Grove modules are cool little add-on boards that connect through 4-pin header using UART, I2C, analog or digital I/Os, and usually you’d need to buy a HAT or shield to connect them to respectively Raspberry Pi or Arduino board. But Seeed Studio has come up with a small Arduino compatible board based on Microchip SAMD21 microcontroller called Seeeduino Lotus Cortex-M0+ that may be the cheapest “Grove” solution around as it sells for just $9.90.
Seeeduino Lotus Cortex-M0+ specifications:
- MCU – Microchip Atmel SAMD21 Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller at 48MHz with 256KB Flash and 32KB SRAM as found in Arduino Zero.
- USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming
- Expansion
- 12x on-board Grove connectors (6x Digital, 3x Analog, 1x UART and 2x I2C)
- Arduino UNO headers
- 14x Digital I/O Pins (10 PWM outputs)
- 6x Analog Inputs
- I/O pins are 3.3V, do not input more than 3.3V, otherwise the CPU may be damaged
- Debugging / Programming – 6-pin ICSP header
- Misc – Reset button
- Power Supply
- Support Power Path Management
- Support 5V micro USB power or Li-Po battery
- 2A maximum charging current
- Suitable for low power design
- Dimensions – Arduino UNO form factor
The board is actually an update to Seeeduino Lotus v1.1 powered by ATMEga328 MCU and sold for the same price.I could not find any Wiki for the new board, but there’s plenty of documentation for Seeeduino Lotus, and the procedure should be about the same.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Very nice board, but absurd shippings costs, both to EU and USA:
SZ POST (20-30 working days) $31.15
DHL (1-3 working days) $85.10
FEDEX (4-8 working days) $132.90
$ 31.15 for snail mail?! That’s free or 1 USD elsewhere. So the real price of the board is not 10 USD, but 40 USD. And then it’s not a nice board.
Seeeduino is always charging a LOT for shipping costs. I never got a chance to buy something from them because they are charging so much, it always x2 to x10 the price of all items. Others vendors from China are really cheaper than Seeeduino.
Hi Singman! Sorry for the inconvenience. Actually we have the local warehouse in Australia and U.S now so that it will help you save money on shipping fee if you buy from there. More info about stock in local warehouse, please visit au.seeedstudio.com and us.seeedstudio.com.
Hi Sander! I am Elaine from Seeed Studio Bazaar online marketing. Sorry for the inconvenience. I think there must be some mistake there. I checked the shipping fee for Seeeduino Lotus Cortex-M0+ for you and it showed shipping fee is $9.94 now to U.S. Please check the shipping fee after you apply the shipping address. If there is still any problem, please feel free to contact me via elaine.wu@seeed.cc Thanks so much for your support!
Looked into this, but a big annoyance is that the Grove format give no provision for SPI, so no way to add a (micro) SD card or flash memory, stuck with the 256K flash of the MCU.
Hi Brian, you can use ICSP interface, external spi flash for storage
Getting the Lotus Cortex-M0+ was no problem. Same with receiving the Grove Beginner Kit. Unfortunately, claimed compatibility is incorrect. The Lotus Cortex M0+ runs at 3.3V (good), but its I2C port supplies 3.3V to the LCD which requires 5V. Even if you supply it with 5V, it still won’t run “Hello World.” I am still looking for an LCD display that is specified to operate with the I2C, 3.3V connector on the Lotus Corex M0+. What a waste of time trying to find a compatible system!