SparkFun IoT RedBoard – Raspberry Pi RP2350 or ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth boards with Arduino UNO R4 form factor

Sparkfun IoT RedBoard RP2350

SparkFun has just launched the “IoT RedBoard – RP2350” and “IoT RedBoard – ESP32” boards with Arduino UNO R4 form factor based on respectively Raspberry Pi RP2350B + RM2 wireless module and ESP32-WROOM-32E WiFi and Bluetooth module. Both boards feature Arduino UNO headers and a Qwiic connector for expansion, a microSD card for storage, battery support, USB and DC jack power input, plus a few buttons and LEDs. The RP2350 board also adds an HSTX connector mainly useful for controlling HDMI or SPI displays. Sparkfun IoT RedBoard specifications: MCU sub-system and wireless RP2350 model MCU –  Raspberry Pi RP2350B CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trust zone, Secure boot Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz Up to two cores can be used at any given time Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM Memory – 8MB PSRAM Storage – 16MB Flash Wireless module – Raspberry Pi RM2 2.4 […]

EDATEC ED-IPC3630 Raspberry Pi CM5-powered industrial PC gets eight DI, eight DO, and two CAN Bus

EDATEC ED-IPC3630

EDATEC ED-IPC3630 is an industrial PC (IPC) built around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5) with up to 8GB RAM and designed for industrial automation, IoT, and control applications with features like a wide 9V to 36V DC power input and a DIN-rail mount. The industrial computer also offers dual GbE, optional WiFi 5 and/or 4G LTE cellular connectivity, HDMI video output, a few USB ports, eight digital inputs (DI), eight digital outputs (DO), and two CAN Bus interfaces. ED-IPC3630 Specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi CM5 SoC – Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core Cortex-A76 processor @ 2.4GHz with VideoCore VII GPU System Memory – 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB LPDDR4-4267 SDRAM (the 16GB model is not offered, maybe due to supply issues) Storage – Options for 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB eMMC flash Wireless – Optional dual-band WiFi 5 and Bluetooth LE 5.0 module Storage M.2 Key-B socket optionally fitted with 128GB, 256GB, […]

rpi-image-gen build system creates custom images for Raspberry Pi boards

rpi-image-gen

Raspberry Pi has just released the rpi-image-gen build system to generate custom Raspberry Pi images designed for a specific application and based on packages from the Debian and Raspberry Pi OS repositories I was initially surprised by this announcement, as there are already build tools like the Yocto Project or buildroot designed for this purpose. They are however somewhat complex to use and there’s a steep learning curve, so maybe Raspberry Pi made something easier to use. Let’s have a look. The build is mostly defined by a configuration file which defines the profile and image layout. The company explains the main reasons for creating yet another build system. First, the images are quick to build with the rpi-image-gen build system since you don’t have to build the whole project from source, contrary to something like the Yocto Project which can take hours (for the first build at least). That’s […]

You can now buy Raspberry Pi RP2350 MCU for 80 cents and up, RP2354A and RP2354B variants coming soon

Buy RP2350

The Raspberry Pi RP2350 dual-core Cortex-M33/RISC-V MCU was first unveiled along with the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 in August 2024. Since then we have covered many Raspberry Pi RP2350 news and boards, but the microcontroller was hard to source for hobbyist and low-volume projects, which partially explains why companies like NextPCB had promotions offering free PCBA prototyping services for RP2350 designs. The good news is that Raspberry Pi has just announced general availability for the RP2350 microcontrollers starting at $0.80 per unit for the RP2350A in 3,400-piece reels, or $1.1 in single quantity, so anybody can buy the MCUs from their favorite distributor. The British company also announced the RP2354A and RP2354B variants with 2MB of stacked flash memory would soon be available to select partners and mass production will ramp up later this year. Here’s the current official pricing information for the RP2040 and RP2350 microcontrollers. Users can simply […]

Waveshare CM5-NANO-B is a compact Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier board with the same dimensions as the Compute Module 5

Waveshare CM5 NANO B Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier bord with CM5

Waveshare has just released the CM5-NANO-B, a compact Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier board, with the same dimensions as the Compute Module 5 and multiple peripheral interfaces making it suitable for industrial automation, IoT, embedded computing, AI development, and other space-constrained applications. Key features include a Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port, an unpopulated 40-pin Raspberry Pi GPIO header, a USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A port, dual MIPI 4-lane interfaces, a mini HDMI port supporting 4K output, a USB audio 3.5mm jack, a microSD card slot, and a 16-pin PCIe Gen2/3 x1 connector. Power is supplied via a USB-C port (5V/5A), and additional features include an RTC battery header, a 4-pin PWM fan header, a dual-color LED indicator, and user-configurable buttons. Waveshare CM5-NANO-B specifications: Compatibility – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (CM5) Storage – MicroSD card slot (for Raspberry Pi CM5 Lite) Display Mini HDMI output up to 4K resolution Up to 2x MIPI […]

PicoCalc Kit is a Raspberry Pi Pico handheld terminal with a backlit STM32 QWERTY keyboard

PicoCalc kit

ClockworkPi has made several Linux handheld terminals over the years such as the GameShell or DevTerm, but the PicoCalc Kit is quite different since it relies on the Raspberry Pi Pico board plus an STM32 microcontroller to handle its built-in keyboard. The PicoCalc Kit is based on the ClockworkPi v2.0 mainboard that takes an RP2040-based Pi Pico H board, connects to a 4-inch IPS display with 320×320 resolution and stereo speakers, integrates a backlit QWERTY keyboard, and ships with a 32GB SD card with an optimized BASIC firmware. PicoCalc Kit specifications: ClockworkPi v2.0 mainboard Compatible boards – Headers for Raspberry Pi Pico H/WH, and Raspberry Pi Pico 2 / 2W MCU – STM32 for keyboard and backlight programmable with the Arduino IDE or STM32 official development tools Storage – SD card slot Display – Screen connector (SPI) Audio 2x speaker connectors 3.5mm audio jack 67-key QWERTY keyboard (I2C) Expansion Connector […]

Tips to use a touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi OS in 2025

Armbian 10 point touch ROCK 5B

I’ve just reviewed the SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display with Raspberry Pi 5 running Raspberry Pi OS, and the experience was not quite as smooth as I had expected, so I’ll report some tips to save people time. The first is the software keyboard. Matchbox keyboard used to be the go-to solution, but two years ago, my preferred keyboard became the Onboard keyboard. Sadly, it’s not working so well with the latest Raspberry Pi OS using labwc Wayland window-stacking compositor, so now Raspberry Pi recommends squeekboard. It was not installed by default, but installation is fairly easy:

It did not show up automatically when trying to type in a text field, maybe because I’m using a third-party touchscreen keyboard, but going to Raspberry Pi Configuration and setting On-screen Keyboard to Enabled always in the Display tab fixed that. I was able to type a URL/web search terms in the URL […]

Review of SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display for SBCs using Raspberry Pi 5 and Radxa ROCK 5B

SunFounder 10.1-inch RPI Touchscreen Display Review

SunFounder has just sent us one of their 10.1-inch touchscreen display designed for single board computers (SBCs) for review. It supports the Raspberry Pi family, but not only, thanks to a flexible design that allows mounting all sorts of boards with mounting holes that fit within an 85x70mm area. All you need is a board with HDMI output, a spare USB port for the touchscreen, and 5V USB-C input (up to 5A). So I’ll first test the SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display with a Raspberry Pi 5 (85x56mm), then a larger Radxa ROCK 5 Model B Pico-ITX SBC (100 x 72mm). Since the display can also be used as an external touchscreen monitor, I’ll also try it with my laptop in Ubuntu 24.04 and Windows 11. SunFounder 10.1-inch touchscreen display specifications Key features and specifications: Display Type – IPS LCD Resolution – 1280×800 (16:10 aspect ratio) Touchscreen – 10-point capacitive Viewing […]

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