LAB # 1

Introduction to EPAL Trainer

Objective:
 To become familiar with the components of the trainer board used in the digital experiments.

Introduction to EPAL:
 Safety and Handling Issues.
It is utmost recommended that you must clean and dry up your hands before you start working on EPAL.
This can avoid depositing, hand carrier materials between contacts and therefore avoid short circuiting.
Although EPAL has been fused properly for all power supply levels and easily replaceable but you must
avoid falling naked patching wires or conducting materials on EPAL.

 Before you power up the EPAL.

All the slide switches on EPAL are in OFF state when they are pushed down and ON otherwise. Turn the
power supply slide switches to OFF position and insert the external power supply male jack in the female
power jack on EPAL. Then turns the power supply switches in ON state.

Fig.1
Key Functional Blocks of EPAL:

Power Supply:
The power supply specifications are
- PIN3 +5V ---- 5A
- PIN5 +15V ---- 2A
- PIN4 -15V ---- 0.8A
- PIN1, 2 COMMON GND
The power supply voltages are available on the left half of EPAL on headers where it can be extended through
jumper wire to any desired circuit. We will be using +5V in most of our experiments.
EPAL is provided with a variable power supply ranging from 0 to ±15V. The output for the variable power supply
is provided both on interface header and Molex connector.

Function Generator:
The function generator consists of a function generator IC, slide switches, knobs and RVs. All the knobs on the
function generator panel increments the value in clock wise direction and the slide switches activate when
they are pushed up.
Functional generator produce sinusoidal, square and triangular oscillating voltage which you can use as
an input to any circuit you built to test its response. You can control the amplitude of the waveform and its
frequency.

Seven Segment Display:

A seven-segment display (SSD) is a form of electronic displaying device for displaying decimal numbers.
Two 7-segment displays with BCD input sockets are provided on the trainer board. When binary inputs are
provided at the input sockets below each display, the decimal equivalent of the BCD input is displayed.

Configuration:

Two type of configuration.

 Common cathode configuration.
 Common anode configuration.
The Common Anode has all the Anodes of the 7-segments connected directly together.
 Fig.a

A common cathode seven segment is different from a common anode segment in that the cathodes of all the
LEDs are connected together. For the use of this seven segment the common cathode connection must be
grounded and power must be applied to appropriate segment in order to illuminate that segment.

Fig.b

Relay:
 Relay is basically an electromagnetic switch.
 Relay consists of 5 terminals.
 Relay is divided in two parts: input and output.

Input section:
The input section has a coil which generates magnetic field when a small voltage from an electronic circuit is
applied to it. This voltage is called the operating voltage. Commonly used relays are available in different
configuration of operating voltages like 6V, 9V, 12V, 24V etc.
Output section:
The output section consists of contactors which connect or disconnect mechanically. In a basic relay, there are
three contactors:
 Normally open (NO),
 Normally closed (NC) and
 Common.
At no input state, the Common is connected to Normally closed. When the operating voltage is applied the
relay, coil gets energized and the Common changes and connect to Normally opened.
 Terminal 1 and 2 is used for coil.
 Terminal 3 is common.
 Terminal 4 is normally closed.
 Terminal 5 is normally open.

Fig.2

LED:
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits visible light when an electric current passes
through it. The light is not particularly bright, but in most LEDs, it is monochromatic, occurring at a
single wavelength. In EPAL there are 12 LEDs present in it. The output from an LED can range from red (at a
wavelength of approximately 700 nanometers) to blue-violet (about 400 nanometers). Some LEDs emit
infrared (IR) energy (830 nanometers or longer); such a device is known as an infrared emitting diode (IRED).

Fig.3
RS-232 Protocol:
 RS-232 is a serial communication protocol widely used in computers and digital systems.
 Also, called asynchronous because there is no separate synchronizing clock signal as there are in other
serial protocols like SPI and I2C.
 We can use RS-232 to easily create a data link between different standard PC. Excellent example is a
commercial Serial PC mouse.
 It is a serial protocol and it transfer data bit by bit.
 DB-9 male connector is present on PC and DB-9 female connector is present on EPAL trainer. we can
connect both connectors and transfer data.

Banana Connector:
A banana connector (banana plug for the male, banana socket or banana jack for the female) is a single
wire electrical connector used for joining wires to equipment.

BNC Connector:
We use BNC connector to get data from oscilloscopes and function generator.

 Buzzer, 11 switches and push buttons are present on it in the form of keypad.

Breadboard:
When constructing circuits, you will need some means for securing components and ensuring good electrical
connections between them. This is most conveniently achieved using a breadboard where components are
pushed through small holes in the top of the board and connected by internal metal strips.

Fig.4

The bread board has strips of metal which run underneath the board and connect the holes on the top of the
board. The metal strips are laid out as shown below. Note that the top and bottom rows of holes are
connected horizontally while the remaining holes are connected vertically.
 Fig.4

To use the bread board, the legs of components are placed in the holes. Each set of holes connected by a
metal strip underneath forms a node. A node is a point in a circuit where two components are connected.
Connections between different components are formed by putting their legs in a common node.