Toradex Oak product family is a range of USB sensors enabling measurement of humidity, temperature, motion, orientation… and USB expansion boards with relays, digital I/O and more. Following feedback from customers who needed to customize the designs, Toradex decided to fully open source those sensors and interfaces by releasing hardware files and the source code under Creative Commons License ‘Attribution CC BY’.
This release brings 13 USB sensors to the open source community:
- Oak USB Sensor Atmospheric Pressure
- Oak USB Sensor 3 Axes Acceleration
- Oak USB Sensor Angular Rotation
- Oak USB Sensor Humidity
- Oak USB Sensor IR Distance Triangulation (10-60cm)
- Oak USB Sensor IR Motion Detection
- Oak USB Sensor Luminosity (LUX)
- Oak USB Sensor Orientation (3-Axes Accelerometer & Magnetometer)
- Oak USB Sensor 3 Axes Tilt/Inclination
- Oak USB Sensor IR Distance Triangulation (10-80cm)
- Oak USB Sensor 2 Channels Thermocouple
- Oak USB Sensor 4 Channels Capacitive Proximity Switch
- Oak USB Sensor RGB Color (Prestudy)
and 5 interface boards:
- Oak USB 24 Digital I/Os at 3.3V or 5V Logic Level
- Oak USB 4 Channel Relay Output
- Oak USB Isolated 8 Channel Digital Inputs, 36V Tolerant
- Oak USB ± 10V Isolated 8 Channel A/D Converter
- Oak USB Sensor Generic 4-20mA Current (Isolated)
For each board, Toradex publicly released the technical datasheet, design data including PCB assembly drawings, Bill of Materials, manufacturing data (gerber), factory test program and procedures, schematics (PDF only), and firmware in source code and binary format.
The company also released documentation such as firmware programming and modification instructions using Cypress CY3217-MiniProg1 programming tool, PSoC Programmer & Designer software, as well as Toradex Oak Studio, a software that processes Oak Sensor data in graphical and tabular form, and runs in Windows XP or Windows 7.
Source code and instructions to use the USB modules in Linux are available in Oak on Linux page.
Toradex explains that the chosen Creative Common license allows anybody to modify it, and modifications can kept private if you chose to do so. Following the decision to fully open source their sensors, the company has chosen to discontinue to manufacture and supply products of the Oak family. Or maybe it’s the other way around.
You can find full details for the sensors and interface boards on Toradex USB Sensors and Peripherals Developer’s Page.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Interesting, but what are the prices of these USB sensor devices? I once bought a USB temperature sensor on DX, and I found it quite expensive (8 – 12 Euro).
@Sander
See http://www.toradex.com/En/Products/Oak_USB_Sensors
The few I looked at sell for 29 Euros per piece (1 to 5 pcs), and as low as 12 Euros per pieces for 1k orders. It’s even more expensive that the one you bought in dx.