Altera blaster good deal ?

[AwArD_RzD]

I had some $$$ to spare this month and since i love to play with FPGA/CPLD i bought the new MAX10 eval board, in my research i found that kit need the USB blaster to be programmed. Well i knew the Altera one cost around 400$ CAN so i started to look at some clone.

I found the Terasic one at 68$ CAN but the interesting thing it's i found a bundle (Digikey call that a value added item) who include the same Max10 eval board with the Altera usb blaster but for 144$ CAN http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/0/MAX10BUNDLE-ND . If i remove the price for the Max10 board the Blaster is 76$ well only 8$ more than the Terasic one. Idk if it's a error or a really good deal but i bought it and it will be delivered tomorrow.

I didn't found any difference between the 400$ one and this one, Digikey have the same datasheet and the Altera website don't have any clue about that. It's the same Rev C with the shielded ribbon cable. Well if someone have some clue or need it, i think it's a good deal if it's the real one  .

[asgard20032]

If you check the kit pdf, the blaster is not included (its not fair from them to put it on the image, many people will believe the image...)

Max10 look cool. How does a max10 compare to a spartan6 (papillio pro) or a cyclone 2 (DE2) or a cyclone 4/5(DE0 Nano), or some lattice.

Would be nice to have a comparaison of all those entry level fpga.

Currently, i can't find any comparative of entry level fpga like papilio pro and DE0/DE2

[suicidaleggroll]

If you check the kit pdf, the blaster is not included (its not fair from them to put it on the image, many people will believe the image...)

Looks like it's included to me.  The "kit" is not what is being purchased (well, not only).  The "kit" is the development board.  What is being purchased is the "bundle", which includes the "kit" and the blaster.  The description even says "MAX10 EVAL BOARD AND USB-BLASTER", and there's a link to the USB-Blaster data sheet in addition to the MAX10 data sheet.

This is the MAX10 eval kit:
http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/EK-10M08E144ES%2FP/544-3042-ND/4976140

This is the bundle:
http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/0/MAX10BUNDLE-ND

[chickenHeadKnob]

Is there any reason to prefer this kit/board over the BEmicro max 10 from Arrow?  click here:http://www.arrow.com/bemicro/

This has more features, lower cost and a built in usb blaster. I don't have ether so can't compare other than what I've read. Even with the exorbitant Arrow shipping it looks like a much better choice.

[jabramo]

Might be worth a look


https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/altera-usb-programmer/

[AwArD_RzD]

Max10 look cool. How does a max10 compare to a spartan6 (papillio pro) or a cyclone 2 (DE2) or a cyclone 4/5(DE0 Nano), or some lattice.

For now i only used Altera stuff so i cannot tell about the spartan6, for the cyclone 2/4/5 this one have less of everything (DSP block,Memory block), the main feature of the max10 seem to be the integrated ADC, the dual configuration flash, instant on, single supply friendly for board design. It lack some of the hard memory controller like the Cyclone V, but you can have the softcore Sram on the 10m02 to the 10m08, and the Sram Lppdr2 ddr3  10m16 to the 10m50.

For the price it seem that for the same LE count (didn't compare the memory and the i/o) the Max10 is half the price of the 4/5 but it still expensive, it depend of what you need, how many you need and how fast you need it !

Is there any reason to prefer this kit/board over the BEmicro max 10 from Arrow?  click here:http://www.arrow.com/bemicro/

This has more features, lower cost and a built in usb blaster. I don't have ether so can't compare other than what I've read. Even with the exorbitant Arrow shipping it looks like a much better choice.

Depend of what you need, i wanted something lite and the addition of the blaster settled my choice since for the end of this year i will probably design some board for some heavy DSP project and this blaster will be handy, But for 30$ if you don't need much LE/Ram this can be a good choice over the De0 nano who is twice the price.

[AwArD_RzD]

Might be worth a look


https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/altera-usb-programmer/

I saw this post yesterday it have many info and personally i had so many issue with a pickit3 clone, i had my lesson, no more cheap/clone stuff !! If this is the real thing it's cheaper to buy the Max10 bundle than to buy the Altera blaster alone, well 280$ cheaper ! It still 150$ shipped but with this kind of stuff the wallet always suffer and a real blaster will be a nice addition to my lab.

[JoeN]

I was going to second the BEMicro Max 10 board.  Very nice board.  If you want a standalone blaster you can get that from Arrow at the same time.

http://parts.arrow.com/item/detail/arrow-development-tools/bemicromax10#zMnQ
http://parts.arrow.com/item/detail/terasic-technologies/p0302#cQzJ

[dferyance]

I have both the Altera Max 10 board and the BEMicro one. I would recommend the BEMicro over Altera. While I have a USB Blaster, having one built in is just one less thing to go wrong or have wired in.

I have a knock-off USB Blaster that I got from https://gadgetory.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=68&product_id=123 I haven't had a problem with it, although I usually use boards with one built-in.

My understanding of the Max 10 is Altera is positioning it in the area of a CPLD competitor. I think they even did that with the Max2 where it was called a CPLD but had architectural similarities to a FPGA. Tha Max 10 is closer to FPGAs and they now market it as a FPGA but it still is targeted as a CPLD alternative.

I much prefer FPGAs for development due to being RAM based. It is way faster to program than having to re-write the flash every-time. But I consider myself very much a beginner at this sort of thing anyway.

[Scrts]

Just be the cheapo USB Blaster from eBay for less than 10USD. I have the original one and the clone. They work EXACTLY the same. If it would be under the table - I couldn't tell the difference.

[AwArD_RzD]

Just got the package today and yes it's the Altera one Rev C,  Thanks for all the suggestion but i have stated that i bought the bundle in my first post i just wanted to know why they sell it alone over 400$ CAN but only 144$ with the Max10. My topic title was maybe not clear.

I see many good review of the BEMicro one, very good price and nice selection of external peripherals but for me i already have a De0 Nano and a Cyclone 5 Gx started kit, i just needed something lite with some led/switch to play with and even if it's 30$ more than the BEMicro if you count the board alone that doesn't bother me but if the BEMicro stay at this price for the next few month and i don't hit the LE limit on the 10M08s, it's a very very good alternative than design, produce and assemble the pcb for some hobby stuff !! 

[Scrts]

I am more into DE*/nano boards. These have some IOs and are really easy to put in as modules.

[miguelvp]

So far this is what I got:

2 DE0-Nanos
1 Cyclone V GX Starter Kit
2 BeMicro CVs
1 BeMicro Max10
1 Papilio Duo (only Xilinx based one that I got)
1 DE0 Nano SoC (just got it today and about the size of two Nanos)

Only thing I did so far with the new one was to make sure I could run the FPGA demo and the HPS (Hard Processor System) booting into Linux and connect to it via PuTTY, got an LT24 display with touch screen that will work on all of the Altera boards (even the BeMicros since they have one 2x20 Altera compatible connector.

I also have a 3 channel 330MHz DAC capable of doing high resolution VGA, I think I got it up to 1600x1200. That also uses the 2x20 Altera connector.

Let's not forget the BeScope for the BeMicros (yeah it will work even with the MAX10) with 50MHz bandwidth. And that came with the interposer, that can connect to a bunch of Analog Devices boards.

On top of that I got a bunch of PSoCs (4, 5LP) and a PRoC 4 BLE that you can program with Verilog and VHDL to make your own components, but I don't have the need for that yet on the PSoCs since their component library is pretty beefy.

Anyways, I'm think I'm set for now, and I don't have a USB Blaster because they all have them integrated.

[JoeN]

I also have a 3 channel 330MHz DAC capable of doing high resolution VGA, I think I got it up to 1600x1200. That also uses the 2x20 Altera connector.

I have a board (DE2-115) with that DAC on it too, it's an Analog Devices part.  Neat part, but the world has moved away from that.  Think about that.  Your totally digital FPGA uses that high precision DAC to get the signals into an analog format to be sent to what is almost certainly a totally digital monitor (if it is an LCD monitor) that has an analog VGA port on it.  The first thing that happens in the monitor is that an ADC puts it right back into digital for the panel to consume.  It's almost comical it's such a technologically heavy lift (300Mhz conversion is nothing to sniff at - when did we finally get monolithic circuits that could do that?) that is happening for something that doesn't need to happen at all if you just used the digital HDMI or DVI interface. 

[miguelvp]

Mine is not on board and got it from here:

http://www.wayengineer.com/digiasic-fpga-adv7125adv7123-vga-board-p-160.html

In there they mention that it could be either ADV7125 or ADV7123, but of course I got the 8 bit one (ADV7125) instead of the 10 bit one (ADV7123) not that it matter since the extra two bits per color where grounded but I figured I'll get a better response but I'm happy with the 8 bit per color one.

This is a picture of the board attached to a DE0-Nano on the right:



I did get to drive it at 162.0 MHz to get 1600x1200@60Hz

As for HDMI I agree, the Cyclone V GX Starter Kit has HDMI output (but for whatever reason they didn't hook the audio to the FPGA even if the HDMI transmitter supports audio, but at least they have through hole test points for those pins so you can wire them up yourself)

I did a review of that board here:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/terasic-cyclone-v-gx-starter-kit-(c5g)-review/

I don't mind either or, but the nice thing about the triple video DAC is that you can generate whatever analog signals you want. Well up to a point of course.

[miguelvp]

Hmm, that got me thinking that with that triple DAC, a BeMicro MAX10, and replacing the 75 Ohm terminators on the board with 50 Ohm ones I could have a three channel ARB wavegen using the 8 MB of RAM on the dev board to store up to 2MB of ARB data per channel and still have 2MB for other things like a nice sine lookup table higher than 8 bits for example, sure it would be limited to VGA output levels. Maybe adding some ADCs to it for inputs for AM/FM modulation, maybe with one of the PSoC 5LP prototype boards with a Cortex M3 that cost just $10.

So for under $100 ($42 for the DAC, $30 for the BeMicro Max10, $10 for the PSoC 5LP prototype board) it would be a nice test rig that could get a decent 50 MHz signal gen.

Add some bits and pieces for the interface hooked into the PSoC, add an LCD also controlled by the PSoC and it could be a stand alone unit.