CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

June 19, 2019June 19, 2019 by Stephen Vicinanza - No Comments

Snapmaker 2.0 is a 3-in-1 3D Printer, CNC and Laser Engraver (Crowdfunding)

The Snapmaker 2.0 is going to hit the market very soon, and it comes with a modular design and functionality to rival the high-priced all-in-one 3D printers, but comes at a very reduced price point. The company was featured on KickStarter and was fully funded within just a few days. Snapmaker 2.0 has many features and upgrades from the earlier model. The Snapmaker 2.0 comes in 3 models, the A150, A250 and the A350 and the main differences are in the build scalability. Respectively the build volumes range from 164x160x160mm which at the smallest range, it is already larger than the original Snapmaker, up to 320x350x330mm. These 3D printer models will carry a different pricing structure, but still in the modest range for a 3-in-1 3D printer with the A150 at $719, the A250 at $899 and the A350 at $1079, for preorder on Kickstarter. The Kickstarter price is […]

June 19, 2019 by Tiwalade Joanna Okedara - 2 Comments

DJI Launches RoboMaster S1 Education Robot

DJI is one of the world’s leading technology companies. They specialize in the manufacturing of high-end drones and other innovative and creative techs. Recently they announced the launch of their new product, Robomaster S1 education robot. The game-changing educational robot uses innovative hands-on learning, this makes it fun and smart. Furthermore, the new S1, which is a lot different from what DJI makes, is packed with a lot of features. This educational robot allows users to learn and understand science, math, physics, programming, and more. Although the official selling price of the S1 is $499, most resellers are expecting to sell it at a higher price. Resellers will sell it at about $699, which is a big difference from the official price. When CNX Software spoke to one of the resellers, they mentioned the reason for the high price, stating that “suppliers did not provide the RoboMaster S1’s cost” so […]

June 18, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

M.4 SSD with PCIe 3.0 x8 Interface Showcased at Computex 2019

M.2 SSD’s are now pretty common and rely on either SATA or PCIe interface, but apparently there’s a new form factor with an M.4 SSD showcased at the recent Computex 2019 exhibition, and with Silicon Motion SM2270 controller leveraging a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface for up to 3,200 MB/s sustained sequential reads, 2,800 MB/s sustained sequential writes, as well as up to 800K/200K IOPS for respectively 4K read/write random operations. Spotted by Anandtech at the event, Agylstor’s M.4 NVMe SSD come with the following specifications: Silicon Motion SM2270 controller with a three dual-core Arm Cortex-R5 processors with 2KB LDPC error correction and 16 NAND channels with 8 CE per channel (128 CE in total) Host Interface – PCIe Gen3 x8 Command Protocol – NVMe 1.3 Max Capacity – 16TB Anandtech explains the M.4 SSD is essentially two M.2 SSDs glued together with (8) NAND packages on each side of the […]

June 18, 2019October 4, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Launching Embedded Systems Jobs Board and Company Database

CNX Software writes news, reviews and tutorials about embedded systems, open source, or other topics useful to makers and companies, so we thought it might be useful to get a place where embedded systems companies can be listed and publish related jobs. For that reason, we’ve now designed and launched an embedded systems jobs board in order to help companies find employees or freelancers that can help them achieve their goals. Even if companies have no open positions right now, they are invited to add themselves to the list of companies as they may also be contacted by prospective customers if they wish too. Please, only relevant companies, as we reserve the right to delete entry’s for your spouse’s hair salon or bakery ;). Once a company is registered they can post jobs in one of five categories: Hardware, Software, Support & Documentation, Manufacturing, and Sales & Marketing. Let me […]

June 18, 2019 by Karl Johnson - 11 Comments

Review of SainSmart Genmitsu CNC Router 3018-MX3

Hey Karl here. Back in September of 2018 I reviewed the Sainsmart Genmitsu 3018 Pro. Sainsmart has now further upgraded the 3018 and asked for a review of it. Let’s take a look at the changes and the evolution of the 3018 and see if the increase in price is worth it. You can find the original 3018 on sale for about $200. The pro version can be found for about $250, and the CNC Router 3018-MX3 for $350. I won’t go into too much detail like I did in the previous review. I suggest reading the pro version after reading this one. Most of the experiences and solutions apply to this version. Build Building the CNC Router 3018-MX3 was a breeze. The instructions are fantastic. I struggled a little bit to read the small booklet that came with the kit and afterwards I found a PDF on the Sainsmart […]

June 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Dakota DR40X9 Wave-2 AC Router Board is Based on Qualcomm QCA4019/QCA4029 WiSoC

Dakota DR40X9 QCA4019/QCA-4029 Wave-2 AC Router Board

Qualcomm is mostly known for its Snapdragon processors for mobile devices and wearables, but the company is also making WiFi chipsets via their (previously) “Atheros” family. Some of their latest WiFi SoCs are IPQ4019 and IPQ4029 (aka QCA4019/QCA4029) Wave-2 802.11ac “Dakota” SoCs for routers, gateways, and access points. We recently covered the official Qualcomm mesh networking devkit powered by IPQ4019 processor, but there are now third parties also offering solutions based on QCA40x9 processor such as Dakota DR40X9 Wave-2 AC router board. Dakota DR40X9 board specifications: SoC (one of the other) Dakota DR4019 -Qualcomm IPQ4019 quad-core Arm Cortex A7 processor @ 717 MHz with 802.11ac Wave 2 WiFi Dakota DR4029 – Qualcomm IPQ4029 quad-core Arm Cortex A7 processor @ 717 MHz with 802.11ac Wave 2 WiFi System Memory- 256MB~512MB DDR Storage – 2MB~32MB NOR Flash, 128MB NAND Flash, microSD card slot Connectivity Wired Dual 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45) 1x optional […]

June 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Perf-V is another FPGA based RISC-V Development Board

There are already some RISC-V development boards with silicon featuring RISC-V instruction set such as SiFive’s HiFive1 or Kendryte KD233 board. But beauty of RISC-V is that you can customize the instructions set, and if that’s your goal, an FPGA board provides the flexibility you need. While in theory you could use pretty much any FPGA board with enough logic elements, it may help to get started with boards that are designed for this purpose since the company already ported a RISC-V core to their platform and you can start from there. We’ve already covered a few of those including LicheeTang and Fomu boards, as well as ARIES M100PF PolarFire FPGA system-on-module. Today, I’ve come across another of those RISC-V FPGA board. Meet Perf-V board with the following specifications: FPGA – Xilinx Artix-7 XC7A35T-1FTG256C with 33280 Logic Cells, 90 DSP, 41600 CLBs, 1800 Kbit Block RAM, and 5 CMTs; Optional […]

June 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

KB-IDE Open Source IDE Supports ESP-IDF, Arduino, and Visual Programming for ESP32 Boards

We’ve previously written about MakerAsia when covering their KBX Extension case for Kidbright ESP32 educational board. The company has now launched a new product, but it’s not an hardware platform, and instead KB-IDE is an open IDE (Integrated Development Environment) ESP32 boards. The IDE is suitable whatever your level from kids getting started with supports visual programming, to Arduino programming, and even the official Espressif ESP-IDF framework for more experienced makers. The IDE comes with with a Board Manager, a Plugins System and works with any Arduino Library out of the box. Made with Vue.js framework, KB-IDE is open source with the code available on Github. You can install a binary release, or build it from source for Windows, Linux, or Mac OS. Since it’s open source, it’s also expandable so makers can customize it, for instance by adding new architectures (AVR and ARM are already planned), new boards, creating […]