EveLab 1.0 is an Advanced Breadboard Solution Designed for the Raspberry Pi

While it’s perfectly feasible to connect the Raspberry Pi board to a breadboard it can become relatively messy if your projects needs many I/Os due the wire and extra components like resistors, so “Robot In A Can” designed a circuit trainer for the University of Guelph students to wire projects with the Raspberry Pi’s (26-pin) header in a neater way, and made it durable to to endure years of use in a lab setting. The developer has now started selling the hardware, and called it EveLab 1.0. Evelabs 1.0 specifications: 2x 32×4 breadboards with markings for GPIO pins 1x “standard” breadboard 3x LEDs (pre-grounded) 3x Momentary Switch (pre-grounded) 2x Potentiometers (pre-grounded) 1x RGB LED (pre-grounded) 1x Analog to digital converter (2-inputs pre wired) 1x Light Sensor 1x Temperature Sensor The board also comes with 2 GPIO ribbon cables to connect to various Pi models, and 20 Jumper cables. The target board […]

Eagleye 530s Board Features Samsung Artik 530s IoT Module, Leverages Raspberry Pi Form Factor

Samsung Artik 530 is a module designed for the Internet of Things based on a quad core Arm Cortex A9 processor, and supporting Ethernet, dual band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.2, and 802.15.4/Zigbee/Thread connectivity, as well as exposing display and camera interfaces, and of course various I/Os. The module was launched about one year ago with a developer kit that cost $189 and up, but Samsung has now worked with Seeed Studio to launch a cheaper developer board – called Eagleye – based on the secure version of the module (Artik 530s) and mostly following Raspberry Pi form factor in order to take advantage of its hardware ecosystem. Eagleye 530s board specifications: SoC – Unnamed quad core Arm Cortex A9 processor @ 1.2GHz with 3D graphics accelerator System Memory – 1GB DDR3 Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, SD card slot Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n dual band SISO (2.4G/5G)  Bluetooth 4.2(BLE+Classic) Zigbee/Thread 802.15.4 Gigabit Ethernet […]

Khadas Edge2 Arm mini PC

BASpi I/O is a Raspberry Pi HAT Expansion Board for Building Automation (BACNet)

BACNet is a data communication protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks that has been developed, supported and maintained by ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) Standing Standard Project Committee since 1987, and used as building automation standard in the US, Europe, and more than 30 other countries. It’s used for HVACs, lightings, elevators, fire safety, and other systems used in buildings. It’s also known as ISO 16484-6 standard. I had never heard of it, but this afternoon, I’ve come across Contemporary Controls BASPi I/O, a Raspberry Pi add-on specifically designed for BACNet, and providing 12 physical I/O points including 6 Universal Inputs and 6 Relay Outputs. BASPi I/O specifications and features: BACnet/IP Server – 12 physical points and 24 virtual points BACnet/IP over Ethernet or Wi-Fi Resident Sedona Virtual Machine (SVM) Input/Output — 12-points of physical I/O 6x configurable Universal Inputs: Analog Input, Binary Input, Resistance, […]

How to Use 3G and GPS on Raspberry Pi with ThaiEasyElec 3G HAT Expansion Board

Venus Supply is an embedded systems company based in Bangkok, Thailand that sells products through their ThaiEasyElec website/brand, as well as a act as a local distributor for popular DIY electronics items. I previously tested their ESPino32 ESP32 board, and the company has now send me another of their new product called “3G HAT Expansion for Raspberry Pi” and based on Quectel UC20-G that support 3G and GPS/GLONASS connectivity globally, meaning it should work in any country with 2G or 3G coverage. After listing the specifications, going through unboxing and assembly with a Raspberry Pi 2/3 board, I’ll write some quick start guide to show what I had to do to use GPS and connect to 3G with a Hologram SIM card. 3G HAT Expansion for Raspberry Pi Specifications Quectel UC20-G wireless module supporting Cellular 3G – UMTS @ 800/850/900/1900/2100 MHz 2G – GSM @ 850/900/1800/1900 MHz Data – HSPA+ […]

Raspberry Pi 3 Sold for $29.95 on DFRobot (Promo)

As I browsed various sites checking out new arrivals and potential promotion, I found out DFRobot has now a promotion for the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B board for $29.95 apparently taking place between the 8th and 10th of each month (not only February). I added it to my cart to check out shipping to my address, and unless you can pick it up to their office, shipping adds $6, for a total of $35.95 shipped. Whether that is worth it depends where on your locale price and custom regulations. DFRobot does offer free (DHL) shipping for order over $150, but you can’t just buy 5 Raspberry Pi 3 boards at the discounted price, since the special offer apply to “one only one piece of Pi 3”, so you’d have to purchase something else from their website if you don’t want to pay for shipping. Nevertheless, even if you have […]

Sixfab Launches Arduino and Raspberry Pi NB-IoT Shields with Four Sensors

SixFab previously introduced a 3G/4G base shield for the Raspberry Pi boards that would take Quectel based mini PCIe card in order to add cellular connectivity to the popular development boards. The company is now back with NB-IoT shields that should better suited to IoT projects with lower hardware and data costs, and support either 40-pin Raspberry Pi boards or Arduino. SixFab Raspberry Pi NB-IoT Shield Specifications & features: Module – Quectel BC95-B20 NB-IoT Module supporting 800MHz frequency (suitable for the European market) Micro SIM card socket, PCB Antenna and u.FL socket for external antenna I/O expansions 4x Channel 12-bit ADC via ADS1015 Relay with optocoupler protection (24V DC, 120-220V AC Switching) 3-pin 1-Wire interface for DS18B20, DHT21, etc… 4-pin I2C interface 3.3V reference voltage Sensors MMA8452Q 3-axis accelerometer HDC1080 temperature sensor (-40 to +125 °C) HDC1080 humidity sensor (0 to 100%) ALS-PT19 ambient light sensor Misc – User button […]

Rockchip RK3568/RK3588 and Intel x86 SBCs

Mozilla Project Things Framework for the IoT Works with Raspberry Pi 3 and Other Boards / Computers

The Internet of Things today relies on many standards, and for example Google Cloud relies on Weave, Amazon AWS IoT and Samsung SmartThings on MQTT, Apple iCloud and so on. The web also relies on many different markup or programming languages like HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, etc.. but as a user you don’t need to care, and in most cases, you can access any website with the same web browser. Last year, Mozilla started working on Project Things to bring the same ease of of use to the IoT, by implementing the proposed Web of Things standard by W3C that aims to reduce IoT fragmentation by allowing different vendors’ IoT offerings to work together. Mozilla has now announced the release of  Project Things “open framework for connecting your devices to the web” suitable not only for hackers and developers, but easy enough to use for end users. The release includes […]

Getting Started with TinyLIDAR Time-of-Flight Sensor on Arduino and Raspberry Pi

TinyLIDAR is an inexpensive and compact board based on STMicro VL53L0X Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging sensor that allows you to measure distance up to 2 meters using infrared signals, and with up to 60 Hz. Contrary to most other VL53L0X boards, it also includes an STM32L0 micro-controller that takes care of most of the processing, frees up resource on your host board (e.g. Arduino UNO), and should be easier to control thanks to I2C commands. The project was successfully funded on Indiegogo by close to 600 backers, and the company contacted me to provided a sample of the board, which I have now received, and tested with Arduino (Leonardo), and Raspberry Pi (2). TinyLIDAR Unboxing I was expecting a single board, but instead I received a bubble envelop with five small zipped packages. Opening them up  revealed three TinyLIDAR boards, the corresponding Grove to jumper cables, and a bracket PCB for […]

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