BB-400 Neuron Edge Dual Ethernet Industrial Controller Combines Raspberry Pi CM3+ and Arduino MCU

bb-400 neuron edge industrial controller

While the Raspberry Pi boards are mostly promoted as tools to teach STEM to kids and adults alike, they have found their way in a fair amount of industrial products, including ModBerry M500 industrial computer, Janz Tec emPC-A/RPI3 industrial embedded controller,  and Kunbus RevolutionPi RevPi Core among others. There’s yet another option with Brainboxes BB-400 Neuron Edge industrial controller that was announced last year with Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3, but recently got an upgrade to Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+. The controller features two Ethernet ports and also includes an Arduino compatible microcontroller to control the system’s eight configurable digital inputs and outputs. BB-400 Neuron Edge industrial controller specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ with Broadcom BCM2837B0  quad-core , Cortex-A53 processor @ 1.2GHz, 1 GB LPDDR2, 32GB eMMC Flash storage MCU – Unnamed Microchip Atmel Arduino compatible microcontroller Connectivity Ethernet Uplink Port – 1x RJ45 jack, 10/100Mbps […]

Low Power TinyPICO ESP32 Board Ships with Micropython (Crowdfunding)

TinyPICO ESP32 Micropython

There are so many ESP32 boards available now, so why bother with another ones. Some of the key selling points of TinyPICO are that it is really small at 32 x 18 mm, it’s easy to use out of the box with MicroPython firmware pre-loaded, and supports LiPo batteries with an optimized power path for low-power battery usage. The developer, named Unexpected Maker, also provides various shields for TinyPICO adding a display, sensors, an audio amplifier, an RTC, Grove headers, and more. TinyPICO board specifications: System-in-Package – Espressif Systems ESP32-PICO-D4 SiP with ESP32 dual-core processor operating at 240 MHz, 4 MB SPI flash External System Memory – 4 MB PSRAM Connectivity – 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, 3D antenna Expansion – 14x GPIO broken out to standard pitch headers Debugging / Programming – USB + serial/UART for programming Misc – Power (red) & charge (orange) LED’s, APA102 […]

Split Home Energy Meter Combines ESP32 with Microchip ATM90E32 IC (Crowdfunding)

Split Home Energy Meter

It’s always useful to monitor the electricity consumption of your house, as you can easily and quickly find out whether an appliance is suddenly consuming a large amount of electricity before finding out from your next utility bill. It can also help remotely monitoring if an appliance has stopped working and fix it as soon as possible, for example an electric pipe heater making sure your pipe do not freeze in a holiday home. In many cases, a qualified electrician needs to be involved for the installation of whole home energy meters both for safety and insurance matters. We’ve seen in the past energy meters fit easily into a circuit breaker box but they may not be suitable for all setups. I’ve previously reviewed an inexpensive digital clamp meter that you just need to clip on one of the wire connected to your home without having to mess with dangerous […]

Grove AI HAT Helps Raspberry Pi Run Edge Computing Workloads

Grove AI HAT

Last year we wrote about Kendryte K210 dual core RISC-V processor  specifically designed for for machine vision and machine hearing as well as the corresponding Kendryte KD233 which enables inference at the edge, e.g. tasks such as face recognition or object detection. Latter on we found the processor in Sipeed M1 module which went for as low as $5 in a crowdfunding campaign, and was fitted to some low cost boards now selling for $12.90 on Seeed Studio. The latter company has now designed Grove AI HAT that aims to assist Raspberry Pi in running the edge computing workloads previously described, as exposes 6 Grove interfaces to extend functionality with some of the Grove add-on modules. Grove AI HAT specifications: AI Module – Sipeed “MAIX” M1 with Kendryte K210 dual core RISC-V processor @ 600 MHz, KPU Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) hardware accelerator, APU audio hardware accelerator, 8 MB general […]

Seeed Studio W600 Certified WiFi Module to Support Arduino, Micropython

W600 Certified WiFi Module

Last year, Seeed Studio introduced Air602 WiFi module, a competitor to ESP8266 based on Winner Micro W600 Arm Cortex-M3 microcontroller and selling for $1.90. The module was clearly optimized for cost and size since it offered only a few I/Os, and there was absolutely no mention about FCC or CE certifications. The company has now launched another W600 module, slightly larger to expose more I/Os, and pre-certified to comply with FCC and CE requirements. W600 certified WiFi module is offered standalone, or fitted to “Grove – W600” module for easy connection to Arduino boards. W600 Module Specifications: WiSoC – Winner Micro W600 Arm Cortex-M3 microcontroller with 1MB Flash, RF Transceiver, CMOS PA, BaseBand WiFi Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n up to 150 Mbps Frequency – 2.4~2.4835 GHz Features – Wi-Fi WMM, WMM-PS, WPA/WPA2, WPS Protocols – TCP, UDP, ICMP, DHCP, DNS, HTTP Access Point and Station modes PCB antenna Expansion – […]

WiPhone ESP32 VoIP Phone Targets Makers and Hackers (Crowdfunding)

WiPhone

WiPhone – pronounced as in Wi(reless) Phone – is a tiny VoIP phone made for makers and hardware hackers. The phone is based on ESP32 WiFi + Bluetooth SoC, is designed to be easily disassembled and modified both at the hardware and software level. It looks like an entry-level 2G/3G feature phone, except you can make only make phone calls over WiFi using a SiP account, as there’s no cellular modem. WiPhone specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP32 dual core Tensilica LX6 processor @ 240 MHz System Memory – 4MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB flash, microSD card slot Display – 2.4″ screen with 320×240 resolution Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1 dual mode (BT not yet supported  in software) Audio – 3.5mm audio jack USB – 1x micro USB port for charging, serial communication and firmware updates Expansion – 20-pin programmable header on back of phone with UART, SPI, I2C, PWM, […]

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 […]

ReButton WiFi Button Features MXCHIP EMW3166 Module

ReButton Azure IoT

We’ve previously covered WiFi buttons based on ESP8266 processor,  but Seeed Studio has just launched ReButton “developer device” that serves the same purpose but features STM32 based MXCHIP EMW3166 WiFi module instead, exposes one I2C grove connector, and is preloaded with sample firmware that triggers Azure IoT Central or Azure IoT Hub. ReButton hardware specifications: MCU module – MXCHIP EMW3166 module including STM32F412 Arm Cortex M4F MCU @ 100 MHz with 256KB SRAM, 1MB+2MB SPI Flash, and Cypress BCM43362 WiFi chip Input – 1x Push button Output – 1x RGB LED Extension – 1x I2C Grove connector (3.3V I/O) Debugging – 1x SWD pads, 1x UART for debugging Misc – 1x Jumper switch Power supply 2x AAA Alkaline batteries (LR03) Internal supply voltage – 3.3V Dimensions – 70 x 70 x 25mm The ReButton comes preloaded with an Arduino sketch that handle key presses and send a trigger to Azure […]

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