CloudACM – Page 48 – Autonomous Computational Machines

SPI vs SPI – Serial Peripheral Interface

February 13, 2017 Patrick Gilfeather

The UART serial communication method discussed in my last post showed a limitation of scale. Asynchronous serial data should only be point to point. If many devices are required, the complexity of design and cost increase. The Serial Peripheral Interface, or SPI protocol, is a method to reduce the complexity and costs of scaling. In contrast to UART, SPI does not require complex bridgeheads. Receiving devices need nothing more than a shift register to operate. Without going into too much…

Serial Communications

February 6, 2017 Patrick Gilfeather

Ideas and thoughts are shared with people through speech, text, or some other form of communication. This is how one knows, or at least has some idea of, what the other is thinking. Electronic devices are similar. Without communication, devices and people would be isolated in the cosmos. Like language, devices use sets of standards and protocols to accomplish communication. In this post, I’ll introduce briefly parallel communication. Next I’ll be covering the most fundamental communication methods of serial communication. …

Signals – Digital, Analog, and PWM

January 30, 2017 Patrick Gilfeather

In this post I’ll be covering fundamental electronic signals. These will establish a foundation for us to work from as I begin to cover more advanced signaling technology. First, we will cover digital signals. These are the most basic since they are either on or off. Next, we cover RC Time circuits which allow us to use a digital port to read an analog condition. We’ll follow that up with analog signals and how we read them electronically. Next, I’ll…