An Open Source SAMD21 Development Board by sirmylesavery @ hackaday.io
This project started after my first introduction to PCB design at my 2019 summer internship. At that internship, I designed a board that used a SAMD21 to control a GPS and LoRa module. This was my first introduction to the SAMD21 MCU and I immediately was interested in its capabilities. As a side project to work, I started to design a development board centered around this module.
SAMD21G18A Development Board – [Link]
The MP6650 is a single-phase, brushless, DC motor driver with integrated power MOSFETs and a Hall-effect sensor. The device drives single-phase brushless DC fan motors with up to 2A of output current. The IC has a 3.3V to 18V input voltage range and input line reverse-voltage protection (RVP) to save the external diode on the supply line.
The device controls the rotational speed through the PWM signal on the PWM pin. It has a rotational speed detection feature and rotor lock fault indication on the FG/RD pin with an open-drain output. The output speed vs. the input duty curve can be configured easily for flexible use. To reduce audible fan driver noise and power loss, the MP6650 features a soft on/off phase transition and an automatic phase-lock function of the motor winding BEMF and current.
Full protection features include input over-voltage protection (OVP), under-voltage lockout (UVLO), rotor deadlock (RD) protection, thermal shutdown, and input reverse protection.
The MP6650 requires a minimal number of external components to save solution cost. It is available in TSOT23-6-L, TSOT23-6-R, TSOT23-6-SL, and TSOT23-6-RSL packages.
more information: Monolithic Power Systems Inc.
Barely a week after Lattice semiconductor announced the launch of the CrossLink-NX family of FPGA, Greg Davill, in his amazing way of posting the entire development process in a twitter thread, has announced the launch of a development board based on the Lattice Crosslink-NX 72QFN.
The new board which is called the ArcticKoala was created using some of the sources from recent FPGA tools like the iCEBreaker ICE40-UP5K board. The board comprises of a Lattice Semiconductor LIFCL-40 CrossLink FPGA with a Winbond 25Q128 128Mbit Flash memory (for configuration bitstreams). In terms of interfaces, the board comes with 3x Pmod extension headers, 1x MIPI extension header, and a FTDI FT2232 USB-Serial converter to allow users to connect to the board over USB.
The CrossLink-NX family, on which the new development board is based, was designed using the new Lattice Nexus platform, which combines a 28 nm FD-SOI manufacturing process with a new, Lattice-designed, FPGA fabric architecture optimized for low power operation in a small form factor.
According to Gordon Hands, Director of Product Marketing at Lattice Semiconductor, asides from being super low power (up to 75% compared with similar class devices) and coming with better performance than most FPGAs in its class, the CrossLink-NX is supported by a robust library of design software, IP blocks and application reference designs which makes it quick and easy for developers to integrate it into new or existing designs.
Some of the features CrossLink-NX which the ArcticKoala will be breaking out to users include:
Asides from the satirical nature of the name, to create a full-blown board based on an FPGA chip that was released 1 week earlier, confirms the brilliance, impressive talent, and work ethics that the ecosystem has come to respect Davil for.
The board, as usual with Davill, is open source and you can find all the source files on the project’s Github page. More information on the project is available on his tweet about the board.
This is an Isolated gate driver-based N channel Mosfet Arduino Nano shield based on Si8261ACC, which can be used in various applications like DC Motor driver, solenoid driver, led driver, bulb driver and heater driver, with 3A fast switching diode provided across the output for an inductive load which protects the circuit from back EMF. Arduino Nano can be used to generate on/off signal or PWM for speed control. The board can also be used as a standalone driver by feeding 3-5V directly to the LED of the Si8261ACC gate driver. MOSFET can handle up to load 3A and DC supply at 12-24V DC. PWM Pin D3 of Arduino connected to gate driver IC.
Isolated Gate MOSFET Driver Based DC Motor and Solenoid Driver Arduino Nano Shiled – [Link]
Axiomtek – a world-renowned leader relentlessly devoted in the research, development and manufacture of series of innovative and reliable industrial computer products of high efficiency – is pleased to introduce the GOT115-319, a 15-inch fanless touch panel computer with a thickness of only 50 mm for used in space-constrained environments. It is powered by the Intel® Celeron® processor N3350 or Intel® Pentium® processor N4200 with the Intel® GFX controller onboard. The GOT115-319 has a 15-inch XGA TFT LCD display with a projected capacitive multi-touch or resistive touch optional touchscreen, 300 nits of brightness and LED backlight. It is a cost-effective solution to achieve a high degree of stability and adaptability for use in multimedia kiosks or as a human machine interface (HMI) for smart manufacturing and rugged retail fields.
“Axiomtek’s 15” XGA GOT115-319 has 1024 x 768 resolutions. It has five programmable OSD function keys on the front panel for users to easily adjust LCD on/off, brightness and volume. Moreover, this compact touch panel computer offers easy access to storage and RAM,” said Frank Chang, a product manager of Product PM Division at Axiomtek. “The robust industrial touch panel PC GOT115-319 has an ultra-slim housing for use in space-constrained environments. It can operate reliably in harsh environments with its wide operating temperature of 0°C to +50°C and vibration endurance for up to 2G.”
The GOT115-319 features rich I/O connectivity. It is equipped with two GbE LAN ports, two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, one RS-232 port and one RS-232/422/485 port with RI/5V/12V which is selectable by BIOS and one Line-out. Other features include one power button, one remote power switch and one screw-type connector for power. In addition, there is an easily accessible external switch for AT/ATX mode selection and built-in speakers and microphone for multimedia applications. The GOT115-319 supports one full-size PCI Express Mini Card slot and one M.2 Key E slot for RFID and wireless network module installation. The ultra-slim panel computer is equipped with one 204-pin DDR3L-1600 SO-DIMM with up to 8GB of memory capacity. It also offers one 2.5″ SATA HDD/SSD, one mSATA and one MicroSD card for storage. To meet diverse installation requirements, it supports panel mount, wall mount, VESA arm and desktop stand.
Advanced Features:
Axiomtek’s GOT115-319 is now available for purchase. For more product information or customization services, please visit our global website at www.axiomtek.com or contact one of our sales representatives at info@axiomtek.com.tw.
This is an Isolated gate driver-based N channel Mosfet Arduino Nano shield based on Si8261ACC, which can be used in various applications like DC Motor driver, solenoid driver, led driver, bulb driver and heater driver, with 3A fast switching diode provided across the output for an inductive load which protects the circuit from back EMF. Arduino Nano can be used to generate on/off signal or PWM for speed control. The board can also be used as a standalone driver by feeding 3-5V directly to the LED of the Si8261ACC gate driver. MOSFET can handle up to load 3A and DC supply at 12-24V DC. PWM Pin D3 of Arduino connected to gate driver IC.
@ loquentarduino.github.io writes:
When I first run a Machine learning project on my Arduino Nano (old generation), it already felt a big achievement. I mean, that board has only 32 Kb of program space and 2 Kb of RAM and you can buy a chinese clone for around 2.50 $.
It already opened the path to a embedded machine learning at a new scale, given the huge amount of microcontrollers ready to become “intelligent”.
But it was not enough for me: after all, the MicroML generator exports plain C that should run on any embedded system, not only on Arduino boards.
So I setup to test if I could go even smaller and run it on the #1 of tiny chips: the Attiny85.
Embedded Machine learning on Attiny85 – [Link]
AAEON’s UP project has launched an edge computing enabled kit called the UPX Edge. The system which was developed to power industrial automation, robotics, AI, and IoT applications, is built around the Intel 8th Gen Whiskey Lake-U based UP Xtreme board and comes preloaded with an Ubuntu 18.04 image based on Linux kernel 5.0
It was initially available on Kickstarter as the “UP Xtreme Pro” or “UP Xtreme AI Pro” (if u selected the option of a UP AI Core XM2280 M.2 module) with a price tag of $150 is now available at $499 with various processor options, including the UP AI Core module which will set you back a further $139 on the Core i7-8665UE and i5-8365UE SKUs. Asides the price difference, compared to the prototype advertised on Kickstarter, the new UPX Edge system also comes with all the UP Xtreme’s real-world coastline ports exposed and offers a wider -20 to 70°C operating temperature range compared to the originally listed -20 to 60°C, which is maintained even when the AI Core Module is added to it.
Unlike the UPX SBC, the UPX Edge chassis version brings forth the UP Xtreme’s RS232/422/485 headers as 2x DB9 COM ports, and there’s also a jack-style RS232 serial port and a USB port which the SBC product page listed as a USB 3.0 ports but the UPX Edge refers to them as a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port. This must, however, be a typo since there is no specific reference to the USB ports being upgraded.
Asides the various ports mentioned above, the UPX Edge also extends the 40-pin and STM32-related GPIO as Phoenix connectors on either side of the system with an audio jack, a 4x antenna connectors, and optional VESA and DIN-rail mounting also provided.
The system has a consumption average of 26W and is designed to be powered by a 12-60V DC power supply with a lockable connector and power button.
The UP Xtreme Edge Compute Enabling Kit (UPX Edge) is available for pre-order on it’s UP shopping page starting at $499, with shipments due in January. The re-launched UP Xtreme SBC, on the other hand, is available starting at $299. More information on both products can be found on Aeon’s announcement for the launch of both products.
Lattice Semiconductor has introduced a new low power FPGA platform that has been designed for a wide range of applications. by Ally Winning @ eenewseurope.com
The Lattice Nexus platform provides system-level solutions that combine design software and pre-engineered soft IP blocks with evaluation boards, kits and reference designs. The platform has new architectural features that optimise system performance at low power. Its optimised DSP blocks and higher on-chip memory capacity allow applications such as AI inferencing algorithms, to run twice as fast at half the power of previous Lattice FPGAs.
The Lattice Nexus platform is based on Samsung’s high-volume 28 nm fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) process technology, which has 50% lower transistor leakage compared to bulk CMOS.
More information: www.latticesemi.com/LatticeNexus
As you would expect from a stack backed by giants like Adafruit, CircuitPython is overthrowing Micropython and fast becoming one of the most popular stacks for embedded development amongst makers. As a result of this popularity, quite a number of CircuitPython optimized boards are springing up and one of the latest ones is CircuitBrains which is a brainchild (notice the pun?) of Kevin Neubauer.
According to Kevin, the new board which run an ATSAMD51J19A Microcontroller (32-bit ARM Cortex M4) at 120 MHZ, with 192kB of SRAM and 512KB of Flash, was born out of his desire to modularize the core of CircuitPython boards (MCU, clock, power, decoupling, and flash) and package it in a way similar to the ESP-12 modules so they could “just be soldered on” to a daughterboard that contains peripheral components needed to make the board fully functional.
With this, Kevin was hoping to overcome the limited choices makers have around small form-factors for Circuit Python-based boards. According to kelvin; “when it comes to finishing up a CircuitPython project, I felt limited in choice for a small form-factor, streamlined board. I always ended up creating my own boards. The overhead in doing this was huge though. You have to make sure your design has proper power, decoupling, and clock. Then you source all of the parts. After that you layout the PCB and have it fabricated. When the PCB and parts arrive, you have to deal with finicky small-pitch surface mount assembly. Finally, you need to download the sources for the UF2 bootloader and CircuitPython and define your board, compile, and flash. This makes what should be a small project pretty time consuming and tedious!”.
His idea was a board with a reusable design that could be pulled off the shelf and dropped into a project, without significantly changing the size of the project.
Some of the specifications kelvin penned down for the boards are provided below;
While the boards are currently in the prototyping/testing stage, Kelvin has already provided the schematics and PCB files for the board on the project’s Github Repo.
Work is still ongoing and you can get more info about the project, or follow its progress via the project’s page on Kelvin’s Blog.
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