RoadTest: Omron Sensor Evaluation Board 2JCIE-EV
Author: rsc
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Development Boards & Tools
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?: DHT22 temperature and humidity sensor = $9.95, FLIR lepton = $159, Sparkfun Razor MPU9250 IMU = $35.95 2JCIE-EV01-RP1 = $95.37, D6T-1A-02 = $16.41
What were the biggest problems encountered?: The specifications and schematic have some features that are not discussed in the documentation like the 3 LEDs.
Detailed Review:
Omron Sensor Evaluation Board 2JCIE-EV01-RP1.
This road test is for the Omron sensor kit for Raspberry Pi.
Unboxing:
The kit contained a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2GB RAM, a 2JCIE-EV01-RP1 Sensor Evaluation board,
a D6T-1A-02 Digital Thermal Sensor -40C to 80C module, and two 2JCIE-HARNESS-01.
I already had a SD set up for RPi 4, so I powered up the RPi 4 and checked that it was working.
Hardware:
The sensor board comes with several interesting sensors populated:
1) Omron MEMS digital barometric pressure sensor - 2SMPB-02E
2) Texas Instruments ambient light sensor - OPT3001-DNPR
3) Sensirion Temperature and humidity sensor - SHT30-DIS-B
4) STMicroelectronics MEMS digital motion sensor - LIS2DW12
5) Knowles MEMS microphone - SPH0645LM4H-B
6) 3 user LEDs - not listed in the manual???
There is an on-board voltage converter for the I2C bus also.
Initial Setup:
The sensor board came with a 40-pin mating connector for the RPi GPIO, but I chose to use a stackable version instead.
These are the GPIO pins used by the board.
With the connector soldered on, the sensor board stacked nicely on top of the RPi.
There are 2 mounting holes that line up with the holes on the RPi also if needed.
The external sensor I chose to evaluate is the Omron D6T MEMS thermal sensor.
The D6T-1A-01 plugs into CN5 on the board.
Be careful if you have this board and intend to use CN4 for a QWIIC connection,
The CN4 wiring on the 2JCIE-EV01-RP1 board is opposite of my SparkFun QWIIC boards wiring.
I had to make an adapter cable.
CN4 SCL Pin1 - Pin4 SparkFun QWIIC
CN4 SDA Pin2 - Pin3 SparkFun QWIIC
CN4 3v3 Pin3 - Pin2 SparkFun QWIIC
CN4 GND Pin4 - Pin1 SparkFun QWIIC
The RPi 4 runs a bit warm, so I have an added cooling fan and heat sinks on my dev boards.
Software:
I compiled all the Omron example programs (written in C) and ran them with no problems.
As you can see, the illumination sensor changed value from 190 (ambient) to 13 (covered) to 37396 (flashlight)
The humidity sensor output agreed with my other environmental sensors in the room, and the
accelerometer outputs followed gravity as they should.
I spent some time working with the Omron D6T-1A-02 Digital Thermal Sensor, and was pleasantly surprised
at the performance even though it only has one sensing element. When I pointed it at an ice cube about 20cm away, it read -1.5C
I was working with a 4 line x 20 character LCD display, so I added the LCD code to the D6T code and after moving a few GPIO
lines that were conflicting, it displayed the D6T data nicely.
I used the wiringPi library, so the GPIO pins are numbered for wiringPi
I've attached the D6T-1A.c file that I added the LCD code to.
I was surprised that the examples for RPi were in C and not Python.
I have a project at work that I may be able to add this board to, but I'm not sure how much new information it will give me
with the sensors so close to the RPi.
Summary:
The Omron Sensor Evaluation Board 2JCIE-EV01-RP1 is a compact add-on for RPi with several interesting sensors, although since all the sensors are
so close to the RPi, some values may be influenced by the board proximity. I haven't exercised all the features of each sensor yet, I'll add to this post as I experiment further.
One difficulty for electronics designers these days is that the new sensors are small smds, so prototyping on a breadboard is not possible. Boards like this one allow
the designers to experiment with the sensors without having to make their own PCBs. Personally, I'd rather have each sensor on a separate breakout board
so that it can be located where the sensing needs to be done.
The Omron D6T-1A-02 Digital Thermal Sensor is very interesting and I think I need to purchase some of the multi-cell versions to experiment with.
I didn't test out the MEMS microphone yet, but I have an idea for a bird-watchers trail-cam with audio capture that could use this board.
