AMX Digital

[Carl-NC]

With either analog demods or direct sampling, one ADC will do the job. For the analog demods, I would choose a multi-channel simultaneous sampling ADC like the ADS131E04. But you could also do it with a single channel ADC and a mux.

[Albdelafar]

That graph clearly demonstrates the need for a multi-channel ADC.
Analog demod solution looks so better choice now.
Especially after the daunting demands of direct sampling.
Thanks to Your and Willy's goodwill; in a couple of posts I learned something that I have not been able to understand for years.


It will be an interesting "math" to take those samples later. An "block" algorithm for further processing should be drawn/written. But in "folk words". To make it easier to understand.

Hi Carl and Ivconic I'am perhaps a bit stupid but I don't understand why you need to have more than one ADC to analyse the RX signal ?
If one ADC transform all the analogic signal into a digital one why the processor couldn't take samples for RX25, RX5a, RX5b and RX5c on the same channel and separately analyze them with the DSP.
Could we imagine the same Digital signal connected to many pins of the processor to analyze independently all type of RX signal ?

[ivconic]

A few days of getting to know the STM32Cube IDE... I'm totally overwhelmed with what I've been able to see in the IDE so far.
It is becoming clear to me that it will take me a lot more time to get used to this kind of change.
Fortunately, I started to find regularly very good "lessons" on YouTube.
I'm bothered by the "burden" of Arduino... habits and long-term work with it.
I think it would be easier for me to start from the beginning without any prior knowledge.
But now it's too late.
To say that I am delighted with IDE is an understatement.
But there is still so much to learn and practice.
Move on...

[ivconic]

Phew! All day search on the net!
The first step to easy learning is to find a good source.
In a lot of mediocre and even bad demos;finally a good course,at least for now it seems good to me.
We'll see how it goes...

https://youtu.be/hYYRfhhvTYo

[ivconic]

CubeMX is a design tool for selecting a micro and configuring the pins. I've only played with it a little, never really used it.
CubeProgrammer is a manual programming tool. I only use it for production-level programming, or when I need to un-brick a micro.
CubeIDE is the main tool. It's a GUI development system, similar to MPLAB-X if you are familiar with that. It's all you really need, plus the libraries for the specific processor.

I installed it after I saw Willy's comment.
And spent some time since then playing with it.
Ok, some of the things are intuitive and easy to understand.
But some are not and will need certain learning/adapting curve.
One thing is annoying me right now.
My boards are NUCLEO 144 - L496ZG.
So I started IDE, new project, picked right board and even marked it as "favorite" (I guess that's the puprose of a "star" next to a board name in the list).
But once I delete the project; I have to pick up the board all over again, from the list.
Is there a way to make it always to use the same board as "default" ... or I have to pick the board each time I start new project?
As things goes on, I see; I will have to spend much more time watching the videos and reading the documents.
Jumping from Atmega 328P to ARM-M4 is not simple and easy at all.
It looks scary to me now and is actually a quantum leap.

[Carl-NC]

CubeMX is a design tool for selecting a micro and configuring the pins. I've only played with it a little, never really used it.
CubeProgrammer is a manual programming tool. I only use it for production-level programming, or when I need to un-brick a micro.
CubeIDE is the main tool. It's a GUI development system, similar to MPLAB-X if you are familiar with that. It's all you really need, plus the libraries for the specific processor.

[ivconic]

It can be used with Arduino IDE too.
I tried "Blink" and it uploads and runs alright.
Before that I just needed to install board definitions in IDE.
Next (before your post) I installed STM32CubeMX and now I just installed STM32CubeIde.
Will see...
Writting a code is one thing, but setting up the proper software environment is quite another thing.

[Willy Bayot]

Although I am quite skilled with the Adruino IDE and have done a lot with it so far; I feel like now is the time to add another development environment,
a little more "serious" to work with around the Nucleo dev board.
I previously programmed the STM32 Blue Pill with the Arduino IDE.
But these Nucleo 144 (l496zg) dev boards are far more serious and I would like to use them with a software environment that is adequate for them.
Half an hour of searching the net...
I found a lot and nothing is clear to me!
I found on one page a very vague instruction with suggestions to download 3 packages:
STM32Cube IDE, STM32Cube MX and STM32Cube Programmer.
Randomly when I read on those pages, about those packages; I don't understand anything, what is it for?
Do all 3 have to be installed? What is it for, etc.
The short descriptions of the packages are unclear to me, it turns out that you can do everything with each of them?
And I can't find any "for dummies" instructions with explanations about these issues.
Does anyone of you have the will to write a brief instruction on what and how to explain the exact role of those packages?
And in as brief as possible to explain setting up a development environment on a system like Windows.

The 'STM32Cube IDE' should be enough for a start.

[ivconic]

Although I am quite skilled with the Adruino IDE and have done a lot with it so far; I feel like now is the time to add another development environment,
a little more "serious" to work with around the Nucleo dev board.
I previously programmed the STM32 Blue Pill with the Arduino IDE.
But these Nucleo 144 (l496zg) dev boards are far more serious and I would like to use them with a software environment that is adequate for them.
Half an hour of searching the net...
I found a lot and nothing is clear to me!
I found on one page a very vague instruction with suggestions to download 3 packages:
STM32Cube IDE, STM32Cube MX and STM32Cube Programmer.
Randomly when I read on those pages, about those packages; I don't understand anything, what is it for?
Do all 3 have to be installed? What is it for, etc.
The short descriptions of the packages are unclear to me, it turns out that you can do everything with each of them?
And I can't find any "for dummies" instructions with explanations about these issues.
Does anyone of you have the will to write a brief instruction on what and how to explain the exact role of those packages?
And in as brief as possible to explain setting up a development environment on a system like Windows.

[ivconic]

Finally arrived!
23 days from NY/USA to Sokobanja/Serbia.
Now I have real "stage fright"!
I have to study these seriously for several days, maybe weeks...
Before I start producing white smoke with them!

[ivconic]

[Olly]

Hi all, in preparation for Carl's TX and analogue front end stage, I've been beavering away writing Verilog code for the little CMOD A7 FPGA module. I know that most of you will want to use some other processing module but for those interested this is what I've got so far: -

• Complementary TX pulse outputs with one 5kHz cycle followed by 5 x 25kHz cycles as per Carl's diagram.
• ADC Interface to the LTC2338-18 for capturing RX data at 1uSec intervals.
• Capturing of the + and - slots for RX5 a, b & c and RX25 as per Carl's diagram.
• Getting the difference between the + & - values for each slot and accumulating the 5 x RX25 slots.
• This gives us 16 x RX5a slots, 32 x RX5b slots, 48 x RX5c slots and 8 x RX25 slots. (Can be changed as required)
• Passing all of this data (104 slots) through rolling average (boxcar) filters/accumulators 16 deep (6.4mSec)
• Making this data available via a Dual Port Ram for processing every 400uSec.
  Note: The time taken to actually filter all 104 slots is less than 4uSec which leaves over 396uSec (39,600 clock cycles)
  for processing if such a fast processing loop is required - we will probably process much less frequently.

The development has been done using Xilinx Vivado tools and I can make the source code available if anyone is interested.

Regards

[Olly]

Complementary TX signals generated with the CMOD-A7 FPGA board.
The dead band is 100nSec, but can be altered.

[Olly]

The 5kHz pulse serves 2 purposes. One is for better detection of medium-high conductors and in that respect you are right, RX5B+ and RX5b- maybe have different responses. Same with RX5c+/-. However, for target detection these are simply added so it's not a big deal. The other purpose is for GB and this is where balanced responses are more important. In the case of viscous responses I think whether you sample after a previous short or long pulse matters little. I may be wrong and this is something that needs verification.

Thanks for explaining, makes more sense now.

Regards

[Carl-NC]

The 5kHz pulse serves 2 purposes. One is for better detection of medium-high conductors and in that respect you are right, RX5B+ and RX5b- maybe have different responses. Same with RX5c+/-. However, for target detection these are simply added so it's not a big deal. The other purpose is for GB and this is where balanced responses are more important. In the case of viscous responses I think whether you sample after a previous short or long pulse matters little. I may be wrong and this is something that needs verification.