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CaribouLite RPi HAT open-source SDR Raspberry Pi HAT tunes up to 6 GHz (Crowdfunding)

CaribouLite RPi HAT is an open-source dual-channel software-defined radio (SDR) Raspberry Pi HAT – or rather uHAT – that works in the sub-GHz ISM range and optionally the 30 MHz – 6 GHz range for the full version. Developed by Israel-based CaribouLabs, the micro HAT is equipped with a Lattice Semi ICE40LP1K FPGA, a Microchip AT86RF215 RF transceiver, two SMA antenna connectors, a Pmod expansion connector, and designed for any Raspberry Pi board with a 40-pin GPIO header. CaribouLite RPi HAT specifications: FPGA – Lattice Semi ICE40LP with 1.28 kLE RF Chipset – Microchip AT86RF215 Sub-GHz / 2.4GHz transceiver Qorvo’s RFFC5072 integrated Mixer IC (for full version only) Tuning Range CH1 Full version – 30 MHz – 6 GHz ISM version – 2.4 – 2.4835 GHz CH2 – Sub-1GHz Max Sampling Rate – 4 MSPS ADC/DAC Resolution – 13-bit Max RF Bandwidth – 2.5 MHz Transmit Power – up to […]

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LEGO Technic meets Raspberry Pi with the Build HAT

A new official Raspberry Pi expansion board is introduced today. The Built HAT provides four connectors for LEGO Technic motors and sensors from the SPIKE Portfolio, as well as an 8V DC jack to power both the Raspberry Pi and LEGO motors, sensors, LED matrix, and more. Designed in collaboration with LEGO Education, the Build HAT features the Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core ARM Cortex M0+ MCU for I/O control, and will enable more complex models benefiting from more powerful Broadcom BCM2xxx processors, as well as a Python library for easy programming. Build HAT key features and specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller for low-level control of LEGO Technic devices 4x LPF2 connectors for LEGO Technic motors and sensors included in the SPIKE Portfolio 40-pin GPIO header for connection to Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, 3B+, 3B, 3A+, or Pi Zero family (Raspberry Pi 400 not supported) Misc – 2x […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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ANAVI Gardening uHAT adds soil and other sensors to Raspberry Pi (Crowdfunding)

We’ve been covering and reviewing ANAVI open-source hardware boards for several years now, either standalone boards based on ESP8266, or add-on boards for Raspberry Pi. The  ANAVI Gardening uHAT is the latest board from Leon Anavi. It is a micro HAT designed for Raspberry Pi Zero to Raspberry Pi 4 SBCs that offers interfaces for soil sensors and other environmental sensors allowing measurements of soil moisture, atmospheric pressure and humidity, temperature with a waterproof sensor, and light intensity for gardening applications. ANAVI Gardening uHAT key features and specifications: Compatibility – Any Raspberry Pi board with a 40-pin GPIO header Storage – EEPROM for uHAT compliance 2x 3-pin headers for capacitive soil moisture sensors connected to Microchip MCP3002 ADC chip 3-pin One-wire terminal block for a waterproof temperature sensor 2x 4-pin I²C headers for additional sensors 10-header with GPIO pins for controlling irrigation systems and peripherals Misc – 2x user LEDs,  […]

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PiKVM v3 Raspberry Pi HAT offers KVM over IP on the cheap (Crowdfunding)

Last December, we wrote about the inexpensive DIY Pi-KVM board to add KVM over IP to the Raspberry Pi board mentioning PiKVM v3 was in the works with extra features such as onboard ATX power control. It turns out PiKVM v3 HAT has been on Kickstarter for about a month and raised close to $600,000 US from over 2,500 backers with just about two days to go at the time of writing. PiKVM v3 hardware features and specifications: Video & audio capture port – 1x HDMI input up to 1080p50 MIPI CSI-2 interface to Pi to visualize HDMI input USB 1x USB-C console port 1x USB-C power input port USB-OTG pins USB-C OTG port doing the emulation of a USB keyboard, mouse, Virtual CD-ROM or USB Flash Drive, USB-Ethernet, USB-Serial port, etc… Console – RJ45 console port Debugging – UART access pins Expansion SPI and an extra GPIO for the […]

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Raspberry Pi 4 gets IEEE1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) with Real-Time HAT

InnoRoute Real-Time HAT adds IEEE1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) to Raspberry Pi 4/3 via a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA and three Gigabit Ethernet ports. The Precision Time Protocol (PTP) is used to very accurately synchronize clocks throughout a computer network to enable measurement and control systems. It is often found in embedded microcontrollers or processors from Texas Instruments, STMicro, and more recently, in Intel Elkhart Lake & Tiger Lake H processors. It can notably be used for Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and Audio Video Bridging (AVB). InnoRoute Real-time HAT specifications & key features: FPGA- Xilinx Artik-7 FPGA Some RAM Networking Gigabit Ethernet port 0 with IEEE1588/TSN signaling Gigabit Ethernet port 1 with input from Raspberry Pi 4 Gigabit Ethernet port 2 with PoE, without TSN Host interface – 40-pin Raspberry Pi header mostly for SPI and I2C interfaces used for configuration. Misc – 3x LEDs, JTAG and PMod connectors, EEPROM (for Raspberry […]

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BL-63B – A smaller BL602 IoT module that sells for $1.5

Bouffalo Labs BL602 is a low-cost, low-power RISC-V microcontroller that offers 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0 LE connectivity for IoT projects for about the price of ESP8266. We first discovered it last year, together with a development board. Pine64 created its own PineCone board fitted with the $2 PineNut module, and some reverse-engineering work has started on BL602 SDK. But there’s now another smaller BL602 module with “Machine Intelligence” (that’s the company name) BL-63B that sells for $1.5 on Taobao in China, as well as on LCSC Electronics albeit you’d need to purchase 1000 pieces to get that price, and single-unit pricing is currently $2.5. BL-63B WiFI & BLE module specifications: SoC – Bouffalo Labs BL602 32-bit RISC-V processor @ up to 192 Mhz with 276KB RAM, 128KB ROM, 1Kbit eFuse, WiFi and BLE Storage – 2MB flash Wireless 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFI 4 1×1 SISO up to 65 Mbps […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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Board for 60 ESP-01 modules that update firmware from Github, mine “Duino Coins”

When I first saw the large ESP-01 V1.0 board on Facebook, I thought it was designed to speed up firmware updates of up to 60 ESP-01 modules. The developer, Thanormsin, just explained it would take 5 to 24V DC input to power all ESP8266 attached to it. It looks cool to have so many But there was no PC interface to update the firmware, so it did not make sense to me, even if it could be used for OTA firmware updates, as the first time, one would have to manual update the firmware. So I discussed with Thanormsin, and he explains to me his initial arrangement was a cable mess. That is why he designed a board to make it neater, and easier to manage. Each ESP-01 module can update firmware from the Internet, more especially from Github, as each time a new firmware version is uploaded to Github, […]

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JTAG Hat for Raspberry Pi eases debugging with OpenOCD

Low-level debugging can be performed with a JTAG debugger and OpenOCD open-source software, but since not everybody may have a JTAG debugger at home, some have reverted to using the Raspberry Pi as a JTAG debugger, and you’ll find instructions for cabling and installing the software on the Internet. Matt Mets of BlinkinLabs have been using the Raspberry Pi SBC and OpenOCD to debug Arm-based microcontroller boards for a while, but found it to be a pain to find jumper wires and look up the pin-outs manually each time. So he designed a JTAG Hat with properly labeled 20-pin .1″ and 1.27mm Cortex debug connectors to speed up the process. The expansion board also adds level-shifting buffers to interface with targets running at 1.8-5V, transistor-based power reset pins, a power switch for optionally supplying 3.3V to the target, a voltage/current sensor for measuring the target power consumption, and a buffered […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC