Simple VGA Interface For Tiny FPGA Boards

June 2, 2011 by Mike Nathan 10 Comments

fpga_vga_adapter

[devb] has been playing around with XESS FPGA boards for ages, and as long as he can remember, they have had built-in VGA interfaces. His newest acquisition, a XuLA FPGA board, doesn’t have any external parts or ports aside from a USB connector. He needed to get video output from the board, so he decided to build a VGA interface himself.

He prototyped a 512-color VGA interface board which worked just fine, but he thought it would be way too cumbersome to use for each and every project. To keep life simple, he designed a small PCB that integrates a VGA connector and all of the resistors he needed to get the signal from the FPGA. His boards plug directly into a breadboard, so only a handful of wires is needed to connect the FPGA to a monitor.

As you can see on his site, the adapter works quite well, allowing the FPGA to put out a crisp 800×600 image with little fuss. [devb] has also posted all of his design files on his site in Eagle format for anyone interested in replicating his work.

VGA Out On A Maple Board

June 2, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 8 Comments

The team at Leaf Labs just released a new library to demonstrate the VGA capabilities of their Maple dev board. Although it’s only a 16 by 18 pixel image, it shows a lot of development over past video implementations on the Maple.

The Maple is a great little Ardunio-compatible board with a strangely familiar IDE. We’ve covered the Maple before. Instead of the somewhat limited AVR, the Maple uses an ARM running at 72MHz, making applications requiring some horsepower or strict timing a lot easier.

We’ve seen a few projects use the increased power, like a guitar effects shield. It’s possible the Maple could be made into a game console that would blow the Uzebox out of the water, but we’re wondering what hackaday readers would use this dev board for.

Watch the video after the jump to see how far the Maple’s VGA capability has come after only a few months, or check out Leaf Lab’s Maple libraries.

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Color Object Tracking With An 8-bit Microcontroller

May 25, 2011 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

[Craig] sent in a link to this project which manages to implement color tracking on an 8-bit microcontroller at 60 frames per second. That’s some pretty incredible performance, but we’re also not talking about using a hobby-grade microcontroller. The C8051F360 is an ARM microcontroller with 100 MIPS throughput and with a system clock that can operate at up to 100 MHz. You also must consider that the chip will be able to do nothing else while in the tracking mode. Even with those gotchase, it’s still pretty incredible.

The setup uses an Omnivision OV7720 camera module. It has its own 24 MHz clock, which is used as the clock signal on the microcontroller’s PLL to generate a 96 MHz system clock. The code, which is written in a combination of C and assembly language, pushes captured tracking data to a PC via a serial port connection. After the break you can watch a bare-bones demo video that illustrates what the camera sees and what data shows up on the PC.

If you had the system in hand, what would you use it for? Perhaps it’s a perfect addition to that paintball sentry gun at which you’ve been hacking away?

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Lego Technic Super 8 Movie Projector

May 18, 2011 by Mike Nathan 17 Comments

lego_super_8

It always blows our mind to see the things that people dream up when playing with Lego. Given enough time, you could likely replicate almost any mechanical device with the right amount and type of blocks.

[Friedemann Wachsmuth] recently wrapped up construction on a very impressive Super-8 movie projector with the help of his friend [Kalle]. The projector is fully functional, and is made completely from Lego aside from the reel spindles, the lens, and the lamp. As you can see in the video below the projector plays the film quite well, and even though it is only lit using an LED flashlight, it’s more than bright enough to get the job done.

The projector boasts automatic film feeding, a 24 fps framerate, as well as fast rewind capabilities – all provided by just two small Lego Technic motors.

You really need to watch the video to appreciate how much work went into this projector – it’s amazing.

[via RetroThing]

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Bit Banging VGA From An SD Card Slot

May 10, 2011 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

If you’ve got some favorite electronic device that includes an SD card slot but doesn’t have a video out port you may be able to push VGA signals through the card reader conductors. That’s exactly what’s going on above with the Ben NanoNote, a sub-$100 Linux device which we’ve seen using its SD card slot as general I/O before.

The hardware to capture the signals includes a breakout board for the card slot. Free-formed on the other end of that connector card is a gaggle of resistor which handle level conversion for the VGA color signals, with a VGA cable taking it from there to the monitor. The software that makes this happen is a dirty hack, blocking all other functions while it displays a still image. But we’re sure that it can be cleaned up somewhat. Just don’t hold out hopes for full-motion video, this little guy just doesn’t have it in him.

[via Dangerous Prototypes via Slashdot]

Synkie: The Modular Synth For Video

May 8, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

The folks at [anyma] have been working on an analog video processor called Synkie for a while now, and we’re amazed a project this awesome has passed us by for so long.

Like a Moog or Doepfer synth, the Synkie was developed with modularity in mind. So far, [anyma] has built modules to split and combine the sync and video signals, and modules to invert, add, subtract, mix, filter and amplify those signals. The end result of all this video processing produces an output that can look like a glitched Atari, art installation, and scrambled cable station all at the same time.

The Synkie’s output reminds us of the original Doctor Who title sequence, and actually this idea isn’t far off the mark – both use video feedback that will produce anything from a phantasmagoric ‘flying through space’ aesthetic to a fractal Droste effect visualization. We’re impressed with Synkie’s capabilities, but we’re astounded by the [anyma] crew’s ability to control a video signal in real time to get what they want.

Check out a video of the Synkie after the jump. There’s also more footage of the Synkie in action on the Synkie Vimeo channel.

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USB Minecraft Portal

May 6, 2011 by Kevin Dady 12 Comments

[Sprite_tm] had heard some time ago that middle of the road Nokia phones had some really interesting LCDs, they are 2.4 inch TFT’s with 320×240 resolution. He immediately got 3 beccause they are pretty low cost as well, and started working with them. Apparently these LCDs are self contained, meaning they have all the driver chips and memory on board, you just need to know the pins and commands. This too is fairly easy as they are somewhat standard setups and datasheets for similar models work in a pinch.

Once the things were working, what do you do with them? [Sprite_tm] decided to make a desktop minecraft portal. Since the animation is a bit complex in micro controller worlds, he grabbed one of the STM32F101CBs for their beefy cpu and got to work. Getting the texture from minecraft proved to be a bit of a bear as they are not static images, but are calculated on startup. A bit of C code on the PC quickly generates an appropriate pattern and is exported to the micro controller for display in its final home.

The case is made out of wood and once finished looks just like the “real” thing giving a presentation any “blockhead” would love to have on their desk.