7 Jul
2013
7 Jul
'13
2:07 p.m.
I've been following this project for a while, their goal is to produce a
small ARM board with everything you need to program it built in for only $5
-- the idea being that at that price, you can stick them everywhere and not
have to worry about the cost. They are now close to being finished, and are
trying to raise enough money to get some prototypes out into the hands of
hackers looking to play with them. You can see details on the project here:
http://mchck.org/
*Features*
*open:* entirely open source hardware and software
*powerful: *ARM Cortex-M4 with DSP extensions, 50MHz, 32KB code flash,
8KB RAM, 32KB data flash
*easy to use:* programmable via USB; USB 2.0 full speed device and host
in hardware
*massive connectivity: *10 PWM outputs, 12 analog inputs, 29 GPIOs, 6
serial interfaces, 14 touch sense inputs
*low power:* can run directly from a coin cell battery for months
*extensible: *add LiPo battery charger, 2.4GHz radio, extra flash memory,
all without additional boards
*small:* only 50mm*19mm / 1.97in*0.75in
*cheap:* $5 to build at home
They need to sell 50 in order to get bulk pricing on stuff, for $60 (which
includes shipping) you get:
5 boards + all the parts needed for them
2 RF communications boards (NRF24L01+)
2 LiPo battery charger ICs
2 180mAh LiPo batteries
2 1MB SPI flash ICs
3 different power regulators (so you can run from a variety of power
sources)
2 microUSB jacks (the boards themselves will plug into a USB port
directly, the optional jack allows you to instead use a USB cable)
I've already ordered a kit, I'm thus spamming you all in the hopes that
others will as well and I can get my boards (I have an unhealthy addiction
to small inexpensive microcontroller boards)
link to order here --> https://github.com/mchck/mchck/wiki/Prototypes
Note that this is not a finished product yet -- you'll either need a bit of
experience with ARM and microcontroller dev, or be willing to wait to use
the boards until they finish all the software and iron out any issues that
may arise.