I noticed on the Arduino Yun product page that there is only a partial board schematic, not featuring the Linux/WiFi part of the Arduino Yun, and no editable design file.
This is different from all other Arduino boards until today, for which full schematics and editable design files have been made available.
And the "MIPS 24K" block in the schematic cannot just be the AR9331 SoC alone: the AR9331 chip is a 148-pin, 12 mm x 12 mm dual-row LPCC package, without any built-in SDRAM or Flash memory, requiring a handful of support components.
Hi squonk,
I guess the WIFI module with the shield may be similar to WR703n, the one you once did the reverse engineer on it(Very amazing, and so appreciate).
I don't see any special on arduino yun schematic, biggest difference maybe the USB-Hub chip intergrated with the SD card reader.
Thanks for what you did on the RT5350 chip to make openwrt run on it.
gaplee:
I guess the WIFI module with the shield may be similar to WR703n, the one you once did the reverse engineer on it(Very amazing, and so appreciate).
Thanks gaplee!
The WR703N is a commercial product, so there was no other choice... I hope this is not the case with the notoriously Open Hardware Arduino platform!
gaplee:
I don't see any special on arduino yun schematic, biggest difference maybe the USB-Hub chip intergrated with the SD card reader.
Yes, I know the AU6350-MGL chip, very good choice, although you can't get it easily at your corner shop.
gaplee:
Thanks for what you did on the RT5350 chip to make openwrt run on it.
This might help answer some questions....?
Adafruit's "Ask an Engineer" show w/ guest Massimo Banzi. They start talking about Yun, and what's beneath the metal shield at around the 17 minute mark.
1ChicagoDave:
This might help answer some questions....?
Adafruit's "Ask an Engineer" show w/ guest Massimo Banzi. They start talking about Yun, and what's beneath the metal shield at around the 17 minute mark.
lock:
I think that if you wanna see the schematic you'd better go to SoC development platform, something like "evalue board", which comes with schematic and such a detailed hw stuff. "Carambola" boards may be interesting.
No, the Carambola doesn't give you the module schematic either, only the uninteresting connectors and passive stuff...
lock:
About WR703N i think it is a toy, poor ram (32Mbyte), poor flash(4Mb), hardcoded uboot's env, no good at all! Also only 2 usable gpio.
You can find some hacks to upgrade the RAM to 64MB and the Flash to 16MB, or buy some already upgraded for you.
The hardcoded environment is really not a big problem, since you don't spend your life in there:)
As for the GPIOs: Linux is far from real-time, and beside blinking a LED with these GPIOs, it is not very useful. The best thing to do is to connect it to a microcontroller to delegate the real-time GPIO control. In this regard, the Arduino is a very good choice IMHO.
There are cheaper alternatives to the WR703N, like the TopLink TOP-AP01:
lock:
From my point of view the SoC is just an accessory around arduino, something like the wifi shield, so you could see it as "black box", something you can talk through the bridge on the serial port. Also, why do you want to toy with a very complicated piece of hardware ? Soldering and handling the Atheros SoC is not a piece of cake, so any really reason to have much more details about.
The WiFi "black box" is what makes the Yun different from the Leonardo!
Why are you tinkering with an Arduino? You have to wire stuff, solder components, why don't you just program on a PC;)
This is all about learning, building stuff to understand how it is working, knowledge and freedom: you know, all these boring matters...
lock:
p.s.
also you can appreciate how pretty complicated is the firmware on the uboot side, just have a look about the early boot, DDR stuff, TLB, etc, 10000:1 the complexness of arduino bootloader, so you can't really think to handle a so complicated object from scratches, simply silly, not possible for hobby! May be possible for a skilled team, but we are speaking of a job task.
Yes, you are right: even if this is complex, you can actually LOOK INTO IT! This is the whole point: open hardware/software provides you the ability to understand how things work, the limits are yours.
So it is possible indeed... And fun! It just requires a few skilled hobbyists around the Internet. Been there, done that! Actually, pretty rewarding: you learn a lot, and meet some very interesting people!
It is a sad day if we loose this open hardware/software characteristic for the Arduino.
Yeah, but given tha little information there, it sounds like a message in a bottle :~
I wish the promises on the Arduino website home page are still true:
The boards can be built by hand or purchased preassembled; the software can be downloaded for free. The hardware reference designs (CAD files) are available under an open-source license, you are free to adapt them to your needs.
The wiki.openwrt has poor informations about, but the most relevant thing is that it has a common jtag interface which i need for the most. Wandering where i can buy one of these unit, it seems interesting!
From the latest product, Yun, Arduino REFUSES providing EAGLE files (including hardware PCB,CAD files and the placement files) on the official website.
Arduino seems to try to become a company selling hardware all for profit.
The promises NO more extends:
"The boards can be built by hand or purchased preassembled; the software can be downloaded for free. The hardware reference designs (CAD files) are available under an open-source license, you are free to adapt them to your needs."
I don't have any problem with someone making money or selling a name, but I am concerned when you don't respect your promises and treat people like cash providers and pretend to be community-driven.