crowd supply News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

April 15, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

LimeSDR Micro M.2 2280 SDR card pairs NXP LA9310 baseband processor with LMS7002M RF transceiver (Crowdfunding)

The LimeSDR Micro M.2 2280 software-defined radio (SDR) card combines an NXP LA9310 baseband processor and a Lime Microsystems LMS7002M transceiver, and targets integration into portable or embedded solutions with a spare M.2 PCIe Gen3 x1 socket. The module is offered in a 1T2R configuration by default, but can be expanded to 1T4R via an FPC connector, supports a 30 MHz to 3.8 GHz frequency range, and up to 100 MHz bandwidth. Target applications include 4G LTE/5G, future RAN research, custom user equipment/modems, drone communications, IoT, satellite communications, and custom waveform generation. LimeSDR Micro M.2 SDR card specifications: SoC – NXP LA9310 programmable baseband processor Vector Signal Processing Accelerator (VSPA) Gen 2 up to 80 GFLOPs Control Processor – Arm Cortex-M4 at up to 307 MHz Storage – 512 Kbit EEPROM memory for NXP LA9310 initial configuration RF Lime Microsystems LMS7002M RF transceiver Channels – 1T2R expandable to 1T4R via […]

April 3, 2026April 3, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Sentinel Core – A Raspberry Pi CM5 mini-ITX carrier board with a PCIe x16 slot (Crowdfunding)

Sanctuary Systems’ Sentinel Core is a Raspberry Pi CM5 mini-ITX carrier board with a PCIe x16 slot to easily connect a graphics card to accelerate 3D graphics, video transcoding, or AI workloads. It’s basically a larger Raspberry Pi CM5 IO board with a prototyping area, a PCIe slot, and a 24-pin ATX power connector. The Sentinel Core also comes with two HDMI ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports, MIPI DSI/CSI connectors, and the usual 40-pin GPIO header. Sentinel Core specifications: Supported module – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 via 2x 100-pin B2B connectors Video Output – 2x HDMI 2.0 ports Networking Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port Optional WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.x on Raspberry Pi CM5 USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB 2.0 Type-C port PCIe – High-speed, full-length PCIe x16 slot with PCIe 2.0 x1 signal (PCIe 3.0 unofficially supported) Expansion 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO […]

March 24, 2026March 29, 2026 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Ampisu is a compact pocket-sized USB lab power supply with SCPI and web control (Crowdfunding)

Ampisu Portable programmable lab power supply

The concept of a USB-C-based power supply is not new, and we have previously seen projects like XIAO Powerbread and Axiometa BrodBoost-C. As USB PD-based power adapters and power banks have become much cheaper, adjustable power supplies like the PocketPD and BenchVolt PD have come out. Both have their own limitation: the PocketPD has only a single output channel, thus hardly a lab power supply, and the BenchVolt PD is not quite compact enough to be considered pocket-friendly. This is where the Ampisu comes in. It’s a compact, pocket-friendly, and isolated three-output lab power supply designed to fit in a pocket and includes features of a typical full-sized power supply. It’s designed for low-power embedded work, field debugging, and automated test setups. Ampisu specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 125 MHz with 264KB SRAM Storage – Non-volatile memory for saving configurations Power Input 5V via USB Type-C port Automatically adapts to […]

March 14, 2026 by Debashis Das - 7 Comments

Esparagus Audio Brick ESP32-based DIN-rail 65W Hi-Fi amplifier supports Home Assistant and Squeezelite (Crowdfunding)

Sonocotta (Andriy Malyshenko), the developer of Esparagus “Media Center”, HiFi-Amped, Louder Raspberry Pi, and Louder Raspberry Hat Plus, has returned to Crowd Supply with the Esparagus Audio Brick, a compact ESP32 or ESP32-S3-powered Hi-Fi Class-D amplifier with Home Assistant support. With support for Music Assistant, Snapcast, and Logitech Media Server (LMS), the module can be used to build whole-home audio setups, retrofit vintage speakers with modern streaming features, or power custom speaker configurations such as subwoofers or bi-amp systems. The board is built around an ESP32 or ESP32-S3 dual-core microcontroller with 16 MB flash and 8 MB PSRAM, and features Wi-Fi with optional W5500 SPI Ethernet for connectivity. Audio is processed via a Texas Instruments TAS5825M stereo I²S DAC with an integrated 65 W Class-D amplifier, and includes a DSP for a 15-band equalizer and hardware fault management. Other features include a USB Type-C port with a CH340 chip for […]

March 13, 2026March 13, 2026 by Debashis Das - 2 Comments

Discovery Drive – An ESP32-S3-based azimuth/elevation rotator for satellite dishes and SDR antennas (Crowdfunding)

KrakenRF, the team behind the KrakenSDR, has designed the Discovery Drive ESP32-S3-based, low-cost, fully weatherproof, automatic azimuth/elevation (Az/El) antenna rotator for their Discovery Dish or other directional antennas, such as Yagis and Wi-Fi grids, weighing up to 5kg. Compared to DIY projects like SatNOGS (which require 3D printing and hardware sourcing), the Discovery Drive is designed as a plug-and-play solution. You can simply mount it to a mast, attach the dish, connect to 12V power and Wi-Fi, and use its web UI to start tracking polar-orbiting weather satellites (like METEOR-M2 or FENGYUN), CubeSats, or amateur radio satellites. KrakenRF Discovery Drive specifications: Controller – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3-based control board Connectivity – 2.4 GHz 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi 4 (via ESP32) with external antenna Motor and Rotation Torque – Up to 125 kg·cm (12.25 Nm); supports antenna payloads up to 5 kg Azimuth Range – -360° to +360° Elevation Range – 0° to […]

March 9, 2026March 8, 2026 by Debashis Das - No Comments

DSG-22.6 GHz is a $1,590 open-source RF signal generator based on Atek Midas’s custom ICs (Crowdfunding)

DSG 22.6 GHz RF signal generator block diagram

Atek Midas, a Turkish company, has launched DSG-22.6 GHz, a high-performance, open-source RF signal generator designed to provide professional-grade frequency synthesis at a fraction of the cost of traditional benchtop equipment from manufacturers like Anritsu or Keysight. It has an operating frequency range of 0.15 GHz to 22.6 GHz and is designed for makers and production test environments for RF testing, calibration, wireless experimentation, and microwave research. The device offers 1 Hz tuning resolution, adjustable output power −15 dBm to +20 dBm, and supports linear and logarithmic frequency sweeps with configurable start/stop frequencies, step size, and dwell time. It achieves ≥40 dBc spurious and harmonic suppression on the filtered output path and features a tuning speed of <100 µs. The generator includes a capacitive touchscreen display and can also be controlled over a USB Type-C port and/or Wi-Fi. DSG-22.6 GHz specifications: Frequency range – 150 MHz to 22.6 GHz Tuning […]

March 4, 2026March 4, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Dabao board features open-source hardware Baochip-1x RISC-V MCU (Crowdfunding)

An open-source hardware board usually features a closed-source microcontroller or processors, but the Dabao evaluation board goes further with the open-source Boachip-1x MCU, whose RTL files are available. It’s also manufactured in such a way that it is inspectable with the Infra-Red, In Situ (IRIS) technique, so users can look at the silicon and confirm they’ve got the right chip in a non-destructive way. Baochip-1x is a “general-purpose” microcontroller with a 350 MHz Vexriscv RV32-IMAC CPU core, a BIO accelerator for I/Os with four 700MHz PicoRV RV32-EMC CPU cores, 4MB of ReRAM, 2MB SRAM, a USB interface, various other I/Os, and hardware secure elements such as cryptography accelerators, key stores, one-way counters, true random number generation, and hardware attack countermeasures such as glitch sensors and a security mesh. The Dabao board itself is pretty basic with the microcontroller, two 16-pin headers for I/Os, a USB-C port for power and programming, […]

February 24, 2026February 24, 2026 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Inkplate 13SPECTRA 13.3-inch E-ink Spectra smart color display supports Arduino, MicroPython, ESPHome (Crowdfunding)

Soldered Electronics has made ESP32-based e-paper displays for years, starting with the launch of the Inkplate 6 in 2019. The Inkplate 13SPECTRA is their latest model based on an ESP32-S3 WiFi and Bluetooth SoC and a 13.3-inch E-Ink Spectra color display with 1600 x 1200 resolution. More specifically, it’s powered by an ESP32-S3-WROOM-2-N32R16V module with 32MB SPI flash and 16MB PSRAM, features a microSD card slot for data storage, a USB-C port for data and power, a JST connector for an optional 3,000 mAh LiPo battery, and expansion capabilities through three Qwiic connectors and GPIO expander pins. Inkplate 13SPECTRA specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-S3-WROOM-2-N32R16V SoC – ESP32-S3 dual-core Xtensa LX7 processor (up to 240 MHz) with wireless connectivity System Memory – 16 MB PSRAM Storage – 32 MB flash Wireless – Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (2.4 GHz), Bluetooth 5 (LE), Storage – MicroSD card slot Display 13.3-inch E-Ink SPECTRA color e-paper […]