All You Need to Create a Beaglebone Clone

The Beagleboard community has released Beaglebone Rev 3 hardware design files so that other people can now modify the hardware and/or create a clone.

Here are the files:

• Schematics (PDF)
• Schematics (Orcad) [update]
• Bill of materials
• Gerber files
• Allegro files (PCB layout)
• System Reference Manual [update]

To open Allegro files, you’ll need to download Cadence Allegro FREE Viewer or purchase one of Cadence PCB Design software if you don’t have it yet.

The schematics are only provided in PDF format for now, so you would be able to modify them unless you reproduce the PDF one. Since TI has now released the Orcad schematics you’d also be able to make a custom board by modifying the schematics.

Please note that those files comes with the following disclaimer:

These design materials are *NOT SUPPORTED* and DO NOT constitute a reference design.

THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE DESIGN MATERIALS, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE DESIGN MATERIALS “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE DESIGN MATERIALS IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE DESIGN MATERIALS PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

The Beaglebone ships with a 2GB SD Card loaded with an Angstrom Distribution with node.js and Cloud9 IDE. If you also want to do this, here are the instructions.

There is also a development cable (FTDI-based serial/JTAG) for the Beaglebone but I haven’t been able to find information about it yet. I suppose it should be similar to the 3.3V FTDI USB to MPSSE/UART Cables found on FDTI website that cable emulate JTAG interface. Actually as the FTDI chip is on the board, it appears you can simply use a standard USB cable.

To access  other beagleboard community boards hardware design files, visit http://beagleboard.org/hardware/design/.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

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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