan, LOL. At the risk of sounding ignorant, whats wrong with doing that? Nothing, you will have to do it that way because you are only using a single controller. I just think that single controller and then the plumbing required to share the lines is more complicated than it needs to be for this kind of thing. Some of that may be because I don't have a working knowledge of vhdl and what you have to do to make it work. Actually, looking it again it seems that those chips can be run without daisychaining them using 4+n pins where the other is the common. As for LED's and back lit buttons maybe and independent power supply and transistors triggered by a digital signal? ideas? There are other led drivers about that can carry the current to power the leds so that you don't need to implement transistor switches if you dont want to. The FPGA won't only be a mux, but a register to hold the switch states until the MUX picks up a change in one. And I'm really want to minimise the code off chip to talk to Helios, so it will transcribe and output code directly to DCS or Helios, that either will instantly recognise. Gadroc hasn't yet published how the output from helios to other devices will work but it sounds like it will not be too far away. If you talk directly to DCS you will need onboard ethernet or some other software on the pc to do what helios is doing.
Jasper2610 Posted May 4, 2011 Posted May 4, 2011 yeah cool mate, sound like Helios is going to be a good option, and thats all i'll need on the PC. Once it's finished i'll setup the high level end of th FPGA to talk to it. Sound like you got me going in a good direction ;) TehgRa (n-TehgRa-tea)
Jasper2610 Posted May 4, 2011 Posted May 4, 2011 This is the basic schematic for my Pit TehgRa (n-TehgRa-tea)
metalnwood Posted May 4, 2011 Posted May 4, 2011 Looks good to me but I can't really see the green text for what is wired up to what. I assume that the common input/output is the line going back to the main chip from all the others and that E are the lines coming from the bottom 16 multiplexers to the first, only 1 high at a time?
Jasper2610 Posted May 4, 2011 Posted May 4, 2011 You got it. The only thing i just realised is that the enable is LO activated so i need a few NOT gate chips after the MUX in the middle controlling the enable of the bottom MUX's. Also needs a GND. TehgRa (n-TehgRa-tea)
Gadroc Posted May 6, 2011 Posted May 6, 2011 I've setup an area over at scsimulations to work on a common hardware solution. I'm calling it Eos and I want to make it an open standard for how to interface panel control boards to the computer. I'm prototyping the initial interface board right now and working on getting firmware ready for it. I also have a working framework for quickly building out IO Boards based on a bare bones Arduino board. I will be putting up a subversion system with a library for bus communications, LED dimming, Stepper control and more as it develops. I'll be documenting it as a API for hardware interface on the computer side (Raw HID protocol) and a set of wire standards for communicating between interface and controller. It's still early stages but I will be fleshing it out and posting my current schematics and eagle files shortly. Eos Description Eos Forums
Jasper2610 Posted May 7, 2011 Posted May 7, 2011 nice, i'll have a look soon. but right now i neck deep in uni 8|, good luck with it. TehgRa (n-TehgRa-tea)
tjhowse Posted May 7, 2011 Posted May 7, 2011 I used an arduino uno with some custom firmware on the 8u2 chip to emulate a joystick. My AHCP shows up as a standard HID joystick in windows with 20-something buttons: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=71935 If someone wants I can provide the source code for the arduino and the 8u2 chip.
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