kicad News - Page 6 of 8 - CNX Software

May 17, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

96Boards GPS Mezzanine is the First Add-on Board part of 96boards Community Mezzanine Initiative (Group Buy)

96Boards hardware development platforms support add-on boards called Mezzanines, and you’ll find a bunch of them on 96Boards website. Most are designed and manufactured by companies, but in order to bring more (individual) open source hardware developers on-board, the 96Boards Community Mezzanine initiative was launched to bring industry representatives and community members together. The idea is to encourage people to submit their KiCad/Altium 96boards’ mezzanine designs to the github repository, and the manufacturing costs of the most popular designs can be lowered by offering them through GroupGets group buying platform. The first of those boards to be launched is 96Boards GPS Mezzanine with the following specifications for the R1 board: Adafruit Ultimate GPS Module PA6H_1103854 – 66 channel w/10 Hz updates MTK3339 chipset -165 dBm sensitivity External u.FL antenna connector Fix and PPS signals brought to down baseboard Expansion – USB UART breakout, breakout headers for I2C, SPI, GPIO, and […]

April 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Kite is an Open Source Hardware Android Smartphone Powered by Snapdragon 450 Processor (Crowdfunding)

Kite is an open source hardware Android phone kit specifically targeting makers which you can assemble yourself into a Kitephone. The phone is based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 mainboard (Kiteboard v2), and comes with a 720p touchscreen display module, a 12MP camera, antennas, buttons, a 3,000 mAh battery, and a Raspberry Pi HAT compatibility board to optionally interface to external hardware. Kiteboard v2 specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 octa-core Arm Cortex A53 @ 1.8 GHz with Adreno 506 GPU System Memory – 2 GB RAM Storage – 16 GB storage + microSD card slot Connectivity Cellular LTE Cat. 6/3G/2G, 2x nano SIM slots (dual-SIM dual standby) Two variant North America with LTE FDD Bands: 2,4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 25, 26 LTE TDD Bands: 41 WCDMA 850, 1700, 1900, 2100 GSM 850, 1900 Rest of the World (Europe, Russia, etc…) LTE FDD Bands: 1, 3, 5, 7, […]

December 10, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

Anavi Light pHAT Adds RGB Light Strip Support to Raspberry Pi Boards (Crowdfunding)

He works as a software engineer for his main job, but Leon ANAVI is apparently enjoying his hobby of designing open source hardware, as after RabbitMax Flex home automation HAT, and ANAVI Infrared pHAT with IR transmitter and receiver, he has come up with as third project: Anavi Light pHat, an add-on board for Raspberry Pi 3/Zero (W) that adds support for RGB light strips. Light pHAT specifications: Compatible with 40-pin Raspberry Pi header EEPROM with board manufacturer information and a device tree fragment Terminal block for a 12V RGB LED strip 3x 4-pin I2C headers for sensor modules 1x 3-pin header for PIR motion sensor 1x 4-pin UART header for debugging Dimensions – pHAT form factor You first need to connect the pHAT to your board, and then LED strip, and you can then control the lights using Home Assistant open source home automation platform, with the strip integrated […]

November 18, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

HackaBLE Board is a Tiny, Breadboard-Friendly Bluetooth LE Development Board

Earlier this year, I wrote about Electronut Labs’ Bluey development board powered by Nordic Semi nRF52832 development board with BLE, NFC, and a few sensors, and partially open source hardware with the KiCAD schematics and PCB layout available on Github. The company is now back with another open source hardware nRF52832 BLE board, namely hackaBLE, that’s much smaller (28x18mm), and with 2.54mm pitch castellated pin headers making suitable for use for breadboard, or as a module on a custom designed board. hackaBLE board specifications: SoC – Nordic Semi nRF52832 ANT + BLE ARM Cortex-M4 @ 64 MHz processor with 512kB flash, 64kB RAM Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.2/5 LE and other proprietary 2.4 GHz wireless standards via chip antenna Expansion 2x 9-pin castellated headers with GPIO, 5V, 3.3V, and GND 2x 5-pin solder pads for more I/Os Debugging – 4-pin SWD header Misc – RGB LED, and user button Power Supply […]

August 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

LoFive is a Tiny Open Source Hardware Board based on SiFive FE310 RISC-V Open SoC

Do you remember HiFive1? It’s an Arduino compatible board based on the SiFive FE310 open source RISC-V SoC. Michael Welling has now started working on LoFive board using the same processor, but in a much smaller & breadboard friendly form factor. LoFive board specifications: MCU – SiFive Freedom E310 (FE310) 32-bit RV32IMAC processor @ up to 320+ MHz (1.61 DMIPS/MHz) Storage – 128-Mbit SPI flash (ISSI IS25LP128) Expansion – 2x 14-pin headers with JTAG, GPIO, PWM, SPI, UART, 5V, 3.3V and GND Misc – 1x reset button, 16 MHz crystal Power Supply – 5V via pin 1 on header; Operating Voltage: 3.3 V and 1.8 V Dimensions – 38 x 18 mm (estimated) The board will be programmable with Arduino IDE + Cinco just like HiFive1 board. The board is also open source hardware, so beside the aforelinked info on Hackster,io, you’ll also find the KiCAD schematics, PCB layout, and […]

August 27, 2017June 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Embedded Linux Conference & Open Source Summit Europe 2017 Schedule

The Embedded Linux Conference & IoT summit 2017 took place in the US earlier this year in February, but there will soon be a similar event with the Embedded Linux Conference *& Open Source Summit Europe 2017 to take up in Europe on October 23 – 25 in Prague, Czech Republic, and the Linux Foundation has just published the schedule. It’s always useful to find out what is being discussed during such events, even if you are not going to attend, so I went through the different sessions, and compose my own virtual schedule with some of the ones I find the most interesting. Monday, October 23 11:15 – 11:55 – An Introduction to SPI-NOR Subsystem – Vignesh Raghavendra, Texas Instruments India Modern day embedded systems have dedicated SPI controllers to support NOR flashes. They have many hardware level features to increase the ease and efficiency of accessing SPI NOR […]

April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

PocketBone Board Based on Octavo Systems OSD3358 SiP Fits into an “Altoids Smalls” Mint Tin Box

Last year, Octavo Systems introduced OSD3358 System-in-Package (SiP) that includes Texas Instruments Sitara AM3358 processor, 256MB to 1GB RAM, a PMIC and an LDO into a single package. Since then the SiP has been found in BeagleBone Black Wireless and BeagleBone Blue, and at the time of launch there was also some development around PocketBone, a tiny open source hardware Smalls mint tin sized board based on OSD3358, which is smaller than a CHIP board, but a little bigger than NanoPi NEO board. There’s now been some progress with prototypes of the board manufactured with the following specifications: SiP (System-in-Package) – Octavo Systems OSD3358 with TI Sitara AM3358 ARM Cortex-A8 processor @ up to 1 GHz, PowerVR SGX530 GPU, PMIC + LDO, and 512MB DDR3 Storage – micro SD slot USB – 2x micro USB port one for power, one OTG port Expansion – 10-pin header (unpopulated) with SPI, I2C, […]

February 2, 2017May 29, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Olimex Teres I A64 DIY Open Source Hardware Laptop Kit Design Complete, To Sell for 225 Euros

Olimex has been working on an open source hardware Olimex A64 laptop for a little over a year, and the company has now complete thed hardware design of their TERES I laptop, and are working on finalizing the software design before accepting orders for 225 Euros for TERES-A64-BLACK and TERES-A64-WHITE models. As explained in the instructions manual, Olimex laptop will not be sold assembled, but as a kit to let the users assemble the following parts themselves: TERES-006-Keyboard QWERTY keyboard TERES-023-Touch touchpad with TERES-022-Touch-Cover and TERES-010-Touch-Btns TERES-014-Screw-Set with 42 pieces of different kind of screws. TERES-PCB3-Touch PCB TERES-PCB2-IO PCB with headphone jack, micro SD slot, and a USB port TERES-PCB4-Btn PCB for the power button together with TERES-009-Pwr-Btn plastic and TERES-013-LED-pipe TERES-PCB1-A64 motherboard based on Allwinner A64 processor. TERES-PCB5-KEYBOARD keyboard control board Display parts: TERES-008-LCD-Back, TERES-016-Hinge-Set, TERES-007-LCD-Frame, and TERES-015-LCD 11.6″ LCD panel TERES-019-Camera & TERES-020-Camera-Lens for the webcam Speakers, battery,WiFi […]