IoThing Digital IO board handles up to 300V for Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and various other boards (Crowdfunding)

AlterStep’s IoThing Digital is a digital I/O module with two high-power Omron G5Q-14 relays and two isolated AC or DC input channels based on Texas Instruments ISO1211 that can handle up to 300 V.

The board also integrates a DC-DC converter and mikroBUS slot that allows it to be used with compatible MCU boards, and the company also provides adapters for popular form factors such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Adafruit Feather, Teensy, and others.

IoThing Digital specifications:

• mikroBUS socket for
  • mikroElektronika Click expansion boards
  • BOKRA Lite MCU boards (Some details below)
• 2x Omron G5Q-14 SPDT relays – 3A/30V DC or 3A/250VAC via terminal blocks
• Terminal block for 2x digital outputs configurable from 9V to 300V, DC and AC
• PCF8574 8-bit I/O expander chip with I²C bus for relay control and digital signal input
• I2C interface with support for 100 KHz and 400 KHz, address selection via jumpers
• Grove I2C connector
• Unpopulated expansion header with SPI, I2C, UART, PWM
• Safety
  • Dielectric strength – 4 kV VAC, for 1 minute between coil and contacts; 1 kV VAC, for 1 minute between contacts of the same polarity
  • Compliant to IEC 61131-2; Type 1, 2, 3 characteristics for 24 V insulated digital inputs
  • Maximum insulation voltage (up to 60 s) is 3600 VPK
  • Maximum working insulation voltage: AC – 400 VRMS, DC – 566 VDC
  • Reverse polarity protection
• Power supply – 9-36 VDC non-isolated,
• Dimensions – 65 x 56 mm (compatible with Raspberry Pi 3A+ mounting)

The company provides an RPi-to-mikroBUS adapter for connection to a 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header and other interfaces, as well as adapters for Arduino, Adafruit Feather, Teensy, SparkFun, Particle, MikroElektronika, and Raspberry Pi Pico MCU boards. The company also offers its own BOKRA boards that can be connected directly to the microBus header.

There are three of such BOKRA boards/modules two of which we’ve already covered:

• BOKRA LPC824 Lite with an NXP Arm Cortex-M0+ MCU @ 30 MHz with 32 KB flash, 8KB RAM, SPI, I2C, USART, and SWD
• BOKRA SAMD21 Lite with a Microchip Arm Cortex-M0+ MCU @ 48 MHz with 256KB flash, 32KB SRAM, SPI, I2C, USART, USB, and SWD
• BOKRA STM32F411 Lite with an STMicro Cortex-M4F microcontroller @ 100 MHz with 512 KB flash, 128KB RAM, SPI, I²C, USART, CAN, LIN, USB, and SWD

None of the boards are open-source hardware, but you’ll find PDF documentation on Github in separate repositories for the IO board and the adapters.

AlterStep has just launched IoThing Digital I/O module on Crowd Supply with a $2,500 funding goal. A pledge of $40 is asked for the I/O module, the adapter for $9 each, and the BOKRA mikroBUS compatible modules from $14 to $22 depending on the selected model. Shipping adds $8 to the US, $18 to the rest of the world, and backers should expect delivery of the rewards sometime in March 2022.

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