Altera A-C2FB kit ( board documentation )

[andre_teprom]

Dear friends,



I recently purchased a cheap chinese Altera kit "A-C2FB" based on Cyclone II, just to play with HDL languages, however once received the board, I noticed that all documentation is very weak in matter of details of the pinout connectors corresponding to its references on schematic, due there is no designator reference for many parts.

Does somebody have dealt with this board, and could provide some help ?



Thanks.

[marshallh]

Ask the seller for more details. Unfortunately that's all you get with those chinese boards.

[andre_teprom]

I already did that, but unfortunately they think that are providing all necessary information at the documentation that comes with the kit. I hope do not burn the kit due to connect something wrong.

Thanks.

[miguelvp]

How about a link to the kit, that might help to find other sources for the documentation.

[miguelvp]

I found a worldpress article that uses that board, not sure if it will help but it has a pdf doc.

https://organicmonkeymotion.wordpress.com/programmable-hardware/altera-based-experiments/

The doc is not great but it does have all the pins described in the schematics, but I didn't go through all of the devices to check if any was missing.

Also it seems the board needs a JTAG programmer unlike newer Altera dev boards that have the byteblaster or however it's called built in.

As for programming it, you might need to get an older version of Quartus that supports the older Cyclone chip. Also you are better off with Altera's website to learn how to use Quartus and how to program the device.

Google for "my first fpga" or "my first nios" those are step by step guides but you'll have to adapt some of the steps to your device and the supported IP (Intellectual Property) soft cores.

[miguelvp]

In the wordpress link I posted above under FPGA-Altera they have a translated document.

The link to where to buy the device is broken but the blogger mentions that the documentation supplied was in Chinese, he doesn't elaborate how he got the translated document but after taking a quick glance at it, it seems it has enough information.

I guess for particular details you can hunt for the particular ICs datasheets.

Edit:
If you bought it from:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Core-altera-fpga-development-board-fpga-development-board-fpga-learning-board/1408406494.html

It seems it comes with the USB Blaster (probably a clone or an older version, but should work fine)
It also seems they provide the Quartus II DVD and schematics and other information on a 2nd DVD.

[andre_teprom]

Appreciate a lot all replies.


The seller has provided a folder with several code example files, a schematic drawing, and a pinout spreadsheet of the core, everything compressed, but none of them contained the board layout, which is turning the task to startup somewhat difficult.

Please find at the link bellow the PDF of the board, and although there are component designators for most devices at the schematic, at the board PCB I canno't find it printed there. For while I'm playing just with compilation and simulation, but for testing it I'll have to use some bit of guessing and luck.

https://organicmonkeymotion.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/altera-fpga-development-board-user-manual.pdf


Thanks

[miguelvp]

Yeah, that's the document I found, it has all you need even if it's a pretty spartan doc.

Try to follow this tutorial by changing the device to yours (EP2C5T144C8) Edit: 50MHz clock when you need to select the clock speed to program the pll (hopefully it does have at least one)

https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_US/pdfs/literature/tt/tt_my_first_fpga.pdf

And if you get stuck please let us know where so we can at least help you to run a simple blink program.

Edit2: it does have two PLLs according to:
https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_US/pdfs/literature/hb/cyc2/cyc2_cii5v1.pdf

[miguelvp]

I also noticed that on the Aliexpress I've linked before it shows the DVD having a "My First Altera-FPGA" word document
(not sure if that's who you got your board and if it came with the same material)

Hopefully that doc, is for your particular board. It also has more documentation including a schematic, maybe yours came with the same docs?

[andre_teprom]

That's the exact board which I have.

Sorry if I was not clear to pose the question, but the issue is not related to howto start a new NiosII project, nor the language, nor the circuit, but just to identify at the Schematic ( available ) what connector refers to what component designator ( unavailable ) at the Board.

For instance, the Jtag connector at the schematic is identified by J856 but at the PCB there is no reference, just a "Jtag" symbol stacked over an "AS" symbol. Ok, I presume that the connector polarization matches to the programmer, but in general I like to check just for sure.

Thanks a lot, but I will have to deal with such uncertainty.
Even if something goes wrong, I'll survive to this.

 

[miguelvp]

By looking at the picture you have two 10 pin connectors, the silk screen is telling you that the one on the left is the JTAG (J856) and the one on the right is the AS (J6).

The 10 pin header is keyed and the cable supplied would be keyed as well.

Maybe an Arrow BeMicro Max10 would be a better starting kit:
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/bemicromax10/arrow-development-tools/#page-1

Altera has a nice wiki for it too:
http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/BeMicro_MAX_10