fake | Board Component

fake

The fake board returns incrementing values for digital interrupt ticks and analogs.

Configure a fake board to test integrating a board into your machine without physical hardware:

The following attributes are available for fake boards:

Name Type Required? Description
fail_new bool Required If the fake board should raise an error at machine start-up.
analogs object Optional Attributes of any pins that can be used as Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) inputs. See configuration info.
digital_interrupts object Optional Pin and name of any digital interrupts. See configuration info.

Attribute configuration

Configuring these attributes on your board allows you to integrate analog-to-digital converters and digital interrupts into your machine.

analogs

An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) takes a continuous voltage input (analog signal) and converts it to an discrete integer output (digital signal).

ADCs are useful when building a robot, as they enable your board to read the analog signal output by most types of sensors and other hardware components.

To integrate an ADC into your machine, you must first physically connect the pins on your ADC to your board.

Then, integrate analogs into the attributes of your board by following the Config Builder instructions or by adding the following to your board’s JSON configuration:

On your board’s panel, click Show more, then select Add analog. Assign a name to your analog and then fill in the required properties outlined below.

The following properties are available for analogs:

Name Type Required? Description
name string Required Your name for the analog reader.
pin string Required The pin number of the ADC’s connection pin, wired to the board. This should be labeled as the physical index of the pin on the ADC.
chip_select string Required The chip select index of the board’s connection pin, wired to the ADC.
spi_bus string Required The index of the SPI bus connecting the ADC and board.
average_over_ms int Optional Duration in milliseconds over which the rolling average of the analog input should be taken.
samples_per_sec int Optional Sampling rate of the analog input in samples per second.

Test analogs

Once you have configured your analogs, open the board’s TEST panel on the CONFIGURE or CONTROL tabs to monitor analogs. The numbers displayed next to each analog name represent the digital signal received from the analog inputs.

digital_interrupts

Interrupts are a method of signaling precise state changes. Configuring digital interrupts to monitor GPIO pins on your board is useful when your application needs to know precisely when there is a change in GPIO value between high and low.

Integrate digital_interrupts into your machine in the attributes of your board by following the Config Builder instructions, or by adding the following to your board’s JSON configuration:

On your board’s panel, click Show more, then select Add digital interrupt. Assign a name to your digital interrupt and then enter a pin number.

The following properties are available for digital_interrupts:

Name Type Required? Description
name string Required Your name for the digital interrupt.
pin string Required The pin number of the board’s GPIO pin that you wish to configure the digital interrupt for.

Test digital_interrupts

Once you have configured your digital interrupts, open the board’s TEST panel on the CONFIGURE or CONTROL tabs to monitor interrupt activity. The value displayed next to each interrupt name represents the total count of interrupts triggered by the corresponding digital interrupt.