Weekly Roundup #15 - New Maker Products // News
This week’s Weekly Roundup we’re seeing noise makers, more LEDs, no robots, the fastest RISC based Arduino compatible board and a new SBC that’ll raise the bar even further.
Crowd Funding
KickStarter
Kickstarter is a bit slow this week. Must be some holiday period coming up.
Caddy Board
The Caddy Board is a simple enough idea. It’s a caddy to house a small breadboard, but it also supplies a 5V rail.
1Bitsy & Black Magic Probe
The 1Bitsy is a small ARM Cortex-M4F board that contains the STM32F415. It’s a fairly plain board that contains an STM32 along with a USB DFU bootloader. The Kickstarter also has an optional JTAG or SWD module called the Black Magic Probe.
Of course it all relies on Open Source software and the creator has included some tutorials and project ideas like; small game console, large LED display control, audio effects and UAV autopilot.
Firefly RK3399
Haven’t seen an SBC on Kickstarter for a while.
The Firefly Team are back with a new board that is setting the SBC bar even further both on price point and features. The only disappointing thing about it is that it won’t be ready to after Christmas.
The Firefly RK3399 is a bit of a beast and contains two Cortex-A72 and four Cortex-A53 64bit cores clocked at up to 2GHz and the Mali-T860 MP4. Nice!
For only $139 US you also get:
- 2G RAM and 16G eMMC.
- Dual PCIe 2.1, (using M.2).
- Dual USB3.0.
- Dual MIPI-CSI & ISP.
- HDMI2.0.
- DisplayPort 1.2.
- MIPI-DSI
- 42 GPIO header.
- Android or Ubuntu.
The Yowler
If you’re in to making a bit of noise then this guy is creating a synth with features added based on funding goals reached.
Interesting twist.
Like choosing between making it open source or a case. He’s had a number of prototypes already so looks promising.
IndieGoGo
While IndieGoGo has some good stuff.
NaviPack
The NaviPack is a small LIDAR navigation module for drones. It has an onboard SLAM chip capable of sensing anything up to 15 metres away at 4000 points per second. That means full 360 degree real time sensing capabilities.
Comes with an SDK for either Windows, Linux or Android which gives you some fairly enhanced features.
Yet another 3D printer. This one is based on the Delta design. There’s not a heck of a lot of information on the specs, so Caveat Emptor.
The Tiny-TS
Another noise maker. This is a tiny keyboard synth the size of a credit card that contains an ATmega328 providing some basic synth effects. Comes in a DIY kit. Note this is just in the concept stage, so unlikely to be available before Christmas.
Crowd Supply
Crowd Supply is unusually active.
AAduino
The AAduino is an interesting concept. It’s an ATmega328p board with RF and temperature sensor designed to fit into a standard double A battery holder alongside two other double AA batteries.
BES-AFE-1
If you’re into ECG monitoring then this pre-launch module providing a nice set of features like low noise, low offset and low power.
Open-V
Remember the OpenV? It’s a RISC SoC designed from the ground up to be Open Source and Open Hardware. Contains 16 GPIOs, SD and JTAG support running at up to 160MHz.
Not many people would be interested in funding this, but…
HiFive1
…you might be interested in this one.
The HiFive1 is a welcome relief to an otherwise ho-hum market. It is an Arduino compatible board containing the FE310 SoC, which is an Open Hardware, Open Source RISC MCU running at up to 320MHz. Not only the fastest kid on the block, but free to run them!
Runs off either USB, or 12 volt DC jack whilst accepting 3.3 or 5 volt logic levels. Has 19 GPIOs, SPI, PWM, USB and a nice feature of 128Mbit of off-chip flash storage.
Honorable mentions
AWS Greengrass
Amazon are now enhancing AWS IoT with offline processing for Linux based devices. This means that your Raspberry Pi AWS device will still work when not connected to any Internet service. It does this by using Amazon’s Lambda based “AWS Greengrass” software.
Maker Shops
Tindie
Tindie has a couple of things.
868Mhz 915Mhz SX1276 Lora Module with ATmega328P
This is a small module that contains an ATmega329p, onboard USB and LiPo charger, but it also has an SX1276 LoRa module, which is capable of 300kbps.
Zero Long
Or the Zero Long which is the same as this companies Ultra Zero board, but with a long OLED instead.
Flexible LED Array 32x32
You know it’s almost Christmas when a lot of LED displays hit the market. This is a fairly humongous display. If you want to drive 1024 LEDs on a flexible backing then get this, or there’s the non-flexible AdaFruit one coming up.
WiThumb
The WiThumb was recently successfully funded on Kickstarter and now it’s on Tindie! It is a USB device that provides an ESP8266, 6 DOF IMU and temperature sensor all in a small package.
E2450
Ever lost your UAV? This little device will simply emit a high pitched audio beep every 20 minutes to help you track down your lost UAV. It starts beeping when power is cut to the device.
OpenHome Security Gateway
The OpenHome Security Gateway is a board that provides a bunch of useful connectivity options such as ethernet, wired and wireless sensor access, RTC, relays, and AC monitoring. It’s a great little board if you want to build a reliable home automation device.
AdaFruit, Seeed, SparkFun, DFRobot, DigiKey
And a few more from the major online shops.
RF Explorer 3G+
Seeed have their RF Explorer 3G module on pre-order which contains an onboard spectrum analyzer. A cheap way to get your hands on some RF test kit.
VL6180X Breakout
AdaFruit have their VL6180 breakout board which is more advanced than than the VL53LOX capable of measuring between 5mm and 1.2m. Runs off 3 to 5 volts with onboard logic level converters.
Pi Powered Times Square Traveler Pack
Now this is pretty cool. Remember that previous 32x32 LED display? AdaFruit are bundling that as well as a Pi3, Matrix HAT, and DS1307 RTC for less than $90 US!
Note that this display isn’t flexible.
MAX30105 Breakout
SparkFun have the MAX30105 module, which you can use to measure distance, heart rate and particles floating in the air. It’s cheap because it uses three LEDs instead of laser. Accessible via I2C.
Flexible LED Array 16x16
If you’re hungry for displays, then DFRobot have a 16x16 flexible LED display…
Flexible LED Array 8x8
… or 8x8. Both using the common WS2812 drivers.
The Cheap Side
On the cheap side of town we have…
