Free 3D Design Software

Autodesk 123D allows you to design and create 3D objects with apps that run on a PC, iPad, or online.  The 123D family of products are aimed at the personal fabrication market. You may be familiar with Autodesk from it's popular AutoCAD products or from Instructables.com.

Another free 3D program is SketchUp. With SketchUp, it's possible to build 3D models of printed circuit boards using CadSoft Eagle files, using the EagleUp script and ImageMagick.  Google recently sold SketchUp to Trimble who plan on continuing to offer it for free.

Instructables Electronics Tips and Tricks Contest

Win an Instek bench or Nano handheld Oscilloscope by submitting a new electronics instructable by August 20, 2012.

Google Reimagines the Development Board

The ADK 2012 platform is packed with innovation and usable code for Android accessory development.



They advertise that all of the code is open source and with a less restrictive license like BSD so you can include it in your products. Here are the main libraries:

• Bluetooth stack (BSD license) with libraries for RFCOMM, A2DP,L2CAP, SDP
• Multimedia library including an ogg player
• MicroSD SD/SDHC driver with FAT12/RAT16/FAT32
• USB Host stack with Android open accessory protocol implementation

All of this runs on the Atmel SAM3X ARM Cortex-M3 processor with 512kB flash, 100kB RAM, and bluetooth is provide by a Texas Instruments CC2564. There are also sensors for light, proximity, acceleration, magnetism, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and other toys like a capacitive slider and buttons, RGB LEDs including the 7 segment display, a transducer speaker, and an NFC tag.

For more info, here is the developer's guide from google Accesory Development Kit 2012 Guide. A little more info about the Arduino IDE (for an ARM processor) it uses on the Arduino blog.

The surprise at the end of the video is that an ADK 2012 was given to each attendee of this talk, and the device is not for sale (yet). If you really want one, try e-bay, currently the best price is an auction at $400 US. If are lucky enough to have one here is the Android app from google play.

Development Board Community Sites

Zedboard.org is a new community site for a Xilinx-ARM development board.  User-supported development boards have become very popular. TI has over a dozen listed at designsomething.org including beagleboard.org which supports beagleboard and beaglebone.  Here are a few more popular sites.

Xilinx

www.zedboard.org - Zync-7000 processor features Dual ARM Cortex-A9 at 667MHz, FPU, GigE, HDMI, stereo CODEC

papilio.cc - Open-source FPGA project with Spartan 3E FPGA.

Atmel

www.arduino.cc Ever-popular open-source electronics platform you can build yourself.

Freescale

www.towergeeks.org Modular stackable multi-architecture development kits and peripheral modules.

NXP

mbed.org Rapid prototyping boards and software tools.

LPCXpresso

Analog Devices

Blackfin Koop Open-source software and hardware projects including uClinux and support for the Blackfin STAMP board.

STMicroelectronics

stm32circle.com Projects support a number of STM32 development boards including the EvoPrimer platform.

http://leaflabs.com/devices/maple/ Arduino format, but with an ARM Cortex-M3 processor.

Texas Instruments

designsomething.org Many boards such as beaglebone, beagleboard, msp430, craneboard, pandaboard

NXP Android Device Design Contest

Microcontroller Central is giving away ten NXP Android Open Accessory Applications kits in a micro-design contest.  Entrants submit design proposals for an Android controlled MCU based device.  The contest theme is 'changing the world with android' and ends on July 4, 2012. To learn more about the prize, see my blog post on the NXP ADK.

Two New NXP ARM Evaluation Boards

NXP design partner NGX Technologies has just released the LPC4330-Xplorer and LPC1830-Xplorer.  These almost identical evaluation boards use pin compatible ARM processors.  One features the LPC4330FET100 dual-core with ARM Cortex-M4 with floating point unit and Cortex-M0 coprocessor, both running at up to 204MHz with 264kB SRAM.  The other has the LPC1830FET100 running up to 180 MHz with 200kB SRAM and is an ARM Cortex-M3.  Both provide two high-speed USB 2.0 interfaces, Ethernet, CAN, and SPI flash interface.  For more comparisons between these two processor families, see the video below from NXP.

The NGX Xplorer boards add many useful connectors and support chips, including 32Mb flash, Ethernet PHY and connector, Micro SD card slot, two USB ports, headers for unused I/O, debug header, LEDs and switches.  The boards can be purchased from the NGX Technologies online store or from distributors; in the US you can currently find them at mcpros.

I plan on evaluating both boards in more detail in the coming weeks.  In the near future NGX will offer the boards shipped with a ulink-me debugger (at an additional cost).

Eagle Design Competition

The CadSoft EAGLE Design Competition is underway, you can already view multiple entries at element14. The top prize is an Alienware laptop and EAGLE 6 Pro version, other prizes include CadSoft EAGLE and Microchip development boards.  The design must include a Microchip processor and a screenshot of the EAGLE 6 layout.  You have until August 31 to post your blog entry using the format of this sample post.  The full terms and conditions of the competition are posted at element14.

TI LCDK

The new TI LCDK development kit comes in two models for $195 each.  Choose an OMAP-L138 with ARM9 and floating point DSP, or the pin compatible TI TMS320C6748 DSP.

Both boards are available from the TI eStore and on-line distributors.  The OMAP-L138 is part number TMDXLCDK138, and the single core DSP version is part number TMDXLCDK6748.  Two software development kits are available for the board, a Linux SDK and the BIOS C6 SDK that uses SysBIOS 6.3.33 and Starterware.

This board is an alternative to the hawkboard that also used the OMAP-L138 but had stability problems with DDR memory.

The board has a few interesting interfaces like the LCD port that uses Beagleboard XM connectors, a leopard imaging camera sensor input, and an on-board fingerprint sensor.  Standard interfaces include 100Mbps Ethernet, USB 1.1 Host, USB 2.0 OTG, SATA, VGA, Audio, Video Composite IN, and an FTDI USB to serial interface.

Synthesizers

Today's Google Doodle honors Robert Moog with a working Synthesizer.  Here are a few more that you can buy, make, or run as an app.

You can purchase a modern Moog directly from moogmusic.com like the one in this video comparing the Doodle to the real thing.

Moog also has an iPhone App synth, the Animoog, on sale for $0.99 for the next few days.  Unfortunately, my iPhone 3G is too old to run this (I'm stuck at iOS 4.21 which isn't compatible with Animoog).

An open hardware hackable digital synth is available from MeeBlip starting at only $39 for the basic board, up to a complete ready to assemble kit for $149.

Teenage engineering sells a musical experimental board called Oplab ($299) and an all-in-one portable synth with USB connectivity, the OP-1 ($849) shown in this video.

Something a little different is the x0xb0x from LadyAda, you can build one yourself from her manual or buy a complete kit or finished synth from WILLZYX and a few other online sources.

Free Renesas Kits

Renesas is offering some free development boards and a 25% discount on other kits and tools from Avnet Memec. The free boards with avnet part number are shown below.

RX62N promotion board (YRPBRX62N) 

RX-Stick for RX610 (R0K5RXTKTZ003BR)

RX210 Promotion Board (YRPBRX210)

RL78 Promotion Board (YRPBRL78G13)

V850ES/Jx3-L Low Power Demonstrator Kit (V850ES-JX3L-LPD)

To get them free from Avnet use the coupon code and checkout at the Avnet/Renesas promotion site.