One of the few things I don't like about the BeBoPr board is since it pre-dates the BeagleBone Black it conflicts with a bunch of pins that are now reserved for the new on-board HDMI and 2G eMMC.
Fortunately, Bas has released the BeBoPr-Bridge board, which is a set of boards that shuffles around the I/O pin-out and allows an otherwise stock BeBoPr to work with a BeagleBone Black without causing any pin conflicts. The Bridge board even solves the problem of how to access the serial boot console when using the BeBoPr!
Thanks to the folks at OSH Park, I was able to get three sets of the Bridge board fabricated and shipped to me for a total cost of $23.10 (including shipping), or about $7 each! Once the boards arrived and I got them built up, it was time to print something stand-alone using the BeagleBone Black and my $79 eBay special HDMI monitor:
If you want to follow along, make sure you're using my latest MachineKit image (with the -bone23 kernel), and do a git pull to grab the latest configuration files from the MachineKit branch of LinuxCNC. Launch LinuxCNC with the BeBoPr-Bridge configuration, and make sure you have not disabled the HDMIN cape in uEnv.txt. The latest image comes setup properly by default (HDMI disabled, and HDMIN enabled), but if you have been using a stock BeBoPr board you probably have both versions disabled.
Here are a couple still photos, you can find more on my G+ page.
Complete system with the BeagleBone Black mounted on top of the BeBoPr using the Bridge Board.
Bridge board mounted on my BeagleBone Black with serial cable, USB mouser/KB receiver, and HDMI cable connected.
Great!
ReplyDeleteDid you try to use touch panel with the monitor?
Is it possible to start LinuxCNC from internal flash disk?
I have not tried to use the touch-panel yet, but I plan to at some point...stay tuned!
DeleteIs there somewhere that you can buy a Bridge from or do you have to collect and assemble the components yourself?
ReplyDeleteI believe you may be able to buy the boards from Bas (the designer of the BeBoPr board) but I'm not sure. The on ly components are some wire and the pin and socket connectors, so I didn't have any problems building one from the PCBoards I purchased from OSH Park using the gerber files provided by Bas.
DeleteCharles,
ReplyDeleteI spent more time than I wish to admit trying to figure out what Bas' filenames corresponded to. I was hoping that OSH Park could figure it out, but they said they couldn't find a drill file or a board outline. Do you have a translation of his file extensions into something OSH Park understands?
Are you serious? I've never had a problem with the names: .bol = board outline, .cmp = component side, .sol = solder side, .pth = plated through holes, .nph = non-plated holes. .stc = stop component side, .sts = stop solder side. Maybe our European PCB manufacturers are smarter than yours ;-) ;-)
DeleteI've got Rev 1 bridge PCB's available for sale. See the wiki for details. There's also an OSH run in the make, if these come back and are found ok I'll update the gerbers and make the OSH files available.
-- Bas
Bas,
DeleteSometimes I'm a little slow. I finally figured out there are online Gerber viewers that will answer these questions pretty easily. But in the end I got some boards from you, so it's a moot point anyway.
+1 to this - I'm also looking to get a board made.
ReplyDelete