Last Updated: 2019-08-16

Turn on a light?

Turning on a light is always a good way to get things started. So for this first tutorial we will do just that and push a button to turn on a light

Abstract or Real? It's all the same to the micro.

As it turns out it is much easier and faster to model a circuit abstractly because it hides all the details.

In this example we don't have to know anything about the power supply, the type of button or light, resistor values, device footprint or layout and so on.

What we really mean by an abstract model is that we care about the end behaviour not the details of how the behaviour occurs. This idea of abstract models will be a recurring theme when working with VBB.

What you'll build

In this codelab, you're going to build a an abstract light and switch from scratch and explore it's behaviour by interacting with it visually.

What you'll learn

• What is an Abstact Model
• How to create a New Project
• How to place a component
• How to rotate a component
• How to move a component
• How to run a virtualization
• How to interact with a virtualization
• How to iterate between design and run mode

What you'll need

• Virtual Breadboard App

When you first start VBB by default a New Project is created for you ready to go.

There are two basic things you do in VBB.

• Design circuit models in Design Mode
• Run an interactive virtualizations.

VBB Design Mode

VBB in Design Mode is where you layout, wire up and optionally code components to create virtualizable systems.

In Design Mode you work with Design Sheets which are viewed in one of view panes. There are several different kinds of Design Sheet but by default the Breadboard Design Sheet is added by the New Project template.

Virtualization Mode

When the design is layed out you press Power Up button to power the circuit model and execute a virtualization of the design. Virtualizations are interactive so for example you can press the button to turn on the light.

The DIP button is a very useful abstract interactive component. It is a voltage source which you can switch HIGH (nominally 5V) and LOW ( 0V - Ground ). We are going to use the DIP to turn on a light.

Component Toolbox

The Toolbox ToolTab contains design elements that can be placed onto the Virtual Breadboard Design Sheet.. Components can be searched for by name, description or keyword or can be browsed using the groups and component list view.

• Select the Toolbox to show the Breadboard Toolbox

Placing a DIP

Follow these steps to place the DIP:

• From the Toolbox Search box ‘dip' to find components named dip
• Locate and Click the DIP icon from the Toolbox
• Move the mouse back onto the Breadboard design sheet, the DIP Button should be attached to your mouse
• Click to place the DIP Button somewhere in the middle of the Design Sheet.

A common gotcha is to try and drag-and-drop components where the correct action is click-place-click

Let's use the LED light also in the Toolbox. The LED is also an abstract model in that it could be any kind of light. It's really just a logic test probe to help visualize circuit behavior.

Repeat the steps used for the DIP to place the LED:

• From the Toolbox Search box ‘led' to find components named led
• Locate and Click on the LED icon from the Toolbox
• Move the mouse back onto the Breadboard design sheet, the LED should be attached to your mouse
• Click to place the LED

Looks like we need to rotate the LED so it's input pin can be aligned with the output pin of the DIP.

To rotate the LED component:

• Click on the component to rotate to select it - you can skip this step if the component is already selected
• Click on the rotate icon to rotate the component 90 degrees
• Click on the component a second time to rotate the component another 90 degrees

The pins are not yet not connected so move the LED until the end of the pins have snapped to the same grid position.

To move the LED component:

• Click on the Move Mode Icon to enter move mode (if it's not already in move mode)
• Click-and-Hold-Down the mouse on the LED component - the cursor will turn into a 4 pointed move arrow
• Drag the LED component into position
• Drop the LED by releasing the mouse

VBB has two modes, design mode and virtualization mode. When a design is ready you can press the Power Up button to power up the circuit and switch to virtualization mode.

To power up Virtualization:

• Click on the Power Icon in the application Toolbar

VBB Virtualizations execute in real-time and the idea is that you can interact with the user interface components such as buttons, dials and knobs just like you would real hardware.

To interact with the virtualization:

• Click on the DIP to turn on the light
• Click on the DIP a second time to turn off the light

The really nice thing about working with virtual hardware is you iteratively develop things. So you add some hardware, run that to try it, then go back to design mode and add new hardware or change things around then run it again

Thus the normal procedure is design, virtualize, design some more, virtualize again and so on until your hardware works the way it should.

Designing hardware has never been so much fun!

Congratulations, you've successfully built and run you first Virtual Breadboard circuit! !

What's next?

Check out some of these codelabs...