Altera Cyclone IV FPGA Development Board - DueProLogic

works great

The driver to be added to Quartus does not work, thus the board cannot be programmed. Followed their instructions to the letter to no avail. There are numerous questions on their Forum posted months ago but no answers. Can't get an answer from Admin.

Works as intended, very versatile and good quality. Would buy again.

It was a struggle to get this set up on my Windows 10 machine - the instructions didn't match what was happening (which is, let's face it, normal for Windows). I tried all manner of messing around - it seems very sensitive to how "good" your micro USB cable is - I tried three before everything sprang into life (more or less). No problem after that with building their demo design and PC app. However, there's a short or something on this board, so it's going back to be replaced.

Driver installation problem - though I went through installation step by step. ask them (email address), not hearing from them yet.

This board is not working with USB-JTAG Quartus connection, although follow instructions manual step by step. I have another Altera Board with Cyclone II that works perfectly with my USB Blaster/driver. So this product is not working for my Quartus VHDL projects, total waste of money!

The USB JTAG is not working properly, in the Device Manager I can see Other Devices = Unisoc Phone (?)I followed the instructions to allow Windows to install unsigned drivers without success. It is not very professional to have drivers without a signature in Windows. I'm programing the Cyclone using the pof file and active serial interface, it takes 5' or more to program the EPC4. Would like to see a solution.

The board description sounds like it would be great for learning and a project. After much confusion and many attempts I got this board working using both .sof and .pof output files. As another person wrote, Earth People Technology doesn't respond to email yet list it to get support. So I gave the DueProLogic 4-stars but probably should only get 3 as I spent a week on this getting it to where I could send both file types to it. I used the Earth People Technology's JTAG Blaster hardware device to send .sof files. I use the built-in USB for .pof files to go to the flash memory so it is retained. The description sounds like installing software is easy but I didn't find that to be so. That is a fair summary.Getting the JTAG Blaster driver to work was mostly luck as I had no idea what to do as it just didn't show up in the drop down box in Quartus Programmer Hardware! I had the two COMMs showing up in Windows 10 Device Manager when the board's built-in USB was plugged into the computer as instructions showed and I put the JTAG driver DLL where the instructions showed to copy it. I ended up using Sentinel SENTINST.EXE that came with the Intel Quartus 20.1 download and at some point a popup appeared that as I recall saved settings, but this popup didn't always show up (?) and until it did it seemed restarting the computer lost something as the blaster didn't show again in the Quartus Programmer Hardware drop down. Once settings were saved the JTAG Blaster then showed up in the Quartus Programmer/Hardware dialog box and worked through cycling computer power.I downloaded Intel Quartus Prime Lite (free) instead of using the one on the DVD thinking it may be more up to date. I thought the DVD may have been tested and wondered if the download was a good choice. With my slow download speed it took over an hour for Quartus. I downloaded the simulation and Cyclone IV support file. Quartus install takes care of installing the simulation and support file. I used default folders and settings. I also downloaded Microsoft C# as explained in the instructions for the DueLogicPro.In the 80's I designed an ASIC with Daisy CAD on a Fairchild gate array. A completely different design experience to the current breed of FPGA's. So lots of reading was required just to be barely knowledgeable on brands and features not to mention software. For hobby use I cannot justify Intel prices for FPGA development at several thousand dollars, hence I am grateful they have the free lite version. I don't know if other brands offer free versions. I read that Xilinx does but haven't confirmed (yet) and Xilinx seems to have different software for different products. So, what is JTAG? What mode is for what? When creating a Quartus project .sof files are created as an output and .pof files are for saving to flash memory to be read on power up but you have to convert .sof to .pof and select the correct flash device. As I read .sof are for quick turn-around; writing to the SRAM which takes a second whereas writing to flash takes around 5 minutes. I didn't know all that. I didn't know that JTAG mode is for .sof and the AS mode is for .pof files and that the built in USB is for AS mode and JTAG connector is for the .sof files and quick download.At first I could write .pof files (after conversion and figuring out that the flash to select in a drop down box is EPSC4). It worked anyway regardless of correctness. An example used EPSC1 in the print and the example worked but not when I select that device. This is a point of confusion right now.At first I could not write .sof files. Now I can. What is different? I don't know. Today I plugged in the Earth People Technology's JTAG Blaster hardware and I have two devices showing up in the Quartus Programmer Hardware drop down - EPT-JTAG-BLASTER (64)[MBUSB-0] and one with MBUSB-1. Before I had only the one from the onboard USB blaster and the second only appeared today! The -0 came up and I used it. And .sof files went to the board! The other is probably for .pof and the built-in USB path using AS mode. I also checked the JTAG chain integrity with this blaster connected to the JTAG connector and it worked -- before I got a chain error.As I didn't originally have success with the Earth People's hardware blaster board, I tried a $7 ALTERA-IC blaster. The suggested Intel blaster driver in Intel folder didn't work -- incompatibility issue. Someone mentioned terasIC instructions for installing a driver -- same as I was doing -- but I downloaded their driver and it worked with this $7 unit. I had purchased a different FPGA board and it worked to send .sof files in JTAG mode. This $7 blaster doesn't work in the DueProLogic board -- today anyway. I compared pin out of the connector and it is the same as for the DueProLogic board.When trying to use the Intel blaster driver I tried to disable driver signing in Windows 10 Pro but that didn't seem to work either -- got the same incompatibility message when trying to use the blaster driver in the Intel Quartus folder. One method to disable signing required use of the keyboard -- so I plugged in a USB keyboard and it didn't work. I tried the cmd line method in admin -- it said it worked but perhaps needed to not reboot as the instructions I followed said to do. Seems drivers and software install is the most difficult part of this.I wrote two very simple test projects: 1) the two board push buttons light LEDs 2) a 32 bit counter increments with the 100MHz clock and bit 23 of the counter goes to a LED. With the second in flash memory the first was sent. Upon cycling power the second restores. This shows flash and SRAM work.I don't see an LED layout with LED numbers (such as D32) so I can know which LED will work when I assign FPGA pins. The documentation doesn't list FPGA pin and LEDs either -- shows something like <tbd>. So you have to look at the schematic and you still won't know which LED on the 6x6 LED layout will turn on! And on the schematic the LEDs don't seem to be named consistently so not sure if a few tests will work either but now that the .sof files download I can do 36 tests quickly to figure out which LED is which (for future use). So, incomplete documentation.Now I can continue with my project.