Home BEAM background   Getting started Electronic basics Passive components Semiconductor components Integrated Circuits Nv neurons and Nv nets Bicores The quadcore Nv net connections Applications Initializing an Nv net Influencing an Nv net Nv variants Nu neurons Tutorials   BEAM From the Ground Up is a BEAM Reference Library site.		Quadcores Nv nets with 4 neurons The quadcore, or 4-Nv net, is by far the most-common variant of Nv net. You will sometimes also hear this circuit referred to as the "Microcore" -- although this term should strictly be used in reference to a "fully dressed" quadcore, complete with sensors and peripheral circuitry. In its "natural state," a quadcore will, at power-up, be saturated (with 2 processes active) -- here, the active inverter(s) are highlighted: In most cases, though, this won't be what you desire -- you'll generally just want a single active process running: Since 4 neurons will enable you to drive two motors in both directions, the most-common use for a quadcore circuit is as the motivating force behind a 2-motor walker. While I've got more information on this use elsewhere, here's an animation showing how this layout works (motor directions are arbitrarily shown by red or green): Note that in order to build a device on the basis of a quadcore, you need to use Schmitt inverters (since a Schmitt's hysteresis ensures a clean transition). As a result, quadore circuits will generally be built up from 74*14 or 40106 ICs. The same thing holds for more-complex non-suspended microcore variants -- quintcores, hexcores, and the like. In a 74HC14 microcore, the Schmitt input guarantees a single output transition when a Nv switches, which keeps it out of saturation. On the other hand, a microcore (or 6 Nv or 8 Nv core) made with "vanilla" 74*240 inverters will also "work" but will quickly saturate from noise picked up in the transition region. For more information... Ben Hitchcock has his own writeup of quadcores here. I've got descriptions of a number of quadcore walker circuits here.
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