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

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:

 

Only the advertising seems to have been given much design thought.

Is it just advertising ?  The numbers we've seen under the 'check more stock' link suggest that someone thinks that the BBB will be popular enough to have lots of them ordered.

Assuming that means they've made a commitment to buying them you'd expect a more prominent feature of them.

I see that there's currently a direct link to here from the top right of the e14 homepage, so hopefully Drew has got the message   but those links don't stay forever and once it goes the higher profile it gives will be lost and we'll vanish back into the bowels of the knode to be forgotten again..

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

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.

As a suggestion let's have a BeagleBone Black only group.  One of the problems I see in the wider community is the lack of distinction between the different beagle boards. So much so that while navigating their wiki looking for info on the eMMC that's only on the Black you're getting directed to stuff for the BeagleBoard xM and it's often more difficult than it needs to be to determine if what you're reading applies to the Black or not.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

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.

As a suggestion let's have a BeagleBone Black only group.  One of the problems I see in the wider community is the lack of distinction between the different beagle boards. So much so that while navigating their wiki looking for info on the eMMC that's only on the Black you're getting directed to stuff for the BeagleBoard xM and it's often more difficult than it needs to be to determine if what you're reading applies to the Black or not.

selsinork wrote:

 

As a suggestion let's have a BeagleBone Black only group.

I think that would be best.  Only the Black will sell in very high volumes from the current Beagle lineup, only the Black is seen as a direct Pi competitor for many applications, and only the Black will result in large numbers of beginner-level questions which we will need to handle helpfully as a community.  A Black-specific group will support that well.

The fact that even E14 staff posts have been scattered all over the map owing to lack of Black focus is funny, but true.

selsinork wrote:

 

As a suggestion let's have a BeagleBone Black only group.  One of the problems I see in the wider community is the lack of distinction between the different beagle boards. So much so that while navigating their wiki looking for info on the eMMC that's only on the Black you're getting directed to stuff for the BeagleBoard xM and it's often more difficult than it needs to be to determine if what you're reading applies to the Black or not.

My preference is to have a BeagleBone group and not discriminate on the basis of soldermask color.  This is somewhat selfish on my part, since I already have a BBone White and I'm not planning to pick up a BBone Black any time soon.

I think the differences between Black and White aren't that great -- it's almost the same processor, and I would hope that the expansion connectors are compatible so you can use the same capes.  So most topics about BBone Black would also apply to White, except for HDMI of course.  Yes, BBone White has built-in USB serial and JTAG but I suspect most users of those aren't going to need as much help.

I do heartily agree with keeping BeagleBones separate from BeagleBoards.  And I don't mind it being called the "BeagleBone Black" group as long as it's clear that Whites are welcome too -- as well as a future  BeagleBone Brown some day

I suppose that's mostly ok.  I'd just prefer we learn from the mistakes that are obvious on some of the wikis where there's no distinguishing lines and clicking on a link supposedly for upgrading the eMMC takes you to instructions for microSD on a board that doesn't have eMMC.

On the subject of capes, most of the stuff I've read, seen as clips on youtube etc tends to gloss over the white/black differences. I've been going through the pinouts of the expansion headers and marking off the ones you can't use due to hdmi/emmc. Without doing the math, it looks like you lose ~70% of P8. And as it also appears that there's no simple way to disable either - you need to send a software command to the eMMC to enable reset before you can disable it and you seemingly need to send something over I2C to the hdmi framer.

So capes could be an interesting experience

As a serious cape related question.. How many capes actually cost less than the Black ? A quick scan through uk.farnell.com suggests not many, so I wonder how the Black will affect the cape ecosystem.

I don't plan on ever using capes myself, but I also realise I'm probably not quite the average target audience for them either  

I possibly would have used one of the DVI capes with the original bone, but adding the cost of those together puts it close enough to a sabre-lite - which probably explains why I never did get the original.

John Beetem wrote:

 

as well as a future  BeagleBone Brown some day

only as long as it leaves the blue leds at the door

selsinork wrote:

 

As a serious cape related question.. How many capes actually cost less than the Black ? A quick scan through uk.farnell.com suggests not many, so I wonder how the Black will affect the cape ecosystem.

There are quite a few sub-US$45 capes at http://boardzoo.com.  Cheap ones tend to be things like proto boards and RS-232RS-232 interfaces.  I hope that BBone Black will drive down the prices of capes through volume.

Incidentally, I rather like blue LEDs.  But then I lived through the 1980s when blue LEDs were the "holy grail" of optoelectronics -- you could have any color up to green.  Maybe you can convert your hated blue LEDs to yellow by dabbing on a bit of phosphor -- that's how cheap "white" LEDs are made.

You might want to check out http://www.adafruit.com. They have a proto cape for the BeagleBone at US$8.99. The connector headers need to

be soldered in (they are included). I'm not sure about the quality (double sided FR4)  but adafruit tends to have good products. It is also sold by

MCM electronics http://www.mcmelectronics.com.

John Beetem wrote:

 

My preference is to have a BeagleBone group and not discriminate on the basis of soldermask color.  This is somewhat selfish on my part, since I already have a BBone White and I'm not planning to pick up a BBone Black any time soon.

 

I think the differences between Black and White aren't that great -- it's almost the same processor, and I would hope that the expansion connectors are compatible so you can use the same capes.  So most topics about BBone Black would also apply to White, except for HDMI of course.

Although everything you say about "more similarities than differences" is true, that's exactly the same reasoning that the Beagleboard devs give for not separating out the BeagleBones from the BeagleBoards.  I guess it's a matter of perception.  They see everything they do as a unit under Angstrom, and don't want to see any partitioning,  Unfortunately we've seen and discussed the confusion that their mixing of the boards causes, even when they don't see it.  For total newbies the head scratching is likely to be even worse.

Although like yourself I have a white BeagleBone, I support selsinork's suggestion for an Element 14 group to be named "BeagleBone Black" because that's the board that's going to sell in very large volumes and require a large amount of beginner-level community support, just like the Pi does.  The white BB will not, simply because it's not in the same price niche.

A BBB-specific group would support the rapidly expanding new community of BBB users better it seems to me, and adding white BB to the mix will probably reduce clarity of discussions for these new users.  It's no hardship for BB old timers to add "This also applies to white BB" in appropriate places, rather than as a default.  It's we who are going to be doing the BBB support as new BBB purchasers arrive, so whatever makes that easier gets my vote.

Anyway, it's all academic, since it's clear from Drew's response that they're not going to give BBB group support on a par with Pi.  As a result we'll never know how popular BBB is becoming since there will be no BBB group membership information, and how many BBB users get eaten by lions as they try to navigate the knode jungle will never be known.

Morgaine.