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October 3, 2022October 3, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

ANAVI Macro Pad 10 & Knobs input devices run KMK firmware on Raspberry Pi RP2040 (Crowdfunding)

ANAVI Macro Pad 10, Knobs 3, and Knob 1 are open-source hardware input devices based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040-powered Xiao RP2040 mini module, and equipped with mechanical keys and/or rotary encoders Leon Anavi has some experience under his belt with the earlier Macro Pad 2 and Macro Pad 8 open-source keypads with mechanical keys running QMK open-source firmware on a Microchip 8-bit microcontroller. The new models switch the MCU to the Raspberry Pi RP2040 and to KMK open-source firmware written in CircuitPython. ANAVI Macro Pad 10 specifications: MCU module – Seeed Studio XIAO RP2040 with Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ up to 133 Mhz with 264KB SRAM, 2MB SPI flash, USB Type-C port Inputs – Rotary encoder with clickable switch and nine hot-swappable Cherry MX-style switches Keys – 9x Gateron red, linear, non-clicky mechanical switches and transparent keycaps with yellow LED backlighting Host interface – USB Type-C […]

October 3, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Lyra V2 open-source audio codec gets faster, higher quality and compatible with more platforms

Lyra V2 is an update to the open-source Lyra audio codec introduced last year by Google, with a new architecture that offers scalable bitrate capabilities, better performance, higher quality audio, and works on more platforms. Under the hood, Lyra V2 is based on an end-to-end neural audio codec called SoundStream with a “residual vector quantizer” (RVQ) sitting before and after the transmission channel, and that can change the audio bitrate at any time by selecting the number of quantizers to use. Three bitrates are supported: 3.2 kps, 6 kbps, and 9.2 kbps. Lyra V2 leverages artificial intelligence, and a TensorFlow Lite model enables it to run on Android phones, Linux, as well as Mac and Windows although support for the latter two is experimental. iOS and other embedded platforms are not supported at this time, but this may change in the future. It gets more interesting once we start to […]

October 1, 2022October 2, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Using SenseCraft firmware for no-code programming on Wio Terminal

In the conclusion of our SenseCAP K1100 Sensor Prototype kit review with LoRaWAN and Vision AI, the author suggested that it would be great if SeeedStudio could develop a new firmware that can connect without coding instead of using Arduino programming: I had to rely on my knowledge and experience with LoRaWAN to transmit data wirelessly over long distances. That’s because LoRaWAN has a more complicated connection process than Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It would be great if Seeed Studio could develop a new firmware that can connect without any coding It did not take long, as SeeedStudio very recently released the first version of SenseCraft open source smart sensor software for no-code sense, process, and uplink that happens to be compatible with the Wio Terminal part of the SenseCAP K1100 development kit. So let’s test the new SenseCraft firmware together. SenseCraft navigation keys We can use Wio Terminal’s joystick as follows: […]

September 29, 2022September 30, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

ELLO LC1 – A 2mm thin DIY “computer” based on Microchip PIC18 8-bit MCU

We often write about business card or credit card-sized boards, but it’s only true for 2D dimensions, as most boards are over a centimeter thick, with possibly the thinnest we’ve covered being the Khadas Edge2 SBC that’s just 7mm thick. So Kn/vD took it upon himself to build a DIY computer that was really about the size of a credit card, and came up with the ELLO LC1 based on a Microchip PIC18 8-bit microcontroller, featuring an integrated display and keyboard, and powered by a coin-cell battery. It’s just 2mm thin. ELLO LC1 specifications: MCU – Microchip PIC18 (PIC18F47Q83-I/PT) 8-bit microcontroller with 13KB RAM and 128KB flash, out of which 64KB are reserved as user file storage Display – 20×4 character text panel (Display Visions EADOGM204N) Keyboard – 48x touch panels on the PCB Expansion – 12-pin unpopulated header for debugging (ICSP) and GPIO expansion Misc – Power button Power […]

September 28, 2022September 29, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

3D game running on FPGA shown to be 50x more efficient than on x86 hardware

Sphery vs. shapes is an open-source 3D raytraced game written in C and translated into FPGA bitstream that runs 50 times more efficiently on FPGA hardware than on an AMD Ryzen processor. Verilog and VHDL languages typically used on FPGA are not well-suited to game development or other complex applications, so instead, Victor Suarez Rovere and Julian Kemmerer relied on Julian’s “PipelineC” C-like hardware description language (HDL) and Victor’s CflexHDL tool that include parser/generator and math types library in order to run the same code on PC with a standard compile, and on FPGA through a custom C to VHDL translator. More details about the game development and results are provided in a white paper. Some math functions were needed, including: floating point addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, reciprocals, square root, inverse square roots, vector dot products, vector normalization, etc. Fixed point counterparts were also used for performance reasons and to […]

September 27, 2022September 27, 2022 by Sponsored Post - No Comments

PCBWay – A community-focused PCB manufacturer (Sponsored)

There are many PCB manufacturers in China, but PCBWay has been around for over a decade providing PCB prototype and manufacturing services, and is one of the companies that care the most about the community with project sharing and various community events organized over the years. If you use PCBWay services, you will join the more than 70,000 customers who already used their services, and the company claims an over 99% on-time delivery rate thanks in part to having factories in Shenzhen that work in three shifts per day. In order to better serve its customer around the world, the PCB manufacturer also has offices in Hong Kong, as well as Paris, for European customers. PCBWay services include PCB prototyping and PCBA assembly services for small volume production, and the company highlights its SMT expertise and capabilities with high-speed Pick-and-Place machines that can place up to 28000 components per hour […]

September 17, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Yuzuki Chameleon – A Raspberry Pi Model A shaped SBC with Allwinner H616 CPU

Yuzuki Chameleon is an open-source hardware single board computer powered by an Allwinner H616 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor that somewhat follows the shape of Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ SBC with a different port layout that should still keep mechanical and electrical compatibility with some Raspberry Pi HATs. The board supports up to 2GB RAM, up to 128GB eMMC flash, features a MicroSD card slot, one 4K-capable HDMI 2.0 port, an audio jack, four USB Type-C ports to keep the design as slim as possible, as well as a wireless module for WiFi and Bluetooth and a connector to optionally add Fast Ethernet through an external module. Yuzuki Chameleon specifications: SoC – Allwinner H616 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ with Arm Mali G31 GPU, 6Kp30/4Kp60 video decoder System Memory – Up to 2GB RAM Storage – Up to 128GB eMMC flash storage, MicroSD card socket Video Output – HDMI 2.0 up to […]

September 13, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Picamera2 Python camera library for Raspberry Pi leverages libcamera open-source framework

Raspberry Pi Trading released a new version of Raspberry Pi OS last week with the highlight being the Picamera2 Python library for Raspberry Pi cameras, along with small changes such as the ability to search menu items, a new audio input control, The new Picamera2 library was first announced in mid February 2022 with a preview release, and it’s the first time the Python library is included by default in Raspberry Pi OS. It is now based on the libcamera open-source framework instead of the proprietary and closed camera APIs from Broadcom found in the original Picamera library. Some of the key features of the Picamera2 library include: The preview windows use OpenGL acceleration for hardware-assisted rendering or DRM/KMS for efficient rendering when X Windows is not running Picamera2 commands can be typed into a Python interpreter or scripts Support for embedding Picamera2 widgets into Qt applications NumPy integration provides […]