CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

July 14, 2021July 14, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

MAIX-II A AI camera board combines Allwinner R329 smart audio processor with USB-C camera

Earlier this year, we wrote about Sipeed MAIX-II Dock AIoT vision devkit with an Allwinner V831 camera processor with a small 200 MOPS NPU, an Omnivision SP2305 2MP camera sensor, and a 1.3-inch display. But for some reason, which could be supply issues, Sipeed has designed a much different variant called MAIX-II A with a board based on Allwinner R329 smart audio processor, a 720p30 USB camera module, and a 1.5-inch display. MAIX-II A board specifications: Main M.2 module – Maix-II A module with Allwinner R329 dual-core Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.5 GHz, 256MB DDR3 on-chip, a dual-core HIFI4 DSP @ 400 MHz, and Arm China AIPU AI accelerator for up to 256 MOPS, plus Wi-Fi & BLE and a footprint for an SPI Flash. Storage – MicroSD card socket Display – 1.5-inch LCD display with 240×240 resolution Audio – Dual microphones, 3W speakers Camera – 720p USB-C camera module based […]

July 14, 2021January 9, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

XUAN-Bike self-balancing, self-riding bicycle relies on flywheel, 22 TOPS Huawei Ascend A310 AI processor

After Huawei engineer Peng Zhihui Jun fell off this bicycle, he decided he should create a self-balancing, self-riding bicycle, and ultimately this gave birth to the XUAN-Bike, with XUAN standing for eXtremely, Unnatural Auto-Navigation, and also happening to be an old Chinese name for cars. The bicycle relies on a flywheel and a control board with ESP32 and MPU6050 IMU for stabilization connected over a CAN bus to the motors, as well as Atlas 200 DK AI Developer Kit equipped with the 22 TOPS Huawei Ascend A310 AI processor consuming under 8W connected to a 3D depth camera and motor for self-riding. It’s not the first time we see this type of bicycle or even motorcycle, but the XUAN-Bike design is also fairly well-documented with the hardware design (electronics + 3D Fusion360 CAD files) and some documentation in Chinese uploaded to Github. The software part has not been released so […]

ArmSoM RK3588 AIModule7 NVIDIA Jetson Nano-compatible SOM

July 13, 2021December 29, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

DIY Raspberry Pi 4 mini server includes UPS and OLED information display

While the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC has greater multimedia capabilities, it can also be used for headless projects like mini servers or networked access storage (NAS). Michael Klements’ DIY Raspberry Pi 4 mini server is especially interesting as it’s cute, and includes a UPS to handle power failures, plus an OLED display to show information. Here’s the final result. Ideally, you’d need a laser cutter and a 3D printer like the Ender 3 Pro to make the case, but most of the parts are off-the-shelf components including: A Raspberry Pi 4 SBC together with a 32GB MicroSD card for the operating system 52Pi/GeeekPi UPS Plus module (about $25) plus one or two 18650 Lithium-Ion Cells A Low Profile Ice Tower for cooling, but you could probably switch to your own (passive) cooling solution and make the device slightly more compact A 128×64 I2C OLED Display A 5V/3A Power Supply Accessories […]

July 13, 2021July 13, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 19 Comments

Station M2 business-card sized Android 11 mini PC, also supports Ubuntu & Buildroot

After introducing Station P2 Rockchip RK3568 mini PC in March of this year, Firefly has now launched another, cheaper model with the ultra-thin Station M2 computer based on the company’s ROC-RK3566-PC single board computer equipped with Rockchip RK3566 SoC. Station M2 is only slightly larger than a business card, but packs up to 8GB RAM, M.2 SSD storage, HDMI 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0/2.0 ports. Station M2 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3566 with a quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ up to 1.8GHz. Arm Mali-G52 2EE GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.2. OpenCL 2.0. Vulkan 1.1, 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator, 4K H.265/H.265/VP9 video decoder, 1080p100 H.265/H.264 video encoder. System Memory – 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 (8GB optional) Storage – 32GB or 64GB (128GB eMMC optional), M.2 PCIe 2.0 socket for 2242 NVMe SSD, MicroSD card socket Video Output – 1x HDMI port up to 4Kp60 Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, […]

July 13, 2021July 13, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

DIY Linux e-Reader – postmarketOS now runs on Kobo Clara HD

postmarketOS is a Linux operating system designed for phones, notably the PinePhone, and based on Alpine Linux. But now it’s possible to install the Linux distribution on Kobo Clara HD e-Reader (about $115), so you could have your own Linux e-Reader in a way that’s more versatile than with commercial solutions. The image can either be based on the vendor kernel or the mainline kernel. The latter works without modification to the X server, and the framebuffer can be used directly with either kernel, but most free e-reader programs such as koreader, plato, and inkbox are developed for the slightly different framebuffer API used in the vendor kernel. The demo below relies on Sxmo UI optimized for the PinePhone, and Martijn Braam notes that it can be pretty hard notably because only one hardware button is present on the Kobo device while the interface requires 3 hardware input buttons. But […]

July 12, 2021July 14, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

NodeMCU ESP32-C3 WiFi & BLE IoT boards show up for about $4

ESP32-C3 RISC-V IoT processor with 2.4 WiFI and Bluetooth LE 5.0 was unveiled in December 2020, and Espressif Systems’ own ESP32-C3-DevKitM-1 board has been available in limited quantities as an “engineering sample”. But now I’ve noticed third-party NodeMCU ESP32-C3 boards are being sold on Aliexpress for around $4 with ESP32-C3S_Kit and ESP-C3-01M-Kit both based on AI Thinker ESP32-C3 modules announced a few months ago. NodeMCU ESP32-C3S_KIt Specifications: Wireless module – AI Thinker ESP32-C3S (footprint compatible with ESP32-S / ESP32-WROOM-32D) with ESP32-C3 RISC-V processor @ 160 MHz, 2.4 GHz WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0 LE, 4MB flash, on-board PCB antenna, and IPEX connector (which may be soldered or not). USB – Micro USB port for power and programming via CH340C USB to TTL chip Expansion – 2x 15-pin headers with GPIO, SPI, UART, ADC, I2S, 3.3V, GND Misc – RGB LED, Reset key, user-programmable key Dimensions – 49 x 26 mm ESP32-C3S_Kit is […]

July 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

PiSugar S and PiSugar S Pro – Lower cost batteries for Raspberry Pi

PiSugar battery for the Raspberry Pi Zero was introduced around two years ago, followed the next year with a 5,000mAh PiSugar 2 battery for Raspberry Pi 3/4 which is currently sold for $49.99. But the company has now designed lower-cost versions of the batteries with PiSugar S for Raspberry Pi Zero board, and PiSugar S Pro for Raspberry Pi 3/4 single board computers. PiSugar S Pro – Battery for Raspberry Pi 3/4 PiSugar S Pro offers a 5,000 mAh battery capacity with up to 3A output current for a typical battery life of 8 to 10 hours. A micro USB port and a USB Type-C port can be used for charging. The board also adds a GPIO button to turn on and off the Raspberry Pi board cleanly, or alternatively can be used as a custom button when the board is running. The battery module also supports the UPS function […]

July 11, 2021July 12, 2021 by Karl Johnson - 2 Comments

Laser focusing on Laser Master 2 Pro and optimal line spacing

Karl Here. I am going to break up the review process for the Ortur Laser Master 2 Pro (LM2Pro) into smaller bite-size bits instead of one long review. I can get into more details and share what I learned. You can check out the initial unboxing and initial impressions in Ortur Laser Master 2 Pro laser engraver – First impressions. Let’s start first with focusing the laser. Focusing the laser I have a problem, I don’t feel like I can reliably focus the same way every time so I created a little focusing contraption. I got inspiration from my CNC machine and Z probe. It is just a simple jig that completes a circuit when the lens touches the end of the M3 screw to illuminate the led. I feel like I can have better repeatability. I’ll step through my process of calibrating it. First, I focused the laser with […]