FPGA

Starting with FPGAs

last updated: 2025-01-07

I can't guaranty a faultless project, so using the information is at one's own risk.

Intro

For years I wanted to test FPGAs, but I did not find the right access, especially because the tools were proprietary and every producer had another approach. Then I bought a book from Jörg Rippel (in German). Jörg uses only open source tools to program the FPGAs and the book is easy to read. The open source toolchain helps to better understand whats going on. He uses an IceZero board (ICE40HX, Lattice) and a Tang Nano 9k board (Gowin-GW1NR-LV9).

In the French Mag Hackable Magazine nr 35 I found in 2020 a cool article to use cheap LED control boards named Colorlight 5A-75B with an ECP5 FPGA as development board. I have two of this boards.

So first I will document my progress with the book and then I will use hopefully my knowledge to program the Colorlight FPGAs.


Tang Nano 9k
LeafCANlog A gear inside of the Nissan Leaf cable lock device broke. The lock device made an awful sound, so I disconnected the device. A new device would cost over 500 €, and so I decided to find another solution.


ECP5 on a Colorlight 5A-75B board
LeafCANlog is a CAN bus (OBD2) logger and display for the EV Nissan Leaf. It's build around an AT90CAN128 and uses a VDrive2 (FTDI) to log on USB-Sticks. LeafCANlog