"With the popularity of ultrabook and tablet computers, the industry unknowingly gave birth to a single board computer, such as raspberry pie, beaglebone and pcduino. They not only have the basic functions of ordinary computers, but also have a compact and convenient body that even ultrabook and tablet computers are inferior to. They evolved from development boards and are usually equipped with open-source systems, such as Linux and Android, NetBSD is available for engineers, electronics enthusiasts, students, learning or DIY. Is this the inevitable product of the times, or the development of alternative fashion of electronic products, or just a fleeting flash in the pan? Aiban will witness it with the majority of netizens through time!
Today, I have the honor to get a Chinese version of beaglebone black produced by Shenzhen yingbeite technology
Inside the box
Beaglebone black
Although I first came into contact with the board of beaglebone series, I have to marvel at its design. Like the masterpiece of art masters, it looks simple but not simple. People can't help liking it. The author specially found out the previous white beaglebone. In contrast, the black one is more calm and atmospheric, the white one is more young and fashionable, and has its own characteristics, but compared with the white one, the black one has better performance and lower price.
Speaking of such an attractive beaglebone black development board, who is its designer---- Beagleboard.org, a famous open source community abroad
We can't help but wonder, isn't this a foreign community website? How did beaglebone black come to China?
In China, there is such an enterprise that focuses on global embedded hardware and software and provides a perfect embedded development environment for local engineers, electronics enthusiasts and students. The company's team with great value and strength has been recognized by TI company, authorized to produce and sell beaglebone black in China, and served as TI's official long-term partner in China. This enables our netizens to experience the surprise brought by beaglebone black for the first time, and can easily and quickly get the Chinese technical support provided by Internet.
At the same time, Bette also cooperated with aiban.com to sell the Chinese version of BB black in aiban.com Mall for the first time. Those who are interested can go and have a look.
Next, we will enter the world of beaglebone black and appreciate its unique charm.
Basic characteristics
The length and width of this single board computer are 86.36mm * 54.61mm respectively. The dark and inky single board computer is really the size of a credit card
Both sides of the board are covered with numerous devices, but the layout of the devices is so staggered that the designer must spend a lot of effort on careful design
1. Meguiar 512MB DDR3 SDRAM memory
2. Ti am3359 processor
3. Ti power management IC
4. NXP HDMI IC
5. Meguiar 2G EMMC flash memory
6. SMSC ETHERNET PHY
7. NXP ESD IC device
The peripheral interface of a board determines that we can maximize the function of the board. Will beaglebone black surprise us?
One HDMI D type interface (16 bit color output, supporting audio output)
One LCD interface (supporting 24 bit output and led out by P8 expansion interface)
One 10 / 100M Ethernet interface (RJ45 connector)
A high-speed USB 2.0 OTG interface (Mini USB B connector) with PHY integrated
A high-speed USB 2.0 host interface (USB type a connector) integrated with phy
One TF card interface (compatible with SD / MMC)
One 3-wire debugging serial port (6-pin 2.54 pitch connector)
One HDMI D type connector
Two expansion interfaces, which can expand LCD, UART, EMMC, ADC, I2C, SPI, PWM and other interfaces
One JTAG interface (20 pin standard interface, no welded connector by default)
It's hard to imagine that a board the size of a bank card can carry so many interfaces. For engineers who often contact the development board, in addition to HDMI, other interfaces are still very common on the development board. As a single board computer, video output is essential. HDMI just plays an important role. Compared with a single VGA interface, HDMI interface can transmit image and sound at the same time. With the popularity of HDMI interface in household flat-panel TV, we have reason to believe that HDMI interface is an essential part of electronic products in the future.
Power on start
The inux system version of beaglebone black in China is bbb-emmc-flash-2013.04.13-ddr3-400mhz.img.xz
Next, power on and start the system. First, you need to prepare a display with DVI or HDMI interface, an hdmi-d tye to standard HDMI interface or DVI interface line, which is determined according to the interface of your display. Of course, if you use a VGA interface display, you want to realize video output through the adapter, Special attention should be paid to the following points: the model of self-healing fuse RT1 of beaglebone black is rxef010
The holding current and starting breaking current are 100mA and 200mA respectively
The general VGA video output current will exceed 200mA. If the current exceeds the limit of the current maintained by the self recovery fuse through the VGA interface, RT1 will change to the high resistance state, and the power supply voltage of the HDMI interface will be disconnected. At this time, the display will have no video output
The author used the VGA interface to switch the display. As a result, the screen was black within a few seconds, and the self recovery fuse was still hot. Therefore, it is recommended that qualified netizens try not to use the VGA interface display to realize video output through switching, and it is not recommended that some thoughtful netizens want to bypass RT1 to realize HDMI interface power supply. Since the designer selects 200mA current limiting fuse here, Certainly from the perspective of board safety, your impulse may destroy your beloved beaglebone black.
To get back to business, beaglebone black can be powered by USB port or external 5V DC transformer
Because the board is attached with a USB data cable, the following will use the USB cable for power supply. First connect the HDMI cable (do not plug the HDMI cable with power), and then plug in the USB cable for power supply
After power on, the four LED lights will light up in sequence. The author estimates that it took nearly 55s from power on to entering the built-in Linux system desktop
Here, some people can't help but wonder whether the system of the development board is started after connecting the display with HDMI. If there is no HDMI cable or no available display, how can I judge whether the beaglebone black system is started?
Here is another way to identify the startup of beaglebone black system, which can help you. First of all, you must have a computer, a serial cable, preferably a DuPont cable that can DIY, and a software super terminal that can view serial communication.
Some netizens who have played beaglebone will ask if the serial port is not transferred through the USB cable? Here we want to popularize the difference between beaglebone and beaglebone black serial port design.
Beaglebone adopts USB debugging serial port, which is controlled by USB signal line through usb2412 hub
Then it is converted into UART signal through serial port interface IC ft2232l
Beaglebone black uses a three wire 3.3V TTL debugging serial port
Therefore, beaglebone Black's serial port debugging cannot be realized through the USB port like beaglebone. When using serial port debugging, we must also lead out from the J1 port in a regular manner. In this way, some netizens can't help but wonder. Does beaglebone Black's USB port only have a power supply function?
The answer is no! We speak with facts
You can see that in the windows system, when you plug in the USB cable, a 69.4MB drive letter with beaglebone's iconic log will be displayed. Click the drive letter, which contains many files, including start.htm, license, environment variables, applications, drivers, etc.
We open the driver folder and install the driver under windows
The author's computer is a 32-bit win7 system, so the 32-bit driver installed, regardless of the installation prompt information, is yes all the way. After installation, a gadget serial serial port appears
However, the serial port does not realize the serial port debugging function through the USB port, which can also be seen from the schematic diagram of beaglebone Black's USB interface design
Therefore, if we want to use the serial port function, we must lead it out from the J1 port. From the definition of the serial port schematic diagram, we can see that Pin1, pin4 and pin5 of J1 port are the anchor, RX and TX of MCU respectively. Correspondingly, the anchor for connecting the serial port signal, TX and Rx. The author uses a USB to serial port module to facilitate various DIY, as shown in the following figure
Why do I need a USB to serial port module to connect? If you don't understand, please refer to the working principle of the serial port in the evaluation of dm-stf4bb base board of Intel discover-mo:) series. After setting these, we connect the USB to serial port module to the PC, install the corresponding USB to serial port driver, and open the super terminal. For the settings of the super terminal, please refer to the settings in the evaluation (II) of the lnbert Smurfs lpc11c00 development board. Finally, connect the USB cable to supply power to beaglebone black, and the super terminal starts to print the startup information of Linux system
From the log printed by the super terminal, we can see the factory version. If there is a problem with the system startup, it may also be reflected in the printed log. Therefore, as an electronic enthusiast, the super terminal must make good use of it. Finally, it appears in the Linux system login prompt box
When beaglebone login appears, you can basically judge that your system has started normally. Enter root to enter the Linux standard text system. It takes almost 20 seconds from Linux startup to beaglebone login prompt box, which is a little different from the 10 second startup seen before. I don't know whether there is a problem with the computer comparison card or the wire, resulting in a delay in the printed log. However, overall, beaglebone's performance is quite good.
A possible problem
At present, there are two versions of beaglebone black on the market, the American version and the Chinese version. There is no difference in hardware and software. I have seen many netizens get all kinds of surprises from beaglebone black, but some careful netizens will find a problem. The Chinese version of beaglebone black has a board plugged into a USB cable, and there is no 69.4MB drive letter on the computer. I'm worried about whether I bought a bad board, In fact, this problem can be solved by ourselves, not the board.
terms of settlement
1. According to the above method of testing whether the system is started under windows, enter the super terminal Linux system login interface, and enter root to enter the Linux system
2. Enter the command x=/usr/bin/g-ether-load.sh; sed -e 's/SERIAL_ NUMBER=/x=/g' $x > x; rm $x; mv x $x; chmod a+x $x; sync; After completion, restart to drive automatic loading; If you need to install the driver manually, run the command modprobe G_ multi file=/dev/mmcblk0p1 cdrom=0 stall=0 removable=1 nofua=1 The system automatically installs the USB driver. At this time, you can see the 69.4MB drive letter on the computer
Update system
Whether you are a student in school, an electronic enthusiast who loves DIY, or an engineer who focuses on R & D, it is essential to update the system version. The system update often means a more perfect function and safer system. However, seeing that it takes 45 minutes to update the system, it is estimated that many netizens will not want to try to be the "first crab eater", No, love board net takes the lead for everyone!
Preparation before update
Prepare an additional SD card larger than 4G and a card reader
1. Go to the Internet system version update website to download the latest system
2. After entering the web page, select last modified and the latest system version for download. We can see from the above figure that the latest version is dated May 20, 2013
3. After downloading, it is about a 363m compressed file. Decompress it. The decompressed image file is about 3.4GB.
4. Go to the website provided by Internet to download the SD card burning tool win32diskimager
The preparation work is completed and the burning is officially started
Insert the SD card into the PC with the card reader, open win32diskimager, select the image file path, check MD5 hash, and click write
Click Yes
Start burning
Burning completed
Remove the card reader, pull out the SD card, insert it into the beaglebone black SD card slot, and press and hold the USB boot button
Plug in the USB cable for power supply, wait until the four LEDs light up in turn, and release the USB boot button. It is said that the button is really designed to be a pit father. The author can only hold his hand with his fingertips, and he is worried that he hasn't pressed it from time to time.
。。。。。
Almost after a long 48 minute cold winter, the four LED lights finally lit continuously at the same time, which is the sign of the completion of the system version update
Sure enough, disconnect the power supply, remove the SD card (the SD card needs to be pressed inward, and then taken out. Do not forcibly unplug it), plug in the serial port cable, open the super terminal, and finally connect the USB cable for power supply.
Start information of serial port printing
Successfully entered the Linux system login interface
We can see that the system version is successfully updated and the Linux kernel is upgraded to kernel 3.8
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