As the old adage goes, every Electronic Engineer is a maker, but not all makers are Electronic Engineers. Because of this fact, many Makers tend to adopt a single development board and tool chain as it is just too expensive to be able to afford a completely different setup for each and every processor one might want to develop with. Sure I may have in excess of 150 different development boards and the accessories to go with them, but that is only because manufacturers send them to me for review. I have so many development boards now that I have officially ran out of room on my workbench as well as in a filing cabinet drawer where I keep many of the older boards.
**Just a quick disclaimer to ensure full transparency, I know the founders of E3 Embedded Systems personally, and am featured in their upcoming Kickstarter campaign, in video and text mentions.**
Most of the first PIEP System kit I was given by E3 Embedded Systems. Missing are a few processor boards, some peripheral boards, cables, and accessories.
About a year ago I was approached by a company called E3 Embedded Systems about consulting on a new development board project they were working on. I met with them at my local Makerspace, theClubhou.se, and we spent the better half of the day talking about their system, its goals, and what could make it better. I stayed in touch with E3 over the next several months, and just a few weeks ago, I received the very first full set of their new Processor Independent Embedded Platform, or PIEP for short.
PIEP is just what it says it is, a processor independent embedded electronics development platform that utilizes several different processors from several different manufacturers. This allows the engineer, student, maker, or anyone else to develop their project or product using the same peripheral modules and same connections, while just swapping out a processor module. This is made possible by E3 Embedded's unique main board that allows not only the peripherals to be easily swapped out, but to also allow different processors to be swapped out. The PIEP system takes advantage of the SPI, I2C and UART busses to add several snap-in peripheral modules at a time.
Modules can be stacked on top of each other as well as side by side, and E3 has almost every module you can think of, and more being developed every day. In the video above, you can see a very cool solder re-flow oven that E3 Embedded Systems built as a proof of concept using the PIEP system. I have a full review of the PIEP system going live in a few days so stay tuned to my blog here as well as TheMakersWorkbench.com for my full review along with full coverage of the company's Kickstarter campaign which is expected to go live later this week. Until then, enjoy these photos from my kit (PS. this isn't half of the modules!)
E3's PIEP Kickstarter Campaign is now live! Check it out and back the project if you can!
Here is the top-side of the PIEP main-board.
The processor-side of the PIEP main-board.
The PIEP H-Bridge motor driver peripheral .
The PIEP type K thermocouple peripheral.
The PIEP CAN Tranceiver peripheral .
The PIEP 3-digit 7-segment LED display peripheral .
The PIEP tactile button peripheral.
The PIEP motion sensor peripheral.
The PIEP Peizo Buzzer peripheral.
This is the PIEP Arduino / Arduino shield adaptor peripheral. There will be more coverage on this in my full review.
