Giveaway Week – Wio GPS Tracker Board

It’s Friday, and the fifth day of giveaway week on CNX Software. Today, I’ll be giving away Wio Tracker, an Arduino compatible board based on Microchip / Atmel SAMD21 ARM Cortex M0 MCU with GPS, Bluetooth, 2G GSM/GPRS connectivity. My review of the board was rather negative, as I only managed to make Bluetooth 3.0 work while following the documentation as it was back in May. Since then the documentation seems to have improved, and other people have been more successful than me, and made the blink LED, and GPS samples to work. This version of the board only support 2G, so make sure it is still supported in your region/country. To enter the draw simply leave a comment below. Other rules are as follows: Only one entry per contest. I will filter out entries with the same IP and/or email address. Contests are open for 48 hours starting at […]

Tronxy X3S 3D Printer Review – Part 2: Upgraded Heatbed and RAMPS Board

Karl here. So the bed I mentioned in the first part of Tronxy X3S review is not very good. It took about 10-11 minutes to heat up to 60 deg Celsius. I also mentioned I was going to upgrade the board to a RAMPS board. Today we are going to look at both these upgrades. New Heated Bed I can take no credit for this one but I wanted to pass this along. Folger tech sells a 12v 280w heated bed stick on pad. I picked this up for $20, but is now $22. In order to do this upgrade you will need a MOSFET, 12V/30A power supply, and of course the pad above. Super easy installation. Remove the bed and stick on the self adhesive pad centered. Replace the power supply with new one. Should be self explanatory. In order to power this bed a MOSFET is needed. A […]

Nerdonic Exen Mini is the World’s Smallest 32-bit Arduino Compatible Board (Crowdfunding)

Back in June, we reported about μduino board, which at 12×12 mm may well be the world’s smallest Arduino compatible board. It is based on Microchip Atmel ATMEGA32U4 8-bit AVR microcontroller. But there’s now a new board in town which claims to be the world’s smallest 32-bit Arduino board: Exen Mini measuring 14.9×14.9 mm. While I’m patiently waiting for an Intel’s DMCA request, or more likely an email requesting an update once the name has changed, like I had to do for Atomwear Vigekwear, let’s have a look at what the board has to offer. Exen Mini specifications: MCU – Microchip Atmel  SAMD21 Cortex M0+ MCU @ 48 MHz with 256KB flash, 32KB SRAM I/Os via 2x 5-pin 2.54mm pitch headers Up to 8x digital I/O Up to 8x PWM Up to 6x analog (ADC) 1x UART 1x I2C 1x reset Limits – 3.7V, 7mA USB – 1x micro USB […]

Industrial Shields Industrial Panel PCs are Based on Raspberry Pi, Banana Pi, or HummingBoard

Boot&Work Corp., S.L. is a company based in Catalonia that sells industrial automation electronic devices under “Industrial Shields” brand. What makes their product noticeable is that they all appear to be based on maker boards such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi. The company offers various Arduino based PLC modules with or without Ethernet that can be controlled with 10.1″ industrial grade panel PCs based on ARM Linux development boards. Currently three sub-families are available: HummTOUCH powered by Solidrun HummingBoard-i2 NXP i.MX 6Dual Lite board BANANATOUCH with either Banana Pi M64 (Allwinner A64 quad core Cortex A53) or Banana Pi M3 (Allwinner A83T octa core Cortex A7) TOUCHBERRY with Raspberry Pi model B or Raspberry Pi 3 model B Beside the different processors, the 10.1″ Panel PCs share some of the same specifications: Display – 10.1″ resistive multitouch LVDS, 315 nits, 170° viewing angle, 1280×720 resolution Video Input – MIPI CSI […]

TECHBASE Moduino X Series Industrial IoT Modules / Endpoints are Based on ESP32 WiSoC

We’ve previously covered TECHBASE ModBerry industrial IoT gateways leveraging Raspberry Pi 3, FriendlyELEC NanoPi M1 Plus, or AAEON’s UP Linux boards. The company has now launched Moduino X series modules powered by Espressif ESP32 WiFi + Bluetooth SoC to be used as end points together with their ModBerry gateways. Two models have been developed so far, namely Moduino X1 and X2, with the following specifications: Wireless Module – ESP32-WROVER with ESP32 dual-core Tensilica LX6 processor @ 240 MHz, 4MB pSRAM (512KB as option), 4MB SPI flash; External Storage – X2 only: micro SD card slot Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n WiFi up to 16 Mbps + Bluetooth 4.2 LE with u.FL antenna connector X2 only: 10/100M Ethernet Options: LoRa (Semtech SX1272); Sigfox (TI CC1125); LTE Cat M1/NB1; Zigbee Serial – 2x RS-232/485 Display – Optional 0.96″ OLED display with 128×64 resolution Expansion I/Os 4x Digital I/O (0 ~ 3V) 2x Analog Input: […]

Arduino MKR WAN 1300 & MKR GSM 1400 Boards Launched with LoRaWAN and 3G Connectivity

Arduino has introduced two new boards right in time for Maker Faire New York: MKR WAN 1300 with a LoRa radio, and MKR GSM 1400 with a “3.75G” cellular module, both software compatible with Arduino Zero, and in Arduino MKRZero board form factor. MKR WAN 1300 Board   Arduino MKR WAN 1300 specifications: MCU – Microchip Atmel SAMD21 32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ MCU @ 48 MHz with 32 KB SRAM, 256 KB flash (8KB for bootloader) Digital I/O Pins – 8x digital I/Os, 12x PWM, UART, SPI, and I2C, 8x external interrupts Analog Pins – 7x analog inputs (8/10/12-bit ADC), and 1x analog output (10-bit DAC) DC Current per I/O Pin – 7 mA LPWAN connectivity Murata CMWZ1ZZABZ LoRa module based on Semtech SX1276 and STMicro STM32L Antenna power – 2dB Carrier frequency – 433/868/915 MHz Working regions – EU/US USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming […]

Wio LTE GPS Tracker Board Comes with a 4G Modem, Supports Espruino Firmware (JavaScript Programming)

Seeed Studio launched Wio GPS tracker with a 2G GSM module a few months ago, and while it should work in some countries, others are phasing out 2G networks, and only support 3G or 4G. The company has now launched an update with Wio LTE board with the same form factor, and most of the same features except they replaced the 2G/Bluetooth/GNSS module with a 4G LTE/GNSS module, and Atmel SAMD21 ARM Cortex M0+ microcontroller by an STMicro STM32 ARM Cortex-M4F MCU. Wio LTE board specifications: MCU – STMicro STM32F405RG ARM Cortex M4F MCU @ 168 MHz with 1MB flash, 192+4KB SRAM Storage – micro SD slot Connectivity via Quectel EC21-A (America) module LTE Cat.1 modem: FDD LTE: B2/B4/B12 WCDMA: B2/B4/B5 AT Command: 3GPP TS27.007 and enhanced AT Commands Data – LTE-FDD Max 10Mbps(DL) Max 5Mbps (UL) NanoSIM card 2x u.FL antenna connectors GNSS – GPS/BeiDou/GLONASS/Galileo/QZSS with 1x u.FL GNSS […]

RadioShuttle Network Protocol is an Efficient, Fast & Secure Alternative to LoRaWAN Protocol

LoRaWAN protocol is one of the most popular LPWAN standards used for the Internet of Things today, but some people found it “lacked efficiency, did not support direct node-to-node communication, and was too costly and far too complicated for many applications”, so they developed their own LoRa wireless protocol software called RadioShuttle, which they claim is “capable of efficiently sending messages in a fast and secure way between simple LoRa modules”. Some of the key features of the protocol include: Support for secure or insecure (less time/energy) message transmission, multiple messages transmission in parallel Unique 32-bit device ID (device number) per LoRa member, unique 16-bit app ID (program number for the communication) Security – Login with SHA-256 encrypt password; AES-128 message encryption Air Traffic Control – Nodes only send if no LoRa signal is active on that channel. Optimized protocol –  Message delivery within 110 ms (SF7, 125 kHz, free […]

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