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Minnowboard

Former Member

Just received the minnowboard today, so here's a couple of first impressions.

 

Two and a bit times the size of a BeagleBone Black, but still tiny for a x86

 

LED's are green, not blue image

 

Angstrom. image

 

5v input takes 1.5A sitting at the desktop with just monitor, keyboard/mouse and 1G network connection.

 

It runs warm.

 

There's a mac address on a sticky label, but the board seems to have a different one, looks like it could be a default or test one: DE:AD:01:FF:xx:xx

some stuff in the yocto mailing list suggests there were firmware problems leading to the mac being stored in an EFI variable at one point, so I'll have to dig into that.

 

'reboot' doesn't, probably an angstrom bug.

 

No rtc battery included.  It's annoying that other boards (RPi, BBB, Sabre-Lite etc) don't have useable rtc's at all, but to have gone to the bother of having the battery holder and not include a battery is just annoying.

 

Supplied with psu that has a US 2-pin plug on it.  While I understand these are made in the US, that's not really a good enough excuse when they're being sold elsewhere.  The SL did the same even though it's built in China.  e14 if you're listening, stop doing this, these useless psu's are going straight to landfill.

A good example to follow would be the freescale i.MX5-QSB which came with a PSU that had a swappable plug and enough adapters to cover most of the world. Otherwise, rather than a wall-wart, just put in a PSU that has a standard IEC inlet. Letting the user source a local power lead would make lots more sense.

 

Seemingly no Lures (their version of cape/shield) actually available at this point.  When you follow the links through the wiki to get a part number for the required connector you get a digikey part number, you then have to translate that to the manufacturers (TE / AMP) part number, then find the version of that part number that isn't a reel of 1000.  Nice one CircuitCo.  For anyone who might be interested it seems that uk.farnell.com part numbers are 10983481098348 & 10983531098353 for 5mm and 9mm high versions.

Usefully, there are 8 gpios on a normal 0.1" header (duplicated on the high density connector too) so some out of the box experimentation is possible.

The one Lure you're likely to think essential is the BoB (or Break out Board),  http://www.elinux.org/Minnowboard:Bob_Lure luckily it's quite simple and the schematics & gerbers are available, so reasonably possible to build your own. I have the feeling that I'll modify it slightly to bring out the second sata port at the very least.

 

They have the same 'dual-use' warning on the despatch note as Beaglebone Black. This will likely mean extra paperwork when you order one, depending on where you live, see http://www.element14.com/community/thread/26383?tstart=30

 

Some of you will no doubt be thinking I've gone mad, given the price of this. You may well be right image 

So here's a couple of the reasons I think it's interesting:

Being x86 opens up certain choices in OS, you don't need to wait for someone to port Raspbian for example.

Having an intel gpu, means driver support is likely to be better. (How good, or bad, the gpu is remains to be seen.)

Intel have been pushing support for chipsets like this into the mainline linux kernel for a number of years, so less likelyhood of being stuck on some ancient buggy kernel while a vendor procrastinates.

 

The downsides are higher power consumption, some x86 baggage and UEFI

 

Some photos:

image

 

image

image

Yes, it comes with the standoffs and feet..

image

Parents

  • selsinork wrote:

     

    Supplied with psu that has a US 2-pin plug on it.  While I understand these are made in the US, that's not really a good enough excuse when they're being sold elsewhere.  The SL did the same even though it's built in China.  e14 if you're listening, stop doing this, these useless psu's are going straight to landfill.

     

    A good example to follow would be the freescale i.MX5-QSB which came with a PSU that had a swappable plug and enough adapters to cover most of the world.

     

    E14 admins, please pass selsinork's comments to your engineering division.

     

    E14 engineers, please adopt selsinork's excellent suggestion above as an explicit engineering requirement.  Consider it E14's contribution to slightly reducing the environmental impact of making cool boards.

  • in reply to morgaine

    Morgaine Dinova wrote:

     

    selsinork wrote:

     

    A good example to follow would be the freescale i.MX5-QSB which came with a PSU that had a swappable plug and enough adapters to cover most of the world.

     

    E14 admins, please pass selsinork's comments to your engineering division.

     

    E14 engineers, please adopt selsinork's excellent suggestion above as an explicit engineering requirement.  Consider it E14's contribution to slightly reducing the environmental impact of making cool boards.

    Pictures are better than words, I'm in the UK, so need one of these:

    image

    You likely need something different, depending on where in the world you are.

     

    The SL and Minnow come with these

    image

     

    The i.MX5-QSB came with this

    image

    just pick the adapter plate for your location.  This still lets the manufacturer blindly drop in a single PSU type, but far fewer will get binned 10 seconds after opening the box.

  • in reply to Former Member

    selsinork wrote:

     

    The i.MX5-QSB came with this

    image

    just pick the adapter plate for your location.  This still lets the manufacturer blindly drop in a single PSU type, but far fewer will get binned 10 seconds after opening the box.

    And to optimize costs and reduce landfill still further, in each jurisdiction they could add in just the single appropriate adapter plate.

Reply
  • in reply to Former Member

    selsinork wrote:

     

    The i.MX5-QSB came with this

    image

    just pick the adapter plate for your location.  This still lets the manufacturer blindly drop in a single PSU type, but far fewer will get binned 10 seconds after opening the box.

    And to optimize costs and reduce landfill still further, in each jurisdiction they could add in just the single appropriate adapter plate.

Children
  • in reply to morgaine

    Morgaine Dinova wrote:

     

    And to optimize costs and reduce landfill still further, in each jurisdiction they could add in just the single appropriate adapter plate.

    Not actually sure why they don't ship them without the adapter and have the distys add the correct one for the end users location.  You see that sort of thing with PC/Laptop/Servers where the box has a flap that opens to allow the disty to drop in the correct power cable.