Have a question about the Next-Gen BeagleBone? Ask it here!

For anyone else with one of these, see

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/beagleboard/beaglebone-black/G_QjWvBNXvc

you'll probably want to go to http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=Updating_The_Software and get the latest software image (2013.05.3 as of now) before trying to do anything with opkg

you'll probably want to go to http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=Updating_The_Software and get the latest software image (2013.05.3 as of now) before trying to do anything with opkg

Something must have been wrong with the build.  Looks like they pulled it.  I can see it in the change history so you're not a liar

John Beetem wrote:

 

In all cases, you do need a good wiki to back up the forum, and community members who have enough interest to keep the wiki up to date.  Are they updating the Beagle wiki with BBoneBlack lore?

CircuitCo is updating their BeagleBoneBlack wiki pages periodically, and I started adding BBB info to the eLinux BeagleBone wiki page which I maintain, although since I currently lack a BBB myself I can't base it on first-hand experience.

Wikis are wikis though ... those of you who actually have BBBs already, you can help out if you want to.

gryphon wrote:

Something must have been wrong with the build.  Looks like they pulled it.  I can see it in the change history so you're not a liar

2013.05.08 is there right now... quick grab it before it vanishes

dhid wrote:

 

I've been trying to find a fix for a problem I'm having with using HDMI

The notes against the 2013.05.08 release that's recently appeared suggests there may be light at the end of that tunnel..

Audio now supported. Will default to 1280x720 for audio support and should be compatible with TVs and displays.

Fixed bug in HDMI driver that was sending conflicting information to the display.

Until we have some space to work in, I might as well add to this thread:

I've not had much time to experiment with the board recently, but I had an hour today, and I tried powering the board from a battery.

The LiPo was from Olimex, and basically just connects to the pins as according to the SRM table 3:

My LiPo has built-in circuit, so I soldered a 10k resistor to TS and GND. The LiPo connector was convenient to solder to pins TP6 and TP8, and then  a zero-ohm link between TP5 and TP6 on the underside.

I had only a right-angle connector so I bent it appropriately (the connector is on a 2mm pitch whereas the holes are not, so the pins need slight bending, so maybe an already-vertical connector would not have space to bend them)

Plugging it in, the board worked fine, and the serial port allowed for the usual access. I didn't try Ethernet yet.

The battery (Olimex code "BATTERY-LIPO1400mAh") by luck fits flush with the connectors so a daughter board can still be stacked over it in future.

Really I need to write to the config registers to set the charge voltage to 4.2V (the default is 4.1V) but I've not looked to see how to do that yet.

Excellent info and write-up, shabaz.

I have Olimex's OLIMEXINO-STM32, which is a a Cortex-M3 microcontroller board that semi-clones the Maple and provides some Arduino compatibility in its headers.  The white connector at the bottom left of the Olimexino pictures is the LiPo batter connector, the same one which you've attached to your BBB, and works great on the Olimexino.

I'm looking forward to replicating your mod on BBB in due course.

Note to E14 admins.  Useful posts like shabaz's which many people are likely to want to reference in the future are going to get lost through lack of a BeagleBone group.

Very nice post, indeed.

About the lack of BeagleBone group, this BeagleBone Black sub-space in the Knode has similar functionality to a regular group: http://www.element14.com/community/community/knode/dev_platforms_kits/element14_dev_kits/next-gen_beaglebone  Is there something that is lacking?  Or is it just that it is buried too deep under the Knode?

thanks,

drew

I think it's a combination of a few things:

• It's buried deep, as various people have mentioned.
• Groups narrow down searches automatically, whereas in the knode, one is never sure.
• Whatever is the knode anyway?  Abstract memes are a shot in the dark, not sure about this one.
• "next-gen_beaglebone" is a very poor name for a BeagleBone Black group-like container.
• Navigation in the knode is really bad, no link to BBB under element14 Development Kits
• Groups create community and people immediately know what they mean.
• The Pi has a group, it seems reasonable that BBB should get similar support.
• The Google Group for Beagle* is a mess, we could do a lot better here with a specific group.

I won't argue that the knode can't fulfil the role, it probably can in theory.  I'd just question whether it's working in practice.

For a balanced argument, I'll also enumerate some pros for knode and cons for groups:

• The group concept doesn't scale too well.  A group for every board just isn't going to work.
• Groups distort the level playing field.  I bet Olimex isn't happy with the Pi getting special treatment.
• The knode could be nicely hierarchical.  That appeals well to my engineering sensibilities.

So, I do see some advantages to the knode approach, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to offer BBB the same degree of support as Pi is getting.  And until knode's hierarchical navigation is fixed so that at some level under knode you immediately see both Pi and BBB listed, it's not going to work at all.

Addendum.  It's pretty clear that the Element14_dev_kits page (the parent of "next-gen_beaglebone") is structured for high-profile advertising of Featured Products and not for convenient access to popular board resources and discussion groups.  Advertising and engineering support are in direct conflict in this instance, and it's made knode less helpful that it might otherwise be.

The cleanest fix would probably be to go up a level, to knode/dev_platforms_kits/ , and at the top of that page to list "Dev kits with active discussions".  The knode would then be providing hierarchical access to per-board discussions and other resources, semi group-like.  Currently it doesn't.

Drew Fustini wrote:

 

Is there something that is lacking?  Or is it just that it is buried too deep under the Knode?

You can't join the group as such. For example we know there's 8000+ people joined the Ras-Pi group. Here ? Maybe only the dozen or so of us, but no way to know.

Buried way too deep, you really have to know something exists in the knode before you have a hope of finding it. Take this area, the breadcrumbs at the top of the page show:

Home > the knode > Development Platforms and Kits > element14 Development Kits > BeagleBone Black >   Discussions

but if you go back to the e14 homepage and try to follow that trail it stops at element14 Development Kits and the BeagleBone black doesn't appear below that.

Also, why under element14 Development Kits ?  If you don't know it's there you'd be looking for CircuitCo, Ti or something along those lines..

If you go to http://www.element14.com/community/groups?ICID=all_technologies_menubar and 'Search for a Group' you don't find anything relating to beaglebone.

A lot of the same problems exist for other sub-groups in the knode, for example someone recently asked if there was a case for sabre-lite in, I think, the Embedded group (can't find the post today and the embedded group tells me there's no posts found for language english).

I never expected the sabre-lite group to have lots of activity, but given how quickly they seem to sell out you'd expect more.

Same goes for the Black - that Pi vs BeagleboneBlack thread I sometimes wish I hadn't started has generated a good bit more discussion from a wider audience. Very hard to tell just how much of that is due to how well hidden this area is though.

One other thing I noticed is that there seems to be some difference with the search box at the top of the page. You seem to get different results once you're already into the knode. It's hard to tell for sure but the impression I get is that the search from the homepage either doesn't include the knode or ranks the results differently, and once you're into the knode the reverse is true ?  If the search is different and people don't find what they're looking for at first attempt it's likely they'll just move on.

I mentioned that navigation in knode needs to be fixed, but something has to be broken first for it to be fixed.  Navigation in knode isn't broken, it just doesn't exist at all.  Only the advertising seems to have been given much design thought, and totally overwhelms usability.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

• The group concept doesn't scale too well.  A group for every board just isn't going to work.
• Groups distort the level playing field.  I bet Olimex isn't happy with the Pi getting special treatment.

We seem to end up with two almost seperate sites, you have the groups concept which is the default view when you first enter the site. Then there's the knode logically seperate and somewhat hidden.

Is it any surprise that things that have a higher profile due to being more readily accessable, either directly from the homepage or at least from the default view, get more interest ?

I found out the other day that we are able to create groups ourselves. Again, it's not obvious that you can until you find the page with the create group button.  I did contemplate creating a Beaglebone Black group, but thought better of it... Two areas with the same name might just add confusion.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

• The group concept doesn't scale too well.  A group for every board just isn't going to work.
• Groups distort the level playing field.  I bet Olimex isn't happy with the Pi getting special treatment.

We seem to end up with two almost seperate sites, you have the groups concept which is the default view when you first enter the site. Then there's the knode logically seperate and somewhat hidden.

Is it any surprise that things that have a higher profile due to being more readily accessable, either directly from the homepage or at least from the default view, get more interest ?

I found out the other day that we are able to create groups ourselves. Again, it's not obvious that you can until you find the page with the create group button.  I did contemplate creating a Beaglebone Black group, but thought better of it... Two areas with the same name might just add confusion.