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January 17, 2023January 17, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

ultraArm P340 Arduino-based robotic arm draws, engraves, and grabs

ultraArm P340 robotic arm draw engrave grabber

Elephant Robotics ultraArm P340 is a robot arm with an Arduino-compatible ATMega2560 control board with a 340mm working radius whose arm can be attached with different accessories for drawing, laser engraving, and grabbing objects. We’ve previously written and reviewed the myCobot 280 Pi robotic arm with a built-in Raspberry Pi 4 SBC, but the lower-cost ultraArm P340 works a little differently since it only contains the electronics for controlling the servos and attachments, and needs to be connected to a host computer running Windows or a Raspberry Pi over USB. ultraArm P340 specifications: Control board based on Microchip ATMega2560 8-bit AVR microcontroller @ 16MHz with 256KB flash, 4Kb EEPROM, 8KB SRAM DOF – 3 to 4 axis depending on accessories Working radius – 340mm Positioning Accuracy – ±0.1 mm Payload – Up to 650 grams High-performance stepper motor Maximum speed – 100mm/s Communication interfaces – RS485 and USB serial Attachment […]

November 14, 2022November 18, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Sipeed M1s & M0sense – Low-cost BL808 & BL702 based AI modules (Crowdfunding)

Sipeed has launched the M1s and M0Sense AI modules. Designed for AIoT application, the Sipeed M1s is based on the Bouffalo Lab BL808 32-bit/64-bit RISC-V wireless SoC with WiFi, Bluetooth, and an 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee support, as well as the BLAI-100 (Bouffalo Lab AI engine) NPU for video/audio detection and/or recognition. The Sipeed M0Sense targets TinyML applications with the Bouffa Lab BL702 32-bit microcontroller also offering WiFi, BLE, and Zigbee connectivity. Sipeed M1s AIoT module The Sipeed M1S is an update to the Kendryte K210-powered Sipeed M1 introduced several years ago. Sipeed M1s module specifications: SoC – Bouffalo Lab BL808 with CPU Alibaba T-head C906 64-bit RISC-V (RV64GCV+) core @ 480MHz Alibaba T-head E907 32-bit RISC-V (RV32GCP+) core @ 320MHz 32-bit RISC-V (RV32EMC) core @ 160 MHz Memory – 768KB SRAM and 64MB embedded PSRAM AI accelerator – NPU BLAI-100 (Bouffalo Lab AI engine) for video/audio detection/recognition delivering up […]

November 1, 2022January 17, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Review of myCobot 280 Pi robotic arm with Python and visual programming

myCobot 280 Pi is a versatile robotic arm with a 6 degree of freedom design. It was developed by Elephant Robotics using the Raspberry Pi 4 board as the main controller. The robot is compact and delivers stable operation making it ideal for confined spaces. It can also be programmed in a variety of languages, is easy to use, and offers a lot of features. It is suitable for those who are interested in learning how to program a robotic arm controller and for engineering projects. Unboxing myCobot 280 Pi The myCobot 280 Pi arm has a working range of 280 mm, weighs 850 grams, and can handle a payload of up to 250 grams. It is powered by 6 servo motors, one for each degree of freedom, and comes with a 5×5 matrix LED display, and supports LEGO parts as well. Controlled by a Raspberry Pi 4 single board […]

October 27, 2022October 27, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Easily add face detection to your project with the Person Sensor module

It’s now much easier to AI features to your project thanks to better tools, but as we’ve experienced when trying out Edge Impulse machine learning platform on the XIAO BLE Sense board, it still requires some effort and the learning curve may be higher than some expect. But for common tasks like face detection, there’s no reason for the solution to be hard-to-use or expensive, and Pete Warden (Useful Sensors) has designed the $10 Person Sensor fitted with a camera module pre-programmed with algorithms that detect nearby faces and reports the results over an I2C interface. Person Sensor specifications: ASIC – Himax HX6537-A ultra-low-power AI accelerator @ 400 MHz with 2MB SRAM, 2MB flash Camera Image Sensor – 110 degrees FOV Image scan rate – 7Hz with no facial recognition Image scan rate – 5Hz with facial recognition active Host interface Qwiic connector for the I2C interface up to […]

October 5, 2022October 5, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

The BBC has released a new web-based Python editor for the micro:bit board

There are already Python editors such as Thonny, but the BBC thought those were not good enough and released a new web-based Python editor specifically designed for the micro:bit education board targeting 11 to 14 years old pupils. The micro:bit Python editor includes drag and drop code examples, code structure & error highlighting, auto-complete feature, a simulator to test the code before uploading it to the micro:bit board, and a Quick ideas section to help pupils get started with projects. The BBC’s micro:bit Python editor works with both the micro:bit V1 and V2, but note the simulator shows a micro:bit V2, so if you are using the previous generation micro:bit, some code may work on the simulator but not on your micro:bit V2 board. For that reason, the BBC marked the code that only works on a micro:bit V2 with ‘V2’ in the Reference section. While the BCC is a […]

September 24, 2022September 25, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 42 Comments

Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC – A Raspberry Pi 400 alternative powered by Rockchip RK3399

Raspberry Pi 400 Keyboard PC alternative

There’s now a Raspberry Pi 400 alternative with the Orange Pi 800 Keyboard PC that offers a very similar design, but it is powered by a Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core Cortex-A72/A53 processor. Like the Raspberry Pi model, the Orange Pi 800 comes with 4GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, dual-band WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0, two USB 3.0 ports, and one USB 2.0 port, but it also adds 64GB on-board flash storage and features one full-size HDMI port capable of 4Kp60 resolution plus a VGA port, instead of two micro HDMI ports. Orange Pi 800 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 hexa-core big.LITTLE processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 cores up to 1.8GHz, 4x Arm Cortex-A53 cores up to 1.4GHz, and an Arm Mali-T860MP4 GPU System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – 64GB eMMC flash, microSD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0 port up to 4Kp60 VGA port up to Full HD resolution Audio 3.5mm […]

September 19, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Add 18650 batteries underneath Raspberry Pi with the Red Reactor board (Crowdfunding)

Red Reactor 18650 batteries Raspberry Pi

Pascal Herczog’s Red Reactor is a battery power supply project that adds two 18650 batteries to Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi 3, or Raspberry Pi Zero board using the pogo pins for connection. The pogo pin method means the Red Reactor is attached underneath the board, as such does not prevent the user to add a HAT expansion board on top of the single board computer. There’s also a headerless version for custom setup or compatibility with boards such as Arduino, Banana Pi, Orange Pi, etc… where some soldering is required. Red Reactor’s key features and specifications: Battery holder for up to 2x flat-top 18650 LiPo batteries Battery voltage and current monitoring over I2C (INA219) for software safe shutdown control, system reset, and your own functions Safety Battery protection Resettable fuse protects against discharge between 2 cells Over-Charge, Over-Discharge, and 6A Over-Current protection Host connection Pogo pins for Raspberry Pi […]

September 18, 2022February 15, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Luxonis OAK-D series 2 USB and PoE cameras integrate 3D depth and AI for robotics applications

Luxonis OAK-D Series 2 are the second-generation of USB or PoE cameras with 3D depth and a built-in AI accelerator mostly used for computer vision in robotics applications. We first wrote about Luxonis’ DepthAI module for Raspberry Pi based on the Intel Myriad X AI accelerator in 2019, and later found the module integrated into OpenCV AI Kit Lite, aka OAK-D Lite camera. The second-generation OAK-D cameras replace the module with a Robotics Vision Core 2 (RVC2) “chip-down design” equipped an SoC and Myriad X AI accelerator for up to 4 TOPS of processing power, including 1.4 TOPS for AI inference. Luxonis OAK-D Series 2 specifications and features: Robotics Vision Core 2 based on Myriad X AI accelerator 4 TOPS of processing power (1.4 TOPS for AI) Video encoding – H.264, H.265, MJPEG @ 4Kp3, 1080p60 Computer vision – Warp/dewarp, resize, crop via ImageManip node, edge detection, feature tracking, custom […]