STM32World Rant #1 - USELESS Development Boards
Welcome to the first STM32World Rant. In this rant video I'll go through some of the most useless development boards on the market, so that you dear viewer can avoid them.
Not sure if this will be the only rant ;) IF you like the format of this video please let me know in the comments. I can always find other things to rant about.
our last test is always to plug in our 2.8" captouch TFT shield https://www.adafruit.com/product/1947 because it tests both SPI and I2C. this passes and since all the GPIO are accounted for, we just have to wrap up the silk and it's off to fabrication!
#adafruit #arduino #opensource #opensourcehardware #RP2040 #PrototypeTesting #ArduinoDesign #DevelopmentBoards #MicroSD #SPI #SDIO #SWDDebug #StemmaQT #12VDC #ShieldTesting #FabricationProcess
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Small Open Source Vehicle Hacking Platform
[Florian] and his engineering team at Munich-based bmc::labs has developed a clever set of prototyping boards for vehicle hacking and rapid product development, collectively called the bmc::board or bmc::mini. These stackable development boards were initially designed for in-house use. The team took a general purpose approach to the design so the boards could be used across a wide range of projects, and they should be useful to anyone in the field. [Florian] decided to release the boards to the community as open-source and certified by OSHWA (Open Source Hardware Association).
There are four boards currently defined, with several more in the works:
At 54 x 42.5 mm, these boards are pretty small; a form-factor they describe as "exactly half a credit card". We like the Wurth WR-MM family of stacking connectors they are using, and the symmetrical pinout means you can rotate the cards as needed. But at first glance, these thru-hole connectors seem to limit the stack to just two boards, although maybe they plan move to an SMT flavor of the connector in future designs permitting taller stacks.
If you're into vehicle electronics and/or vehicle hacking, definitely take a look at these. You can check out [Florian]'s bmc::board Hackaday.io project page and the team's GitHub repository for more details. Here's another project by team member [Sebastian] using one of the future bmc::bike modules to eavesdrop on ECU communications, where he sensibly advises the reader "First, pull over and get off the bike. Never hack a two-wheeled vehicle while riding it!".
No discussion of vehicle CAN bus tools should omit the work of Craig Smith, who literally wrote the book on hacking your car, and whose talk along with Hackaday's own Eric Evenchick of CANtact fame we covered back in 2016. [Florian] has started a CrowdSupply campaign where you can see some more details of this project and a short promotional video.
Forth Module the Size of a Stick of Gum
Australian engineer [John Catsoulis] developed a small module called the Scamp2 dedicated to running Forth. The focus of his Udamonic project was not only to highlight Forth, but to make a module which was easy to use and doesn't require any IDE on your computer. According to the website, these modules have found their niche in education as well as rapid prototyping for product development. His site has some good resources, including several Scamp/Forth example applications such as a model train controller or adding a real-time clock module.
The core of the module is a Microchip PIC24F64GB202 MCU with 64K Flash and 8K RAM. Of this, Forth takes up only 20K of Flash and 2K of RAM. [John] is using FlashForth, a version of Forth which came from [Mikael Nordman] at the University of Queensland almost ten years ago. FlashForth has been implemented on a wide variety of PIC and AVR ATmega processors and has apparently developed quite a following in Australia and elsewhere.
We estimate from the photo that the Scamp is about 80 mm long, just slightly longer than a standard piece of MIL-A-A-20175A Type II chewing gum ( 73 mm ). You can use it as-is, or with the header pins installed, the Scamp can be plugged into a breadboard for easy hacking. Regarding the interfacing of Scamp to other equipment, [John] says "Writing software to use other hardware is very easy, and fun." We like his attitude.
Here is some more information from his Hackaday.io project page, and he also has a Tindie site. If you want a good overview of using Forth in embedded systems, check out Forth: The Hacker 's Language by our own Forth-guru [Elliot Williams]. Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for sending in the tip.
#hardware #microcontrollers #developmentboards #forth #gumstick #module
