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MutantC v3 open hardware DIY UMPC works with Raspberry Pi and compatible SBC’s

FOSDEM 2021 open-source developer event will take place online later this week, and yesterday we compiled a list of talks, with one entitled “MutantC PDA introduction – open source and hardware PDA shell” piquing my interest. The talk will be about the third revision of the hardware which allows you to create your own UMPC or handheld computer powered by a Raspberry Pi SBC or other compatible single board computers including Asus Tinker Board S, PINE H64 Model B, Banana Pi BPI-M4B, among others. MutantC v3 is versatile and highly customizable as can be seen from the specifications highlights: Supported SBCs – Raspberry Pi Zero, 2, 3, 4 and compatible. Arduino for keyboard – SparkFun Pro Micro 5v/16Mhz or SparkFun Qwiic Pro Micro – USB-C Display – 2.8-inch, 3.5-inch, or 4-inch “GPIO” LCD such as AdaFruit PiTFT 480×320 display Custom PCBs for display, mainboard, and thumbstick Expansion External 12-pin “docking” […]

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Build a Raspberry Pi CM4 4-Bay NAS with Wiretrustee Carrier board

Broadcom BCM2711 processor comes with a PCIe interface that is used for the USB ports on the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC, but that is exposed through the board-to-board connectors of Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, aka Raspberry Pi CM4, and allows all sort of designs. So far we’ve mostly seen this PCIe interface used for M.2 expansion slots on devices ranging from industrial computers to carrier board such as Piunora or Gumstix Raspberry Pi CM4 development board. But Wiretrustee had a different idea and designed carrier board with Marvell 88SE9215 PCIe to SATA controller and offering four SATA connectors to build a 4-bay NAS with Raspberry Pi CM4 module. Wiretrustee carrier board specifications: Supported SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and 4 Lite Storage 4x SATA 2.0 via Marvell 88SE9215 (PCIe 2.0 x1 to 4 6Gb/s SATA ports, no HW RAID) chip tested at a write speed of ~220MB/s […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC
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K210 AI Accelerator Raspberry Pi pHAT targets secure AIoT projects (Crowdfunding)

Kendryte K210 is a dual-core RISC-V AI processor that was launched in 2018 and found in several smart audio and computer vision solutions. We previously wrote a Getting Started Guide for Grove AI HAT for Raspberry Pi using Arduino and MicroPython, and XaLogic XAPIZ3500 offered an even more compact K210 solution as a Raspberry pi pHAT with Raspberry Pi Zero form factor. The company is now back with another revision of the board called “XaLogic K210 AI accelerator” designed to work with Raspberry Pi Zero and larger boards with the 40-pin connector. K210 AI Accelerator board specifications: SoC – Kendryte K210 dual-core 64-bit RISC-V processor @ 400 MHz with 8MB on-chip RAM, various low-power AI accelerators delivering up to 0.5 TOPS, Host Interface – 40-pin Raspberry Pi header using: SPI @ 40 MHz via Lattice iCE40 FPGA I2C, UART, JTAG, GPIOs signals Security Infineon Trust-M cloud security chip 128-bit AES […]

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Third-party Raspberry Pi RP2040 boards from Arduino, Adafruit, Sparkfun and Pimoroni

I’ve just written about the launch of the Raspberry Pi Pico board and Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU, which, as I explained in the announcement, could be used with third-party boards, but what I was not made aware during the embargo was that RP2040 boards were already being worked on, and other companies jointly announced their own custom Raspberry Pi Pico compatible board with Adafruit, Arduino, Pimoroni, and Sparkfun joining the party. Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect Board When I first wrote about Raspberry Pi Pico, I really saw it would be a competitor to Arduino boards, but instead Arduino and Raspberry Pi joined hands to design Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect with the board including 16MB external SPI flash, a u-blox NINA WiFi & Bluetooth module, an STMicro MEMS sensor with 9-axis IMU and microphone, and the ECC608 crypto chip. That obviously means Arduino Core will also support the new RP2040 MCU. […]

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Voltage Measurement HAT for Raspberry Pi offers 16-bit analog inputs

MCC has launched the MCC 128 voltage measurement DAQ HAT for Raspberry Pi for data acquisition and data logging systems. It includes 8 analog inputs with 16-bit resolution for a range of -10V to +10 V at the data rate of 100 kS/s. This data rate can be increased by stacking up to 8 HATs for 64 channels of data which can produce a faster data rate up to 320 kS/s. The MCC 128 DAQ HAT is compatible with all Raspberry Pi models with the 40-pin GPIO header, excluding the original Pi 1 A or B with the 26-pin header. It is recommended to use the SPI interface for connecting LCD displays using the GPIO header. The configuration parameters of the board are stored in the EEPROM to allow automatic set up of GPIO pins to Raspberry Pi after the connection of the device. Key Features of MCC 128 DAQ […]

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Raspberry Pi 4 Mini-ITX carrier board. Meet Over:Board (Crowdfunding)

While the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC is popular for its small form factor, affordable hardware, and good software support, the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 offers more flexibility and allows makers and companies to design their own hardware matching their requirements, while still leveraging the existing software support. We’ve already seen a mini-ITX carrier board for the Raspberry Pi 4, namely the upcoming Turing Pi 2. However, the board has very specific use cases in mind since it’s a cluster board designed for four Raspberry Pi Compute Modules 4. But British engineer Ross Nicholls has designed Over:Board carrier board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 for most traditional use cases, in essence, designing what amounts to a Raspberry Pi 4 mini-ITX motherboard with SATA, PCIe, etc. Over:Board specifications: Compatible SoM’s –  Raspberry Pi CM4 or CM4Lite with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor, up to 8GB RAM, up to 32GB storage. […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs
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Rock Pi X Review – An Atom x5 SBC running Windows 10 or Ubuntu 20.04

The ROCK Pi X is the first x86 SBC (single board computer) from Radxa and resulted from repeated enquiries about running Windows on their earlier ROCK Pi 4. The ROCK Pi X comes in two models (Model A and Model B) with each model having either 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB of RAM and either 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB of eMMC storage. Additionally, the Model B includes WiFi and Bluetooth together with supporting Power over Ethernet (PoE) although this requires an additional HAT. Both Seeed Studio and Radxa provided samples and in this review, I’ll cover some performance metrics from both Windows and Ubuntu and also discuss the thermals. Rock Pi X Hardware Overview The ROCK Pi X is similar in size to a Raspberry Pi board… but with slightly different ports and port locations even when compared to the Raspberry Pi 4. It is physically slightly larger than its […]

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OAS software now supports Raspberry Pi 4 for Industry 4.0 solutions

A week before the announcement that Raspberry Pi supported industrial customers through several new services, including a dedicated website for the industry and the Raspberry Pi Approved Design Partners program, OAS announced support for deploying the Open Automation Software Platform on Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB or 8GB of memory. The solution enables the low-cost scaling of operations and “reliable on-site data logging in remote locations with limited power and connectivity”. As you may know… or not, OAS has provided IIoT solutions for the last 20 years and is widely used since the company offers secure moving of data from one location to another. Network Configuration Possibilities The platform offers support for Windows PC/Server, Windows Embedded, Windows IoT, Linux Server, Virtual Machines (Win/Linux), Raspberry Pi 4, and Docker Containers (Win/Linux). “These systems can be networked together and share data creating endless network configuration possibilities”. The OAS platform running on the […]

Khadas VIM4 SBC