Category: raspberrypi
Inside Neouart – Tricking a serial port into being a signal generator
Last time, we connected a NeoPixel directly to a RaspberryPi. This is certainly fun and useful, but the real motivation behind this project was to explore clever ways to make use of limited hardware resources. NeoPixels need a precisely timed string of bits to be happy. Luckily, every RaspPi comes with built-in hardware for generating strings of precisely timed bits – a serial port!
If all you care about is making pretty colors the easy way, don’t bother reading this article. If you are wondering how it is possible to reliably generate a pulse train with +/-150ns precision on a Raspberry Pi pin without kernel mods or DMA, then read on!