 
|
 Alan
Stummer  Research Lab Technologist |
---> Please note that a lot of links have changed. Project folders are now sorted by year. <---
| I am curious who uses what. Are these webpages a waste of time, or are they any help to others? Are the circuits, software and utilities appearing in other labs? Please send your comments or suggestions or what you have used (or not) or schematics of your version or pictures or anything! Email me, or be creative and send a postcard!I want to hear from the vacuum! |   |
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NOTICE: This website and associated files are provided for reference only. This is not a kit site! It is a collection of my work here at the University of Toronto in the Physics department. If you are considering using any schematics, designs, or anything else from here then be warned that you had better know something of what you are about to do. No design is guaranteed in any way, including workable schematic, board layout, HDL code, embedded software, user software, component selection, documentation, webpages, or anything. All that said, if the webpages say it works (which is the vast majority of projects) then for me it worked. To make the project work may have involved undocumented additions, changes, deletions, tweaks, tunings, alterations, modifications, adjustments, waving of a wand while wearing a pointy black hat, appeals to electron deities and just plain doing whatever it takes to make the project work. |
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- Collaborative projects have restricted access. Contact me for access to them.
- Push Coils Started for Rockson Chang in Aephraim's lab. An evolution of a previous project, supplies 50Ap 10mS pulses to a pair of coils for manipulating atoms in a MOT.
- Dual µWave EOM Driver Started for Amir Feizpour in Aephraim's lab. Two commonly studied hyperfine transitions occur at 6.834682612GHz (Rb87) and 3.03257GHz (Rb85), give or take a few Hz. This project generates the drive signal for an EOM (ElectroOptical Modulator) to generate optical sidebands on a laser at either frequency.
- 2011: Fesh-Mot Coils redux Started in 2009, then dropped, revived in June 2011, for Aephraim's lab. Remake of the 2007 Feshbach coil project, to control coil current extremely accurately at 125A ±1mA to tune through Feshbach resonance transitions.
- 2011: PhotonFinish2 - Octal Coincidence Timer For Xingxing Xing in Aephraim's lab. New and improved version of the Coincidence Timer - PhotoFinish, with several channels for measuring timing between channels (photodiodes). Stay tuned for the next version, slightly delayed!
Engineering Programs
 My
Schematic/CAD program is...
Eagle,
from
CadSoft, a
schematic capture and CAD program. The freeware version is
fully
functional, with restrictions on writing and editing only. It
is
ideal for small departments such as UofT's Quantum Optics, plus only a
fraction of the price of large CAD programs for 95% of their
functionality. Some people have complained that it is hard to learn but
I and others have not had problems - if you can find a CAD program that
you can learn to use fast, please tell me about it! Parts are
easy to add: I can add schematic symbol and footprint for a 200++ pin
FPGA from scratch in a couple of hours, faster if copying and modifying
an existing part. Our Quantum
Optics library is available and
kept up to date. |
 My Standard Fast Processor is... BeagleBoardxm
It uses the ARM
Cortex-A8 core in T.I.'s OMAP3530 processor. Rather than make
a
microcomputer from scratch, the BeagleBoard provides everything needed
much cheaper and with less head banging than I could do it.
It
runs Linux as OS,
the source code is in C, communications are via serial port, USB or
ethernet.
I use jEdit to write the source code, CodeSourcery's GCC to cross-compile, PuTTY to load the executable with SSH and finally PuTTY as a serial terminal for direct serial port access to the Beagle. |
 My
Standard Slow Processor is...
from Rabbit
Semiconductor. Their RabbitCore
Modules are versatile and
reasonably priced
8-bit grunt assemblies. For example, the RCM4200
has ethernet (with full IP stack and functions), serial and parallel
I/Os, ADCs, Flash and SRAM. Best of all, I don't spend time
making yet another a standard Harvard architecture processor circuit.The Dynamic C IDE (free) is as good as any other C IDE. Yes, it has its quirks and undocumented features but what doesn't? Here is my overview and notes. |
 My Standard FPGA is... the Cyclone
series from Altera.
Specifically,
I prefer QFP packages. These can be
soldered by hand and not have to send it out for BGA soldering.
I
always use 2-layer boards and it works just fine at 100MHz+, thank you.
Just bypass it well.
The standard IDE is Quartus. Free (IP is extra), huge download, steep learning curve and quirky as any other engineering program but effective. I always use System Verilog and avoid NIOS (embedded processer). Altera is very generous with university programs for both Quartus licensing and samples. Talk to them. |
My
Standard Board
House is...
Alberta Printed Circuits (APC). They have a great simple, fast and cheap prototype service. Send in the gerber files, get a few prototype boards back in a couple of days for a couple $100. I always use 2-layer 1.5mm (0.062") FR4 with 1oz Cu using 0.18mm (7mil) track and space, no silk screen or solder mask or glue layers. For the record, I have done 7GHz on such a board - just bypass well, keep microwave traces <2mm long, differential signals, do not dwell on impedance controlled traces. |
 My
Standard Spice is...
5Spice,
Spice (electronics
circuit simulation) program, free version is restricted. Generally easy
to use and add Spice models. The previously annoying Spice engine has
been overhauled and appears to be much more stable. Adding
models
to the library is simple because there are only standard symbols (if
you want pretty, go to PSpice). 5Spice cannot do FFT, nor can the free
version do Monte Carlo simulations.This new and improved 5Spice makes it as good (and quirky) as any mainstream Spice program but without the bells and whistles.
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