Getting Started with balenaFin Developer Kit, balenaOS and balenaCloud

balenaFIN USB programming

balena Fin is a carrier board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3/3+ designed specifically for industrial applications leveraging fleet management services provided by Balena. I received balenaFin developer kit last month, and in the first part of the reviewed shows how to assemble the kit. I’m now had time to spend more time with the kit, as well as BalenaOS Linux based operating system optimized for running Docker containers on embedded devices, and balenaCloud services to manage a fleet of devices from a web dashboard. I’ve mostly followed the instructions in the getting started guides here and there, and will document what I had to do to prepare the image, flash it to the board, and load a sample docker application locally, and through balenaCloud. Downloading and Configuring BalenaOS for balena Fin You’ll find BalenaOS in the download page. While we are using hardware based on a Raspberry Pi Compute […]

Amungo NUT2NT+ is an Open Source High Precision GNSS Board (Crowdfunding)

NUT2NT+ GNSS Board

Amungo Navigation NUT2NT+ is an open source hardware four-channel, all-frequency, GNSS RF-to-bits receiver for precision, satellite-based positioning. Connected to the right antennas, the board can achieve centimeter positioning resolution by connecting to multiple navigation satellite systems including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and IRNSS. Amungo claims that while several startups and large companies already offer proprietary GNSS positioning solutions NUT2NT+ is the only open source option in this class of GNSS devices. NUT2NT+ key features and specifications: Receiver chip  – NTLab NT1065 4-Channel RF Front-End IC FPGA – Lattice ECP5 with 12K LUTs + 28 DSP blocks (LFE5U-12) opened for custom design USB – 1x USB 3.1 Type-C port via CYUSB3014 USB 3.0 controller: Clock – 10 MHz TCXO, soldered RF inputs – 2x bands dedicated;  – 5 dB referred noise floor ADC – 2-bit resolution up to 99 MHz Samples transfer – Continuous full stream, from 10 to 50 Mbytes/sec […]

Kettlepop is a Limited Edition of a CHIP Pro Derivative with 8GB eMMC flash

KettlePop Board

Next Things Co. CHIP was a $9 Arm Linux board based on Allwinner R8 processor that become fairly popular due to its low price, built-in WiFi & Bluetooth connectivity, open source hardware design, and integration into fun kits such as PocketCHIP portable gaming console/ Linux handheld computer. Later the company expanded their product line with CHIP Pro featuring Allwinner GR8 system-in-package, and designed as a low profile system-on-module to make it more suitable for integration into commercial products. Sadly, the company eventually ran into financial problems, and had to fold later in 2018. However, later that year, a company called Source Parts announced they were working on Popcorn Computer, a derivative of C.H.I.P. board, and appears to have sold it through Amazon US for a time. But this morning, I was informed that a board called Kettlepop was added to HackerBoards database with Next Things Co. GR8 SiP, and also […]

Avnet Azure Sphere MT3620 Starter Kit Features Two mikroBUS Sockets

Avnet Azure Sphere MT3620 Starter Kit

Microsoft and MediaTek worked together to design MediaTek MT3620 Arm Cortex-A7 processor with Microsoft Pluton security sub-system required for Microsoft Azure Sphere IoT ecosystem. We’ve already covered boards from Seeed Studio including the just announced low cost MT3620 mini dev board. But Microsoft also cooperated with Avnet which has recently introduced Azure Sphere MT3620 Starter Kit equipped with two mikroBUS sockets enabling the platform to leverage one of the 633 “click boards” available from MikroElektronika. Just like the latest Seeed Studio board, Avnet Azure Sphere MT3620 Starter Kit is comprised as a baseboard with a soldered-on CPU module that can later be used for mass-production is a custom designed board. Specifications: Azure Sphere MT3620 CPU Module Mediatek MT3620AN single core Arm Cortex-A7 processor @ 500 MHz with 4MB SRAM, dual core Arm Cortex-M4F real-time core @ 200 MHz with 64KB RAM, Microsoft Pluton security sub-system, and WiFi. Storage – TBD […]

Sub-$2 MH-Tiny ATTINY88 Micro Development Board Provides an Alternative to BluePill Board

MH-Tiny ATTINY88 micro development board

Bluepill is a popular STM32 Arm Cortex-M3 development board in a compact form factor, and can be programmed with the Arduino IDE thanks to STM32duino project. A key selling point is also its ultra low price since it is now available for $1.67 including international shipping. I’ve now been informed a similar board is available, but instead of an STMicro MCU, it comes with Microchip ATtiny88 AVR micro-controller. We first discovered MH-Tiny ATtiny88 micro development board on Electrodragon where it is sold for $2.94, but the board is also listed on Aliexpress for virtually the same price as Bluepill board. MH-Tiny ATtiny88 micro development board specifications: MCU – Microchip ATtiny88 8-bit AVR MCU @ 16 MHz with 8KB ISP flash memory (over 6KB available after bootloader footprint taken into account), 64 bytes EEPROM, 512 bytes SRAM USB – 1x Micro USB port for power and programming Expansion – 2x 15-pin […]

ARBOR Introduces SOM-RP301 Rockchip PX30 SoM for Retail Kiosks

SOM-RP301 Rockchip PX30 SoM

Rockchip PX30 is a quad core Cortex-A35 processor with a dual VOP (Video Output Processor) in order to drive two independent displays, that has low power consumption, low thermal requirements, and that we previously found in some car infotainment systems. But the processor is also suitable for other applications, and ARBOR Technology recently launched SOM-RP301 system-on-module based on the PX30 processor, and specifically designed for fanless retail kiosks such as electronic restaurant menus, automated currency exchange machines, ticketing kiosks and more. SOM-RP301 system-on-module specifications: SoC – Rockchip PX30 quad core Cortex-A35 processor @ 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 1GB LPDDR3 (Up to 4GB as option) Storage – 16 GB eMMC flash Connectivity – Fast Ethernet transceiver, 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi 5 + Bluetooth 4.0 module Edge Connector – SO-DIMM connector with Display – LVDS or MIPI DSI Camera – MIPI CSI RX interface with 8MP ISP […]

Introducing CNX Election Meddling System

CNX Election Meddling System

We love what we do at CNX Software, covering news, product launches, reviewing various types of boards and devices related to embedded systems. But we are also trying to expand our readers’ and our own horizon, always on the look out for unmet market needs that may be filled by the community at large. A few years ago, we found out that while democracy was all good, about people power and blah blah, it could create severe mental stress to the losing side,  with talks of dark days for democracy, the end of the country as we know it, and so forth and so on. So we thought about ways to either help change the election outcome, at least lower the blow by making people feel they did the best they could possibly do beside just throwing a piece of paper in a box. That’s why we came up with […]

TB-96AI & TB-96AIoT are the First 96Boards Systems-on-Module

96Boards SoM Carrier Board

First introduced in 2015, 96boards specifications define mechanical, electrical, and software specifications for single board computers, but in 2017 Linaro asked companies to provide some feedback on what they’d like for a 96boards system-on-module standard. And for the first day of Linaro Connect Bangkok 2019, the 96Boards SoM specifications have now been announced, together with the introduction of Rockchip RK3399Pro powered TB-96AI and Rockchip RK1808 based TB-96AIoT, the first compliant 96Boards SoMs, and corresponding 96Boards SoM Carrier Board. 96Boards System-on-Module Specifications Two 96Boards SoM specifications have been unveiled with the Compute Module Specification and the Wireless Specification. The 96boards Compute Module Specification defines a SoM with up to four 100-pin connectors, but only one is mandatory (X1), and two form factors are specified: SOM-CA (85 x 50 mm) and SOM-CB (50 x 50 mm). List of signals associated to each connectors: X1 – SoM managements, 1x UART, 2x I2C, 1x […]

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