SLabKit

SLab Kit

The SLab Kit is a small portable electronics Lab that can be used to learn electronics by experimentation. It is mainly composed on a breadboard to mount a circuit to test, some jumper wires to connect to circuit inputs and outputs, a hardware board  to inject signals and measure voltages on the circuit, an USB cable to connect to a host PC, and some Jupyter documents and Python code that takes care of the software side of things.

SLab System connected to a RC circuit

Experiments are performed using Jupyter Notebooks where instructions, code to execute on the hardware board, calculations and results are joined together.

Jupyter Notebook example

At the time of this writting this page, the SLab system contains about 30 tutorials, 7 reference documents and about 10 other auxiliary documents, but the list is growing, so, by the time you read this document it could be larger.

In order to work with the SLab system you will need an SLab kit. Currently there are three possible kits: The Longboard Kit, the SLab Kit and the SLab Minikit. As all the information is public, if you don't have access to the kits, you can build your own custom one.

The SLab Minikit contains:

• A STM32F303RE Nucleo board that is used as the SLab hardware board
• An USB cable to connect the board to a computer
• A box with a set of electrical components. 
• 10 Female to Male jumper wires

The SLab Kit also contains:

• A carrying case
• A solderless breadboard

If you have a Minikit that does  not contain a breadboard you will need to provide your own as it is required for the SLab tutorials.

The Longboard Kit is similar to the SLab Kit, the only difference is that the Hardware board and the Breadboard are mechanically linked in a common plate.

Some kits can also add other optional components like:

• Two resistor sets
• Some single core wire
• A pin locating card for the Hardware board
• A pendrive with preinstalled software

The two last items are completelly optional, but, if the kit does not contain resistors or single core wire for breadboard connections you will need to provide your own.

In the end, you should have, either because it is on the kit, either because your provide it:

• A STM32F303RE Nucleo board
• An USB cable to connect the board to your computer
• A box with a set of electrical components. 
• 10 Female to Male jumper wires 
• A solderless breadboard to mount the proposed circuits
• Two resistor sets
• Some single core wire to make breadboard connections

The software setup if different if your kit contains or not a pendrive with preinstalled software. In fact, there are three software options for running SLab:

• Using a provided pendrive on a Windows system
• Using a virtual machine
• Using any system that contains Jupyter and the needed Python packages

Pendrive software setup

This section describes the software setup if your kit contains a pendrive. This setup is plug and play and very responsive, but only works on windows 64bit systems. If you have other operating system, it is recommended to follow any of the other setups.

Plug the pendrive in an available USB plug on your PC. Then execute the “Jupyter Pendrive.bat” file that is on the root of the pendrive. A navigator window should open with the Jupyter file explorer.

Jupyter file explorer

Locate the Index.ipynb file and open it by clicking on its name.

SLab main index notebook

Then proced as indicated in the file. That's it for the setup.

Virtual machine setup

The easiest way to use the SLab system if you don't have the SLab pendrive or you are not using a Windows system is to use a virtual machine. This machine is available to all ETSETB users.
This setup solution requires only a minimal installation on your computer and works on Windows, Linux and OS X. The only inconvenient is that, as it depends on a network connection to operate, you need to have internet access and the system is less responsive than any other setup method. If you plan to do a lot of SLab work, it is recommended to use, in the long term, other setup methods.
The information about this virtual machine setup is in the document that can be obtained in the following link:

SLab Virtual Machine

Installed Jupyter - Python setup

The last option requires the installation of Python, Jupyter and the SLab files in your PC. There are two document to assist you in this case, one for Windows machines and another for Linux machines.

SLab Windows Installation

SLab Linux Installation

You will also need to access to the SLab files distruibution.
Current SLab distribution is Version 2.0 (23/5/2019)
It can be accessed on its GitHub location:

https://github.com/R6500/SLab2

Also, the files can also be accessed as a zip file on the following link;

SLab Release 2.0 (23/5/2019)

SLab Updates

SLab is an ongoing project. That means that the numer of provided tutorials will grow, the available commands and options will increase and the coding bugs will be ironed out (as others creep in).

You can always check the version you are using both in the release info.txt file and on the main SLab index notebook.

SLab Release Version on the main Index notebook

If you see that the version that is available on GitHub or in this page is newer than the one you are using, you can get the new version. In order to use the new version you don't need to reinstall the Python environment, you only need to change the SLab main folder.
Note that if you want to conserve the calibration data you will need to keep the SLab/Files folder.

Need help?

If you have any particular question about the SLab system you can contact with:

 Vicente Jiménez
 C4-006 Campus Nord
 vicente.jimenez@upc.edu