Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Haxophone – A Raspberry Pi-based electronic saxophone with mechanical keys (Crowdfunding)

Haxophone – A Raspberry Pi-based electronic saxophone with mechanical keys (Crowdfunding)

Raspberry Pi Saxophone Mechanical Keys

The Haxophone is an unusual Raspberry Pi expansion board that transforms the popular SBC into a travel saxophone using mechanical keys. The hackable musical instrument is open-source hardware and OSHWA certified and comes with mechanical keys which makes it easily repairable, customizable by changing keycaps or the firmware, and at a price point cheaper than commercial digital saxophones with custom molded keys. Haxophone key features and specifications: Custom Raspberry Pi HAT PCB Tactile-feedback 5-pin mechanical switches Mechanical keycaps Airflow pressure sensor Built-in audio amplifier compatible with Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W Serial console for hacking Weight – 180 grams OSHW certifications – PT000005 You’ll find KiCAD hardware design files, assembly instructions, documentation, and the software and firmware used with the Haxophone on GitHub. There are two main software components, first haxo-rs Rust-based driver for detecting key presses and breath in order to convert them into notes, and fluidsynth synthesizer […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments on DASUNG introduces the world’s first color E-ink monitor (Crowdfunding)

DASUNG introduces the world’s first color E-ink monitor (Crowdfunding)

DASUNG e-Ink Color Monitor

Just a couple of years ago, we would have laughed at the idea of getting an E-ink monitor, because most displays were still in black and white only, larger displays were prohibitively expensive, and nobody wanted to wait for several seconds to get a full display refresh. But there’s been some good progress in recent years with color displays, faster refresh rate, and prices coming down somewhat which has led to the launch of devices such as the Onyx BOOX Tab Ultra C 10.3-inch color E-Ink Android tablet and a range of color eReaders such as the PocketBook Color. But DASUNG is going further with the launch of the world’s first color E-ink monitor. DASUNG E-Ink color monitor specifications: 23.5-inch color E-ink Kaleido 3 color screen with 3200 x 1800 resolution 4096 colors through DASUNG X-Color Filter “Ultra-fast Turbo Refresh Tech” Optional frontlight and/or curved display (depends on model) Landscape […]

ArmSoM CM5 - Raspberry Pi CM4 alternative with Rockchip RK3576 SoC
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on Using SenseCAP T1000 LoRaWAN GPS Tracker for cattle tracking

Using SenseCAP T1000 LoRaWAN GPS Tracker for cattle tracking

SenseCAP T1000 Review Smart Agriculture Cattle Tracking

SenseCAP T1000 is a credit-size GPS tracker using LoRaWAN low-power long-range connectivity. Smart Agriculture is one specific application that can leverage IoT and LoRaWAN to analyze and manage soil, crops, and water, but also to track the location of livestock. This is an important aspect of farming, and we’ll use the SenseCAP T1000 LoRaWAN GPS tracker to track cattle in this article/review. SenseCAP T1000 unboxing The package contains the  SenseCAP T1000 GPS Tracker device, which is about the size of a credit card, and a charging cable. Smart cattle tracking with SenseCAP T1000 LoRaWAN tracker Here are some of the benefits and features of Smart cattle tracking: Identify the location of the swarm in real-time Identify animals easily Increase efficiency and reduce human labor Secure your farm by using the tracker as an anti-theft device Weather change alerts Virtual fence to generate an alert when the animal leaves the designated […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on Raspberry Pi CM4 compatible RISC-V SoM features StarFive JH7110 SoC

Raspberry Pi CM4 compatible RISC-V SoM features StarFive JH7110 SoC

Raspberry Pi CM4 RISC-V CPU module

We’ve seen many Arm-based system-on-modules following the Raspberry Pi CM4 form factor, but we’ve now got a RISC-V one courtesy of the Milk-V Mars CM CPU module powered by a StarFive JH7110 quad-core RISC-V SoC. The RISC-V module comes with up to 8GB RAM, a 16MB SPI flash, an optional eMMC flash, onboard GbE PHY, and a wireless module with WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2 plus the two 100-pin board-to-board connectors offering (partial) compatibility with carrier boards made for the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. Specifications: SoC – StarFive JH7110 CPU – Quad-core RISC-V processor (RV64GC) at up to 1.5GHz GPU – Imagination BXE-4-32 GPU with support for OpenCL 1.2, OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.2 VPU H.264 & H.265 4Kp60 decoding H.265 1080p30 encoding JPEG encoder / decoder System Memory – 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4 Storage SDIO 2.0 (options to eMMC) 16MB NOR flash Networking Gigabit Ethernet PHY (YT8513C) […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on STARLIGHT – A Raspberry Pi RP2040 board for rockets

STARLIGHT – A Raspberry Pi RP2040 board for rockets

STARLIGHT Raspberry Pi RP2040 rocket board

Circuit Wizardry’s STARLIGHT is a rocket control board based on Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and designed for small 75mm model rockets. The board features rocket control-specific I/Os such as Igniter and Ejection pins each connected to a MOSFET, two headers for 5V servos, plus some sensors and 3.3V or 5V GPIOs for expansion. STARLIGHT specifications: Microcontroller – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ MCU @ 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM Storage – 16MB flash for firmware and flight data USB – 1x Micro USB port for programming Rocket control Igniter via 2-pin terminal block and AO3400 MOSFET (pulse current up to 30A) used with ignition systems to automatically light your engine. Ejection via 2-pin terminal and AO3400 MOSFET Servo control 2x 3-pin servo outputs for optional thrust loop vector control interface (X Axis and Y axis on board) Level shifter to allow the use of 5V servos with the 3.3V […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments on Allwinner 2023-2024 roadmap reveals A736/A737 Arm Cortex-A78/A76 processors

Allwinner 2023-2024 roadmap reveals A736/A737 Arm Cortex-A78/A76 processors

Allwinner Roadmap 2023 2024 automotive industrial SoCs

Allwinner should launch new Cortex-A76/A55 and Cortex-A78/A55 processors in 2024 according to the company’s roadmap including the Allwinner A736/A737 for tablets and the T736/T737 designed for automotive and industrial applications. In recent years, we’ve seen Rockchip and Amlogic introduce more powerful processors with the Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor and Amlogic A311D2 octa-core Cortex-A73/A53 or the more recent Amlogic S928X Cortex-A76/A55 for 8K TV boxes. But we’re still seeing some recent boards based on Allwinner Cortex-A7 32-bit processors, although recently we covered the Allwinner A523 octa-core Cortex-A55 processor for tablets. So today, I decided to go on a quest to find out whether Allwinner plans to use 64-bit Arm “big” cores in their future design. I first ended up on the linux-sunxi website where they list the Allwinner T736 octa-core “sun60i” processor with two Cortex-A76 cores and six Cortex-A55 cores, but no other details. This leads me to some “notes” […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on SparkFun launches ESP32-based “Arduino IoT Weather Station” with Arduino IoT Cloud integration

SparkFun launches ESP32-based “Arduino IoT Weather Station” with Arduino IoT Cloud integration

Sparkfun Arduino IoT Weather Station

SparkFun’s Arduino IoT Weather Station is a complete weather station kit leveraging the company’s MicroMod ecosystem with an ESP32 Processor Board and various sensors and developed in collaboration with Arduino for integration into their IoT Cloud service. Most people will check the weather on the Internet or watch the weather forecast on TV, but if you live in a remote area with a micro-climate or just want to have fun building your own weather station, the latest SparkFun kit will allow you to monitor temperature, air and soil humidity, wind speed and direction, lightning, and rainfall data at home and monitor the data from anywhere using a web browser. Arduino IoT Weather Station kit content: MicroMod ESP32 Processor module MicroMod Weather Carrier Board with a BME280 temperature, pressure, and humidity sensor and an AS3935 lightning detector only. The optional VEML6075 UV sensor is NOT included. The Weather Meter Kit with […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Review of CrowView 14-inch portable monitor with laptops and mini PCs

Review of CrowView 14-inch portable monitor with laptops and mini PCs

CrowView Display Laptop Mount Ubuntu

I received an early sample of the CrowView 14-inch laptop monitor for review a few weeks ago, and regular readers may have seen me already use it in some mini PC reviews, but I’ve yet to review the monitor itself, so I’ll report my experience using both laptops and mini PCs running Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04. CrowView laptop monitor unboxing The display ships in a retail package highlighting the main features of the display such as its Full HD resolution, compatibility with 13 to 16.5-inch laptop displays, 160° viewing angle, and its mechanical clamping mechanism. The CrowView display ships with a 12V/2A power supply, USB-A to USB-C and USB-C to USB-C cables, an HDMI to mini HDMI cable, a velcro tie, some stickers, and a user manual in English. The clamping mechanism can be found on the back of the display. There are also four buttons on the bottom […]

Boardcon Rockchip and Allwinner SoM and SBC products