RoadTest: NXP I²C Fm+ Development Board Kit OM13320
Author: atomic_dog
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?: null
What were the biggest problems encountered?: The kit came with the wrong mounting hardware (Standoffs wrong type). Green LED's on GPIO board don't normally trigger when output is set high.
Detailed Review:
NXP’s Fm+ Development kit OM13320 is a well designed board making testing I2C devices simple and convenient. The OM13320 is almost over engineered and I’m sure the designers had a lot of fun making it. Some of the features of the board are test points for many important signals, two logic probe LEDs, and LED indicators on the reset and interrupt lines. It has a ground bar for attaching alligator clips. The attention to detail is reflected in the price though. For hobbyists it may be hard to justify buying it, when you look at the few I2C devices that it comes with. For engineers these features really help save frustration and valuable time. A simple thing like having a ground bar to attach a scope ground to I appreciated.
I did found a few issues and minor annoyances with the hardware. The standoffs that came with the dev kit were the wrong type so there was no way to actually mount the GPIO boards with the hardware supplied. The GPIO boards have LED’s to show high (green) and low (red) states. The green LEDs would only illuminate at Power-On of the board. When setting the GPIO pins high the green LED would not illuminate. One minor annoyance was some LPCxpresso boards like LPC1769 don’t support Fast mode plus on the pins the OM13320 uses. It’s still works for the slower speeds on those pins though. Included in the kit is the bus buffer demo board (OM13398). The OM13398 has limited usefulness to me so I didn’t bother doing much testing of it. There are two of the PCA9617A buffer chips on the OM13398 but they are tied together and right next to each other. When testing a buffer chip I want to see how it handles long or noisy traces and cables. The board seems to be only for testing the level shifting ability of the part.
<to be continued...demo SW review>
