CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

February 1, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

MeegoPad T8 TV Stick Supports Dual Displays via HDMI and USB type C Ports

MeegoPad T8 was a Windows 10 mini projector in 2015, but time has passed, and the company has now decided to use the same name for a Windows 10 HDMI TV stick supporting two displays thanks to the usual HDMI 1.4 male port, as well as a USB -C port with DisplayPort capability. MeegoPad T08 TV stick specifications: SoC – Intel Atom x5-Z8350 “Cherry Trail” quad core processor @ 1.44 GHz / 1.92 GHz with Intel Gen8 HD graphics (2W SDP) System Memory – 4GB DDR3L-1600 Storage – 32 GB eMMC flash + micro SD slot up to 128 GB Video Output – HDMI 1.4 male connector + USB type C port Audio I/O – HDMI, USB-C, 3.5mm headphone jack Connectivity – Dual band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0 USB – 2x USB 2.0 host port, 1x USB 3.1 type C port for power, data, and video output, 1x […]

January 31, 2017January 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

FOSDEM 2017 Open Source Meeting Schedule

FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting) is a 2-day free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate that happens on the first week-end of February, meaning it will take place on February 4 & 5, 2017 this year. FOSDEM 2017 will features 608 speakers, 653 events, and 54 tracks, with 6 main tracks namely: Architectures, Building, Cloud, Documentation, Miscellaneous, and Security & Encryption. I won’t be there, but it’s always interesting to look at the schedule, and I made my own virtual schedule focusing especially on talks from “Embedded, mobile and automotive” and “Internet of Things” devrooms. Saturday 4, 2017 11:00 – 11:25 – Does your coffee machine speaks Bocce; Teach your IoT thing to speak Modbus and it will not stop talking, by Yaacov Zamir There are many IoT dashboards out on the web, most will require network connection to a server far […]

January 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

MacroFAB FX Development Board is an Open source Audio Electronics Prototyping Platform (Crowdfunding)

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a Linux multi-effects guitar pedal, and if you are interested in such audio projects, another company called MacroFab, specializing in manufacturing & assembling PCBs & electronic device, has now designed open source FX development board for audio electronics prototyping, that can be used for audio effects “guitar” pedals, and let you design your own tones. Key features of FX development board: Potentiometers 9V battery holder ¼” Input and output jacks connected to breadboard True bypass 3PDT switch User selectable power supply connections Dual solderless breadboards with power rails selectable by jumpers Adjustable 9 V power supply Power supply with 2.1 mm dc input jack for use with AC-to-AC wall wart; +/- 15 volt @ 200 mA power supplies with over-current protection; +1.25 to 9 V @ 150 mA adjustable power supply; Split voltage rail (1/2*9 Volt Rail) @ 15 mA for use […]

January 31, 2017January 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

GIGABYTE EL-30 Apollo Lake Fanless IoT Gateway Powered by Intel Pentium N4200 to Launch in Q2 2017

GIGABYTE will soon introduce their EL-30 “Intel Apollo Lake IoT Gateway Solution” powered by a quad core Intel Pentium N4200 with 32GB storage, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, dual HDMI ports, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, as well as a mini PCIe slot for 3G module or mSATA storage, and an optional Zigbee module. GIGABYTE EL-30 specifications: SoC – Intel Pentium processor N4200 with 4 cores, 4 threads @ 1.10 – 2.50 GHz with 2MB L2 cache, 18EU Intel HD Graphics 505 (6W TDP) System Memory – 2x SO-DIMM slots for DDR3L 1600/1866MHz memory up to 8GB Storage -32GB eMMC flash + 1x SD card slot + optional mSATA module Video Output – 2x HDMI 1.4b ports up to 3840×2160@30 Hz Audio – Via HDMI ports, 3.5mm audio jack (headphone + mic), Realtek ALC255 audio codec Connectivity 2x GbE LAN ports (Realtek RTL8111HS) Pre-installed WiFi + Bluetooth module in half-size mini PCIe […]

January 30, 2017January 31, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

LibreELEC (Kodi Linux) on Voyo V1 VMac Mini Apollo Lake Mini PC

I’ve just posted Voyo V1 VMac Mini review with Windows 10 this morning, and at the end I mentioned I quickly tried to run Ubuntu 16.04 without success. Reader Piotr who also happens to be a LibreELEC together with about 65 other team members, noticed it, provided me a link to a development version of LibreELEC 8.0 (mirror link) working with Apollo Lake processors, and explained Ubuntu was not working because Linux needs updated Mesa and Intel drivers. The image is based on Linux 4.10-rc5 with the necessary drivers and Kodi 17. The changes were mostly made by FernetMenta (Rainer Hochecker), and will be merged in Linux 4.10 and Mesa 17.0. He also implemented 10-bit HEVC support that will officially be available in Kodi 18 only and found in daily builds. So let’s try this out. After downloading LibreELEC-Intel.x86_64-8.0-devel-20170130110609-r25167-gd210441.img.gz, I tried to flash it (N.B.: no need to extract it) […]

January 30, 2017January 30, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

NovaVGA Shield Adds VGA Output to Arduino Boards

Arduino boards are convenient to control I/Os, link LEDs, and display info on small LCD displays, but if you want to output data to a larger monitor, it’s a bit more complex. NovaVGA shield for Arduino simplify the task of outputting data to a VGA monitor over SPI. NovaVGA shield hardware specifications: CPLD – Xilinx XC9572XL CPLD, user programmable via JTAG interface. SRAM Framebuffer – 160×120 pixels @ 6-bit color (2^6 = 64 possible colors) VGA Output – 640×480 @ 60Hz physical resolution (25.175MHz pixel clock) Interface with MCU – SPI mode 1 interface (consumes only three Arduino pins) Header pins not included MicroNova provides an Arduino library with various examples such as color palette, Mandelbrot, Tetris and text console, as well as a user’s guide and PDF schematics that can all be downloaded directly on the product page. NovaVGA shield sells for $29 on Tindie or directly on MicroNova […]

January 30, 2017July 13, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Voyo (V1) VMac Mini Apollo Lake Mini PC Review – Part 2: Windows 10

Voyo VMac Mini, also sometimes referred to just Voyo V1, is an actively cooled mini PC powered by Intel Celeron N3450 or Pentium N4200 Apollo Lake processor. I’ve received samples for both, and already taken pictures of the device and motherboard. So in the second part I’ll review the mini PC checking out system info, running some benchmarks on both, and see how it performs as an entry-level desktop PC. Voyo VMac Mini Setup and System Information Setup is pretty straightforward, as you just need to connect mouse and keyboard, Ethernet, the mini HDMI to HDMI cable, optionally the included USB WiFi dongle, the power supply, and finally press the power button to get to Windows 10 desktop logged in as “admin” user in about 30 seconds. Some Apollo Lake mini PCs support HDMI 2.0 video output, but this requires a DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 bridge chip, which not included […]

January 29, 2017October 8, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Satechi USB Type-C Power Meter Measures up to 65 Watts

CHARGER Doctor is a popular USB power meter for USB 2.0 ports that can help you check whether your charger delivers the promised amperage, and if you are dealing with USB powered device you can easily measure the power drawn by that device. But we are now in 2017, and USB type C has become more and more popular, and can deliver higher voltages higher than 5V, as well as higher currents. So if you are looking for USB type C power meter, Satechi has you covered. Satechi USB-C power meter key features and specifications: Voltage Range – 4V-20V Current Range – 50mA-10W Max readable Power – 65W Indicates power over time (mAh) and current direction (e.g. charger to laptop, or laptop to phone). USB 3.1 data pass-through supported Dimensions – 6.3 x 2 x 0.8 mm Weight – 8.6 g Beside just measuring power usage, several blogs report this USB-C […]