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Firstly, they're not arduinos :) What you have there is a nice little grab bag of embedded systems that will blow an Arduino out of the water, power-wise, but is somewhat less user friendly. The red things on the left are Beagle Boards - the top one is an xM, not sure about the bottom one (edit: that's a c2, of course). They are, simplistically, a lot like a Raspberry Pi without the community support. They're a full system-on-chip, they'll run a version of Linux, they have USB, video, networking, etc. Excellent platform for learning ARM programming and embedded development. Steep learning curve, though.
The one underneath is another ARM board, but with an inboard gyro suite. This is closer to the Arduino, it's not a mini-pc in the way the beagle is, but again, more powerful, less user friendly due to lack of community. The sensor suite makes it more like an arduimu or Razor/freeimu board.
So what you have there is a powerful robotics or embedded platform. The Beagle board is a full system, the STM is a full sensor suite and real time micro controller, both with a chunk of power. I'll hunt up some docs to get you started, it would be handy if you know C, but there are some tutorials out there.
Welcome to the world of ARM. The question is, what do you want to do?
Edit: try this - http://beagleboard.org/beagleboard
So stepper motors are controlled by sending finely timed pulses to the motor's control wire. A regular microcontroller (like the ones Arduino is based on) has dedicated, uninterruptible timers that can be used to control this.
The rPi is not a microcontroller, it is a low-power PC that you happen to have access to the hardware of. Normal processors allow most userspace programs, such as the ones OP is talking about writing, to be interrupted by other system processes and don't guarantee timing in the same way a microcontroller does.
The answer to the original article here is that Arduino and RaspberryPi are designed for two distinctly different purposes. One is for hardware hacking, the other is for software hacking. Yes, you can use either to teach both, but they won't be quite as good.
If you want something that's a mix between the Arduino and RPi, check out the BeagleBoard. Sure, it costs more, but you're getting more functionality.
I'm trying to build a Rustic interface to the hardware on the BeagleBone Blue. The work is currently quite slow do to other obligations, but I hope to finish quite soon and release a preliminary create with at least the LEDs, Buttons and built-in sensors accessible. (Except for the sensors the work is very easy thanks to rust-embedded)
using some software available out there now, and some knowhow with stepper motors and abs plastic, its possible to make a basic 3d printer, there are a few guides out there just for arduino or other micro controllers. It looks like they are trying to make a kind of combo of raspbery pi and arduino kind of like a higher end beaglebone
It doesn't have the price point. I'd consider the beaglebone black to be more similar to the RPi. They both have a big advantage in I/O pins over the RPi (but the beagle bone seems to have slightly more options, e.g. it's not clear if the radxa has CAN). They are both more powerful on the CPU front, but the radxa is probably at least twice as powerful while the beaglebone black is only slightly more powerful than the RPi (but for most embedded stuff even the RPi is more than enough). The radxa has a better GPU than the beaglebone black, but I think the RPi is still the most powerful in that regard.
I think for media center I'd go with the RPi. For electronics projects, the beaglebone black, for a PC replacement the radxa.
I paid a lot more for SBCs like the Gumstix COMs and Beagleboards or just used small PCs. Anything with less processing requirements just got a microcontroller like a PIC, AVR or PSoC.
I couldn't find a price on that board, so I'll throw out another couple suggestions...
- PandaBoard - Single NIC, 1GHz Dual Core, 1GB, Dual HDMI, 20W -- I want one
- BeagleBoard - Single NIC, 1GHz, 512MB, 2W -- I have one, it works fine, although a little slow.
- GuruPlug - Dual NICs, 1.2Ghz, 512MB, 5W -- My current firewall/router/thermostat controller/DNS+adblocker/VPN/WWW server. It also works well, but has some heat issues (has never overheated though).
iptables works great for everything I've wanted to do. If writing the rules isn't your thing, try FirewallBuilder. Its a rather intuitive GUI rule generator. I would also recommend installing fail2ban (generates iptables rules on the fly) and logwatch (sends summaries of most system logs nightly).
Debian runs great on these. Gentoo will also work. The devices above are just ARM CPUs, so anything that is compiled for arm will work.
Guruplug running normally (power failure recently):
top - 17:08:44 up 9 days, 12:36, 3 users, load average: 0.56, 0.97, 1.10
Tasks: 124 total, 1 running, 119 sleeping, 0 stopped, 4 zombie
Cpu(s): 1.6%us, 22.5%sy, 2.0%ni, 68.6%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 5.2%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 515576k total, 412664k used, 102912k free, 44268k buffers
Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 198660k cached
Please don't politicize or make this a thing to boast about.
Hummingboard and Beagleboard. Intel makes alternatives, but they're much more powerful platforms for enthusiasts.
The x15 is an official project of BeagleBoard.org, this is a BeagleBoard Compatible clone like the BeagleBone Green (software compatible, design files to be made public) designed by a commercial company called SanCloud.
To answer your question, the x15 Rev A failed FCC testing so they are working on Rev B.
This. Though you might want to use a BeagleBone Black instead of a Raspberry Pi as it's more powerful.
Basically the idea is that you'll use the text bots but you'll speak and the system will translate the speech to text by matter of voice recognition. The text bot will reply and the system will use voice synthesis to read out the text back to you. However this will only work in a quiet environment or with directional microphones. Hmm, i wonder if there are facial recognition programs/libraries that have been adapted for lip reading in order to help out speech recognition? That would be kinda cool.
Oh, and speaking of facial recognition and stuff, check out OpenCV. You might be able to use it to have the system differentiate between different people requesting things and other fun stuff. Or, if it sees the same person ordering too many drinks it might refuse to serve them. Just some ideas.
> I wholeheartedly wish it were common practice to build your own 'deck' from raspberry Pi boards, and just make it as retro-cyberpunk as you can, as a fashion statement.
There absolutely is source code for hardware. Do you think intel lays out those billions of transistors by hand? Of course not, they use computers and ECAD platforms, and you can treat those data files as source code -- schematics, netlists, PCB layouts, HDL files, etc. There are plenty of projects where these are treated as source code, for example the Beagle board. On that page you will see download links for schematics and PCB layouts and cadence files.
Grab a Beagleboard, hang something off the expansion connector, and write a kernel driver for it. If you can get it to work, you'll learn a lot. The folks in #beagle on freenode are pretty helpful if you get stuck.
Not to discourage you, but this is a larger step upward than you might be thinking.
To get you started, check out the BeagleBone and the other Beagle projects. They're using the TI OMAP SoCs, which are more comparable to the RPI system than to standalone ARM CPUs. That will save you a lot of grief. The BB design is OSS and the schematic, layout files, and BOM are all available. Should give you a head start on your own design.
Personally I'd just buy one instead of rolling your own: at $45 they're priced more as educational materials instead of commercial hardware.
http://beagleboard.org/ 1Ghz ARM processor, OpenGL support, USB support for external DVD drive, hacker friendly. Well documented. It does not have a built in hard drive. But does have support for USB hubs, so if you need extra space, just get yourself an external USB drive.
Optos are a bit of an overkill. I use buffer ICs, essentially a logic gate that has no logic: Out=In, just sits between 2 devices. They can function as level shifters as well since the BBx outputs are <2V and some things need signalling of at least >=3V.
You'd want to use a relay mostly for switching very high/different power, separate-from-BBx's power like (household) AC, at low intervals (ie no flashing). And when using a relay the snubbing diode is required and an opto isn't such a bad idea after all. Otherwise a transistor/mosfet is all you want for DC.
Your method for wanting varying colour levels is not quite how that's done... There do exist digital potentiometers but this is not how to go about it.
Light dimming is usually done via PWM -Pulse Width Modulation- or super-rapidly flashing the colour channels at different rates for human-perceived dimming. BBx does have native PWM hardware. But here's a basic pseudo code for a brightness of 0-255 if you were to bit-bang it
function pwm(pin,brightness) { for i = 0 to 255 { if i < brightness then output[pin] = on; else output[pin] = off; } }
You most definitely do not want to use a relay on PWM as you will burn it out going so fast. A buffer or transistor will do. If your LED strip is the 12V 4-wire RGB[+12] then a mosfet is what you want, and the mosfets usually need >2V on the gate to turn on and off so you may also need the buffers or transistors in addition. Here's a guide using the arduino the circuit is essentially the same but note the arduino outputs 5V so it doesn't need an additional piece between the mCU and transistor
I'm no expert here, but it sounds like you need an electronic speed controller (ESC). In the past I've used a Turnigy Plush to control a brushless servo with a BBB. If the L6234 is your speed controller (I couldn't find this on HobbyKing), then you don't need additional parts.
PWM control uses square waves, not sinusoidal. You use PWM to control the ESC, which in turn takes care of controlling the brushless motor (I think the ESC generates the sinusoidal waves).
Before you can control the motor itself, you need to go through a calibration process of your ESC (range calibration). In the case of the Turnigy Plush, you would set your PWM to the value for max speed, then connect the power to the ESC (this will produce a beep), set the PWM to the min speed (this will produce a different set of beeps), and wait for a long beep (should follow the previous beeps). After the long beep, changing the PWM will effectively control the speed of the brushless motor. Before these steps, the motor would just not move when changing the PWM.
Again, I'm no expert and this is my experience successfully controlling a brushless motor with the BBB on a particular brand. The documentation on your hardware may provide more accurate instructions on how to calibrate.
I do have sample code on an old computer, but it will take me a while to dig it up. I based it on the code here, so you can use this as a starting point.
Let us know if this helps! Sounds like you have a very interesting project.
Owncloud and Syncthing are both excellent replacements for Google Drive. You can install either of them onto a small embedded device like the BeagleboneBlack. They both have good Android apps (available on F-Droid) and easy web interfaces for configuration.
You definitely don't need to purchase a domain name to use either program.
http://beagleboard.org/project/stache
Have you read this by any chance? Someone in the comment section had the same problem to yours. He found the problem to be OpenCV failing to detect the higher resolution of the camera.
Try the command 'v4l2-ctl -V' this should tell you the resolution options of the camera (and if your drivers are working)
Also, the stock BeagleBone Black has BoneScript, a custom Node.js library. It also self-hosts the Cloud9 IDE on the stock distro.
EDIT - Before you ask, I have no desire whatsoever to put MongoDB on a dev board.
I run Ubuntu 14.04 on my Odroid, Pandaboard, BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi. All pre-compiled repos work as do all of the src repos I use. I've also used Linaro Stable Kernels and tools for highly optimized projects. If you're worried about Linux/Unix tools running on ARM, don't.
As a computer engineer, glad rasppi and aurduino outed themselves bigots. I never have to buy their lackluster boards again. As for suggested alternatives:
TI launchpad with energia- http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430g2 Beaglebone Black- http://beagleboard.org/black Intel Edison- http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/edison.html
There are a lot more really cool boards out there that you can learn and do far more than with aurduino or raspberry pi. Feel free to ask!
For those new to this world, they should look at the Kano that just made their first release via Kickstarter. It is a presetup kit that is easy for kids (and adults) to start exploring this world. http://kano.me/ is their home.
Also, for those a bit more experienced, I suggest the Beagle Board. A bit of a step up from the standard Raspberry board.
This is probably the best advice. Unless there is a specific reason you need to use Angstrom, it would be better to switch to the official Debian distro available here: http://beagleboard.org/latest-images
The main reason I've found that makes the Debian distro better is that the commonly used Ubuntu distro is based on Debian, so when troubleshooting or installing compatible software, it is much easier when there is a ton of support available just a google search away.
Beagleboard is another openhardware board with a TI OMAP(ARM ) http://beagleboard.org/ which you could use as base.
You need to operate the chips a "bios", which is downloaded as firmware on the arm core. This firmware normally also contains a minimalistic bootloader allowing your system to boot the os. ( http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot/ )
I need to look into these devices. I'm getting into Software Defined Radio, so these micro computers that can run full on code like this interest me quite a bit. I'm going to be trying to build a system this semester and I think i'm going to be using a BeagleBoard (http://beagleboard.org/hardware-xM) but if it would run on a Raspberry Pi, I would totally buy one for my own personal use.
I'm going to recommend you think again, and go for a cheap board to learn ARM processors on, and an expensive beagle board for embedded linux later.
If you want to learn ARM peripherals, mess with low level things, and generally learn about ARM, get yourself an mbed and then you dont have to worry about expensive, heavyweight toolchains or painfully slow compile times. Additionally, its almost cheap enough just to throw into a project and leave it.
If you want to learn embedded linux, then feel free to get yourself a beagle board, but the BeagleBone might also be an alternative.
What you suggested is certainly "Good Enough", but does verge a bit on overkill. While a screen is certainly useful, and so is Ethernet, do you really need CAN, Four USB ports, and a physical button on every single IO?
look into the plug computers like the dream plug you could also try the beagle board or panda board, but they don't come with cases.
Love it!! I've been toying with the idea of building a knock-off of one of those using a Beagleboard (http://beagleboard.org/) running PD and a hacked footpedal. Look forward to seeing what you come up with!
You can put something like this together pretty easily with a Beagleboard or another OMAP EVM and an off-the-shelf touch-screen.
No idea, since I haven't tried. The best way to find a device for hacking is to look for its homebrew community. Generally, if a device is hackable, people will do so, and somebody will write a blog bragging about what they've done which doubles as a guide.
If you want to do something a bit more ground-up, rather than modifying a consumer product, I might suggest gumstix or the BeagleBord, both of which start you off with a solid linux platform.
Although I haven't played with it myself, I've heard a lot of great reviews about the Beagle Board. So I'd throw that into the list of good ARM project boards.
> CODEX_LVL5
Oh hey, I found another HoNster in the wild.
The BeagleBone might be a good solution for you. Think of it in terms of a Raspberry Pi, but with true dedicated GPIOs. Lots of pins, nice Linux support.
I'm currently using the beagleboard and it's been working great. There's plenty of documentation about the board (http://www.ti.com/lit/pdf/spruf98, 3500 pages). Plus the ARMv7 spec from ARM is a good 2700 pages. That should be enough documentation for you :).
Why do you need open source firmware?
Yes, booting off the MicroSD takes priority over the EMMC. The other reason is since the EMMC is just flash memory, and doesn't have an infinite lifecycle, if you use it for everyday use, you'll burn through it faster. Just keep it updated and you'll be happy. You can download update images from http://beagleboard.org/latest-images, grab the EMMC flasher, write it to a card, boot the card, it will self-update, shut down, remove card, done. If you have a few cards handy you can have a different OS on each card to test and play around. Here's a list of some of what you can install.
Yes, if your modem/router has a DHCP server it will get assigned an address that shouldn't change, but no guarantees. You can assign a static address editing /etc/network/interfaces, something like (change addresses as needed):
auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.20 netmask 255.255.255.0 network 192.168.1.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255 gateway 192.168.1.1 dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
Then whenever you reboot you'll always keep the same address, no matter what.
Beagleboard seem to be front runners as a Pi replacement. It's what I'm looking at anyway - tho I only get them to set up xbmc players for friends and fam, no idea how to judge the specs for more intricate purposes.
And it's not just a principle thing, tbh. If Pi's in the hands of SocJus, that means it's out of the hands of engineers, so you can't expect much more innovation out of them. Just mad overleverage of their marketing advantage as they ride those coat-tails into the ground.
An earlier comment in this thread referencing BeagleBoard.
Disclaimer: I haven't personally tested this board, so passing information around.
I vaguely remember Ladyada (of Adafruit) saying that BeagleBone had taken on a second manufacturer to cope with the demand.
Ninja edit: http://beagleboard.org/blog/2014-04-13-dude-wheres-my-beaglebone-black/
They're gearing up for a new revision (Rev C?), which are, I think, starting to show up for pre-order from places like digikey, but one per customer.
Edit: http://beagleboard.org/blog/2014-04-13-dude-wheres-my-beaglebone-black
When not looking after little PoohFlinger, spins on the bikes in the dry months, fucking around in the garage fixing/breaking things, doing up the cottage, just picked up one of these, so going to start teaching myself more about electronics and programming while making a few things with it.
Sounds like you are actually more after a BeagleBone. http://beagleboard.org/bone
The RPi only has Digital IO and since it is unbuffered, messing up the wiring even once will obliterate the CPU and create a dead RPi.
The Arduino can do what you are looking to do, but by "speakers" do you mean simple tones or audio files. While the Arduino can do either, the BeagleBone's power and flexibility are more suited for the task.
However, the Arduino and the Beaglebone do not have an onboard real time clock. You will need to add it, being something like this http://www.tincantools.com/product.php?productid=16147&cat=0&page=1&featured or another option would be to sync the onboard clock via ethernet to a time server on start up.
You'll probably have to make an analog cape for it, but the Beaglebone is pretty awesome when it comes to higher-level programming and complicated programming. You can get more info at http://beagleboard.org/bone
If you are interested in something like Raspberry Pi and don't want to wait to actually be able to buy one, you might want to look into the Beagleboard which is similar but slightly more expensive.
There is no PC in there...
>Xbox 360 and PS3 in a PC case mod
That being said, I'm sure there's room for one of these. You wouldn't be able to play much besides solitaire and farmville on it, but he'd have even more bragging rights than he already does. :P
For absolute minimum power, get a beagle board. There will be a few more challenges to get it working the way you want it, but I don't think you will get anything else to run with < 2 watts.
I see Arduino is already mentioned, which is probably the answer you were seeking. Another low-cost embedded board that is a lot more powerful (albeit more expensive as well) is the BeagleBoard xM. There are a couple of guides to installing Ubuntu on it as well which has performed admirably for me.
There is chumby, it has a touchscreen, usb host, and the insignia 3.5 can be found for as little as $50, but it is low powered and not so easily customizable.
There are beagleboard and other similar development boards, but the touchscreens made for it that I have seen are not cheap, and the newer beagle is not easily attainable at this time.
Or you could put together a mini-itx system for pretty cheap. It would be easily attainable and more powerful than a chumby or beagle, but bigger and less portable. The most expensive part would likely be the touchscreen.
I also recommend the fit-PC2, if you are willing to fight with the graphics drivers as there have been quite a many reports about problems with it (GMA500, Poulsbo). I have had it running for 1½ years without a problem, although I'm not using X.
If you want a interesting challenge, you could try one of the small ARM computers like BeagleBoard or Pandaboard. Note that you would need to use MicroSD for hard drive.
Then there is many plug-computers like SheevaPlug and GuruPlug. I don't have any experience with these.
Well, there's the Surveyor Blackfin Camera, the Leopard Board, or even a Beagleboard. The blackfin is probably the most similar to the CMUcam. The others would take more work.
For a simple static website, you do not need much in the way of resources. A single board computer (SBC) would usually do the job without using much power. If you are taking security seriously, there are many mysterious pieces to the Raspberry Pi (RPi) so consider an alternative that can run regular Debian such as Pine64 ROCKPro64 or Beagleboard. If this information about the RPi is new to you, look deeper into how it boots and the graphic stack.
Neither driver seems to work for Catalina, and the PocketBeagle webpage claims they are only needed for previous images. http://beagleboard.org/getting-started
This sounds like the best option to me. It might even be possible to make a smaller pi zero with integrated boost converter and tp4056 for charging. It could even have a lighting connector directly attached. This would require a lot of development, mostly for the PCB put would certainly be possible. For now a pi zero with a simple power source and dongle like you described is the best option. The software would actually be quite easy.
Edit: just found this http://beagleboard.org/pocket It has everything needed. There is support for a single lithium battery, a lighting cable could be direct soldered instead of the USB breakout and there are even onboard LEDs. Only a button needs to be added
Isn't this basically the same thing as what e.g. OSD335x-SM (featured on pocketbeagle) has been doing? Wikipedia says that these are called system-in-package or SIP
> http://beagleboard.org/project/stache/
I will get it procured. Let's see!
Edit: Problem is, it's really easy to recognise and detect a picture (frame) but when it comes to livestream the video with the face and draw a rectangle around it (live), it gets messy.
This project is adding a moustache to a face snap. You can code it in python in <10 lines. :)
There are some problems with the SoC that I recommended for opencv3. You can use the excellent beaglebone black though.
To get started there is project called stache which recognises the face and adds a moustache.
On that note, it's probably worth looking at the Beaglebone black/green as an alternative all-in-one solution. You get an ARM processor running Linux, and access to PRUs on the same board for all your realtime I/O needs.
You should check these boards out. You get full Linux on a 1GHz, dual core processor with USB2.0, HDMI output, and some other coolness. For $49.
Edit: Not something to be put in a final product, but it could be invaluable for testing.
I might be missing be something, but the unassigned pins don't seem readily accessible - The dobot shield covers them. Are you suggesting I solder wires to the underside of the arduino board? That seems a little risky. I could see the wire touching adjacent pins. If there's some way to access these pins, I'm all ears.
Problem: As far as I can tell, there are no gpio pins readily accessible when using the dobot board. Furthermore, the I2C pins are being used by the dobot shield. There's lots of tasks I need to have the robot arm do that require different electronics, but to give an example, in one task I need to control 3 electronic devices: 1) a can stack stepper motor linear actuator 2) a differential pressure sensor that communicates via I2C 3) a solenoid. All are part of an electronic pipettor. Without the I2C pins, let alone GPIO pins, I can't do this. Limit switches and encoders are going to take up pins as well.
The timing problem is referencing the raspberry pi timing problem that you brought up. If I were to control the Dobot movement with the arduino/dobot shield from the pi, and use the GPIO pins on the raspberry pi for other peripherals (such as the can stack stepper motor I mentioned), I would still have a problem with the timing since I would be driving a stepper motor (the can stack stepper motor).
Perhaps to address all these issues I could connect another arduino serially to the pi, but I can barely program a serial protocol for one arduino, let alone 2. Instead of messing around with serial communication, one of my questions was is there some way I can avoid serial communication altogether? For example, the beaglebone board seems to have something called a PRU (programmable real-time unit, http://beagleboard.org/pru), which addresses the timing issue that the pi has. From what I can tell, the beaglebone is similar to having a microcontroller and linux computer on one board.
The default Beagle Bone Blacks operating system comes with a Node.js BoneScript library and a built in hosted Cloud9 IDE.
I hadn't used it much as I'm a low level programmer, but I always thought the BonseScript+Cloud9 setup would be very appealing to young embedded hackers...and I kind of blurred the two together with my poor memory. :)
What kind of router? i.e. how many ports, wifi?
It would be easy to roll something custom with e.g.:
Latest images are here:
http://beagleboard.org/latest-images
The git locations have updated builds by several months:
https://github.com/beagleboard/image-builder
Debian 7.8 is the most recent, but I don't know what compiler.
> Do I need to boot it from the microSD card? If so, then what is the source.
You need to make some effort. Beaglebone.org, click Beaglebone black, support, latest images, which takes you http://beagleboard.org/latest-images. There's are links to the image, a wiki, and to the beaglebone debian page.
> this really seems like a defective product...
What in the world makes you think this? You don't know what operating system you have on your super small Linux computer, or if it supports what you're plugging into it. That's the issue. The latest version of Angstrom (eww) or Debian should support it. The latest production image (made in March) should support it.
As the manual for that LCD states, they don't support the software side, which is the only problem you're currently having.
The Beaglebone and that LCD is a hobby project. Don't expect much hand holding, and you're already doomed with this attitude.
I don't know if the flash is faster than the SD card, but a wild guess would be that it is, but would be quite sized restricting.
http://beagleboard.org/black really is your starting point most times for finding resources. It links right to elinux which has the info for most distro support, including Ubuntu.
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu
To work with the BBB, you need the customized kernel, so what version Ubuntu will work depends on what version of the kernel is required (I believe?) Anyways it looks like they are dealing with Ubuntu 14.04.2 ( v3.14.43-ti-r67 kernel) now last updated 2015-06-11.
You usually flash the stock memory because of the updated uboot, but the black has always had a boot button and, with the proper flash loaded, the ability to boot from the flash or SD card.
I've used a couple USB wifi's with no problem, or extra work that I can recall, including a tiny Edimax usb thing.
Works well, but the hardware people don't like to be completely open so, so you'll have to use some nonfree code to get extra features/optimum performance. (like hardware acceleration)
although I'd recommend
anyway.
The main reason I asked the question is because I have a bunch of Beaglebone Blacks and a RPi1 on hand. I wanted to see if it worked at all then upgrade accordingly. I was eyeing up the RPi2 or a more powerful Beagle Board xM. I'd prefer to keep with the Beagleboards because they are opensource. But a good Tegra board for the right price might be worth having on hand to tinker with. Decent GPIO is a requirement. The BBB has great IO but isn't has good at Multimedia as the RPi so it's a trade off.
for ready to run system, the smallest type would be USB stick type. The entire computer fit inside the dongle strip.
here is one with intel. But most are ARM powered and smaller.
Other home hobbyist computers are Beagleboard basically ARM on mini motherboard. There are plenty of chinese brand that go for about $50-80-150.. These are full Linux computer with all the plugs you want and some. Can install android too. Most people use this similar to Roku/apple tv (TV set top computer. little media center, little internet, games, light weight living room/tv computer)
http://liliputing.com/2014/10/allwinner-nobel64-is-a-64-bit-dev-board.html
That still makes me think it was copying itself from uSD to eMMC, that's exactly when you get that behaviour, but of course that can only be true if you actually had a uSD installed.
If you have a uSD card, I would recommend going to the beaglebone.org site and grabbing the latest release, and booting from that. There are two types of release available: working installs on uSD, and special 'flasher' installs on uSD that will actually upon first boot copy themselves over to the eMMC in a manner very similar to what you experienced.
There's a pretty good community, and even a "newbie" section of the forum, on the Beagleboard.org website - http://beagleboard.org/Community/Forums - and a number of great beginner tutorials under their "Learn" tab.
cumbersome way: Have a controller that is a slave to be controlled over serial/spi/i2c from a device that can run python. This is the old way. So, what was generally done was arduino/pic/avr/msp* controlled over serial or some other protocol through a computer(?)
Easier way: Get a board with a processor that can run python and has GPIOs. http://micropython.org/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/ http://beagleboard.org/black etc.
> The Pi has a dedicated video chip that the BBB lacks.
Sorry if I am wrong. The specs for BeagleBone Black lists a "3D graphics accelerator" (link). Is it different from the video chip in Pi?
Raspberry Pi is a great gift, I actually gave it out for the Christmas exchange. It's a very small and fun system you can use for a variety of different things. You can code or just mess about with it. Good for any level of techy person. Depending on what your doing the beagleboard could be better? But there is definitely a lot more support online for the pi.
What kind job or schooling does he have. There are lots of kinds of tech :)
Mine does not have the web server running that the Angstrom has http://beagleboard.org/static/beaglebone/latest/Docs/images/bone101.png I just put in the flashable image to check and see.
It does have ssh setup on and running, 100% positive no could9. I wonder if they released an updated image with the webserver running after mine. What version are you using and where did you get it from?
Any 5V source should work... USB is a 5V source so I'm not sure why that isn't working for you, not to mention the BBB shouldn't ever really draw more than 500mA. This tutorial might be useful but I imagine you've probably read this already.
Oh dear -- that seems a bit worrisome! I haven't looked into it too much yet but I figured the rPi could at least handle sending data back and forth. If it doesn't work out there's always the BeagleBone Black, atleast.
The BeagleBone would probably actually work out to be a better fit in any case -- you can run Ubuntu ARM on it which ROS has active support for.
Great. I need a case for the Beagle Bone Black and the LCD cape I'm using for it. It needs to be fully enclosed except for a place for the power cord to come out. It should be angled so that it's at a comfortable viewing angle when it's sitting on a desk. It should be made in two pieces that are easily disassembled to get into the case. Here is some information on the various components.
If anyone is interested in this project, post here and message me a rough quote. Thanks.
Could you do something similar with a beagle board black: http://beagleboard.org/Products/BeagleBone%20Black
I got this to mess around and I've been looking at a way to stream videos on my tv with it. Any tips?
I've never tried anything like this, but theoretically this could work. It runs ubuntu, so you could stream from the Linux client. If SteamOS was ported to ARM, it'd probably work even better. What I personally hope for is an app for my Wii U, because with that, and a port of Plex home theater, it would do all the steam I need.
My wife snagged a tub full of Christmas lights after Christmas last year for 90% off and told me I had to make some fancy blinking lights. She swoons over those Mr. Christmas displays on YouTube.
A tease of my humble project:
Being more of a programmer than an electronics guy, I've got a pretty good software controller going for whipping up on/off pattern tracks. I've haven't got the FFT working yet to drive the channels based on music. I wrote it in Qt C++ and based it on Fruity Loops loop generation. Currently, it plays on the PC and connects through a Wifi adapter to my Beagle Bone embedded Linux board's Python server which drives the GPIO's which connect via data cables to customized power strips through a data plug. The lines from the plug drive simple relays to switch on and off each power strip plugin independently. I've used cheap mechanical relays for proof of concept and would like to go to faster circuits with dimmers eventually. This would likely move to DC lights for flexibility. Like this project I'd like to get into multi-color LEDs too eventually.
I was intending to open source the software, but my whole project is currently in very early problematic stages, nearly missing Christmas this year. I don't currently have any pictures or publicly accessible source code. Regardless of better projects like this one and more initially cost effective products out there like Mr. Christmas, I plan on beginning to post some pictures and source sometime after Christmas and refining and expanding the hardware side ramping up for next Halloween and Christmas.
I don't have the RP yet, but I have a BeagleBone. It has a more recent CPU than the RP will have, but I think you may compare. Node.js 0.4.x even comes on the shipped distribution.
Plus, when you use ArchLinux ARM (which will also have support for the RP), Node.js 0.6.12 is already in the community repositories - so no cross compiling needed even for recent versions!
You could try a [http://beagleboard.org/hardware](Beagleboard) or [http://www.gumstix.com/](Gumstix) board. Those will allow you to read the kinect (and they're tiny) and send the data wirelessly, but they do present their own host of problems.
I really don't use Steam, but can you download outside of Steam and transfer the files into it? I mean, I definitely don't mind leaving something like a BeagleBoard on overnight...
You can buy a beagleboard maybe, although that's not quite a desktop. I'm not sure if there are any desktops you can buy but I wouldn't be surprised if we see some in the next couple years. There's also the Cortex A9 Pandaboard which looks sick. I have no idea how you'd put an OS on them though.