RAKwireless announces 14 new WisBlock modules for IoT prototyping

Gas sensor & DC-Motor Wisblock Modules

Rakwireless has added 14 new Wisblock modules to the WisBlock IoT modular system introduced last year, plans to soon release a Raspberry Pi RP2040 based LoRaWAN Wisblock Core module, and will give away some Wisblock starter kits this week. As a reminder WisBlock IoT modular system is comprised of four block types: WisBlock Base – A carrier board with connectors for other block types, power supply, some ports WisBlock Core – Module with a microcontroller/processor WisBlock Sensor – Modules with environmental sensors, motion sensors, ambient light sensors, or others WisBlock IO – Adds more inputs, outputs, or connectivity options including  LTE-M / NB-IoT, cellular and Wi-Fi modules, NFC reader, and interfaces for I2C, UART, ADC, and GPIO. New WisBlock IO and Sensor modules Some modules are available right now, while others have been announced, but just coming soon Here’s a list of the 10 modules available now: RAK12002 – RTC […]

Relay expansion board for Raspberry Pi includes 4.3-inch touchscreen display (Crowdfunding)

PiRelay 8-Channel Raspberry Pi touchscreen display

There are plenty of multi-relay boards for Raspberry Pi, but since those are often combined with an HMI for control, SB Components decided to offer an all-in-one solution with an expansion board equipped with eight relays and a 4.3-inch touchscreen display connected to a Raspberry Pi via HDMI and USB. PiRelay 8 specifications: Relays 8x relays with 3.3V/5V trigger signal Input – 250V AC/7A, 30V DC/10A Screw terminal blocks NO (Normally Open) and NC (Normally Closed) modes available Isolation – EL357NC optocouplers with current transfer ratio (CTR) of 50-600% at IF=5mA, VCE=5V Display support – Optional 4.3-inch touchscreen display with 800 x 480 pixels resolution, HDMI input for video, USB for touchscreen support. It also comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI audio output, a speaker connector, and mounting holes for the Raspberry Pi. 40-pin GPIO header to connect a Raspberry Pi SBC (Pi 4, Pi 3B+, Pi 3, […]

Custom Raspberry Pi 3 SBC with eMMC flash powers gateway for washing machines

Custom Raspberry Pi 3 SBC eMMC flash

As I was browsing some group on Facebook, I noticed somebody had bought a custom Broadcom BCM2837 SBC that looks very much like a Raspberry Pi 3 board, and that thing was apparently bought from a Saleng, a three-wheeled motorbike with a side cart where people can buy and sell old/second-hand items. All good fun… So without further ado, here’s what the board looks like… Click for higher resolution photos. Both MIPI CSI and DSI connectors are gone, and so is the AV jack. Two of the USB 2.0 ports have made place for a micro USB port and some headers. Looking at the bottom of the board, the MicroSD card slot is gone, because there’s a 16GB Kingston eMMC flash for storage in that location. At first, I was quite confused, first because the Raspberry Pi logo is nowhere to found, then it’s the first “Raspberry Pi” SBC I […]

Pico Wireless Pack adds ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth module to Raspberry Pi Pico

Pico Wireless Pack for Raspberry Pi Pico

Pimoroni Pico Wireless Pack is an add-on board for Raspberry Pi Pico adding a MicroSD card socket and ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth module to the popular MCU board. While it’s a nice idea to add wireless connectivity to Raspberry Pi Pico, ESP32 is a dual-core Xtensa LX6 processor clocked at 160 to 240 MHz with WiFi, Bluetooth, and plenty of I/Os that should be able to handle most tasks better than Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ processor clocked at 48 MHz by default, although we’ve also seen it overclocked up to 252 MHz. It comes with female headers that allow it to be inserted directly to the back of Raspberry Pi Pico has shown above, or into a “GPIO expander” board like the Pico Omnibus shown below through an SPI interface. Pico Wireless Pack specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-WROOM-32E WiFi 4 & Bluetooth 4.2/5.x module with PCB antenna, 4 MB […]

PGA2040 is a Compact Raspberry Pi RP2040 Breakout Board by Pimoroni

Pimoroni PGA2040 Breakout Board

Pimoroni is known for its development boards with a small form factor. PGA2040 is another compact breakout board featuring the Raspberry Pi  RP2040 microcontroller. The board comes in the form of a Pin Grid Array (PGA) with RP2040 at its center. The PGA allows the accommodation of 48 pins around the perimeter of SoC on such a small footprint. After seeing some of the advanced RP2040 boards featuring wireless functionalities in the past few months, such as the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board, Pico Wireless Carrier board, and Wio RP2040 Mini development board, the PGA2040 is a simple board with only necessary components, thus making it suitable for compact, simple applications. However, this increases the complexity and efforts from users for interfacing additional components to implement advanced applications. Talking more about the necessary components on the board, it comes with a Crystal Oscillator, 8MB of QSPI flash, and a 3V3 […]

RasPad 3 Review – Part 2: A Raspberry Pi 4 mini PC with integrated display

Raspad 3 review

I started RasPad 3 review last week with an unboxing of the tablet shell for Raspberry Pi 4, together with assembly instructions, and a first boot after flashing Raspad OS to the system. In the first part of the review, I mentioned that I’d probably focus the remainder of the review on Ezblock Studio visual programming IDE, as the rest of the software is almost the same as using a standard Raspberry Pi 4, the other difference being the touchscreen-friendly RasPad launcher. But Sunfounder explained to me it would be hard to check out Ezblock as it’s designed to control robots and other hardware platforms, and requires an extra HAT (see Kickstarter campaign) to allow the Ezblock APP to connect through Bluetooth (it cannot be directly linked to Raspberry Pi through the built-in Bluetooth).  Here’s an example of a robot that is compatible with Ezblock Studio: Picar-X. Finally, I was […]

Radxa Zero SBC – A powerful quad-core alternative to Raspberry Pi Zero W

Radxa Zero

Radxa Zero SBC follows Raspberry Pi Zero W form factor, but thanks to an Amlogic S905Y2 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor clocked at up to 2.0 GHz offers much higher performance, which Radxa says corresponds to about 70% of Raspberry Pi 4 CPU performance. The tiny Arm Linux board comes with up to 4GB RAM, 16GB eMMC flash, and either AP6212 or AP6256 wireless module. plus all interfaces from Raspberry Pi Zero W, but with a twist as the mini HDMI port is replaced by a micro HDMI port, and USB-C ports are used instead of micro USB ports. Radxa Zero preliminary specifications: SoC – Amlogic S905Y2 quad-core Cortex-A53 processor @ up to 2.0 GHz with Arm Mali-G31 MP2 GPU System Memory – 512MB RAM, 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB LPDDR4 Storage – MicroSD slot, optional 8GB or 16GB eMMC flash Video Output – micro HDMI port up to 4Kp60 Connectivity Ampak AP6212 […]

EdgeBox-RPi4 industrial controller offers RS485, RS232 interfaces, isolated DI/DO

EdgeBox-RPI4 Raspberry Pi CM4 industrial controller

OpenEmbed EdgeBox-RPi4 is an industrial controller based on Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 fitted with up to 4GB RAM, 32GB eMMC flash, and a 2.4/5GHz WiFi & Bluetooth 5.0 wireless module. The controller exposes isolated RS485 & RS232 serial interfaces, as well as isolated digital inputs and outputs through a 16-pin terminal block, and provides Gigabit Ethernet and optional WiFI and 4G LTE connectivity options. EdgeBox-RPi4 specifications: SoM –  Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor running up to 1.5GHz in either two default configurations: 1GB RAM, 8GB flash, no wireless module 4GB RAM, 32GB flash, dual-band WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5 module Storage – M.2 socket for NVMe SSD up to 2TB (See expansion) I/O interfaces via 16-pin terminal block Industrial-grade isolated 2x DI (Digital Inputs), 2x DO (Digital Outputs) Industrial-grade isolated RS485 interface RS232 interface Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port Optional WiFI 5 […]