RoadTest: Freescale Xtrinsic Accelerometer Cube Demo
Author: BikeViolin
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Evaluation Boards
Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True
What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?:
What were the biggest problems encountered?:
Detailed Review:
This part really is just a demo board, using it in any other application requires a programmer, the cheapest of which is around 70 GBP.
24 GBP for a board that gives a basic idea of the capabilities of this device doesn't really seem worth it to me.
The Demo software seems to be trying to demonstrate too many features at once, the interface is counter intuitive, individual colours have many different meanings depending on how the LEDs are flashing. Having said that, the high-g, high frequency and freefall filters work nicely, as does the orientation sensing, there just needs to be a clearer difference betweent the three.
If you want to evaluate a device, you want to be able to access the main features of it, this product offers very limited breakout of device pins. Beside those required for programming, there is also an I2C slave interface broken out which is capable of upto 2MHz clock speed, any applications requiring higher speed interface have no use for this demo board, despite the device having an SPI slave interface with the same functionality.
Unless you are willing to spend the 100 GBP total to get a programmer aswell, this board is little more than a flashing toy which gives a basic demonstration of the devices human interface speed capabilities.
