Amicus shields

[dhouston]

Do you have a board layout pattern folks can use to create new shields for your Amicus board?.

There's a .PDF with the dimensions needed on this Amicus18 related page.

[Bruce]

Thanks Dave,

I did finally manage to find a shield layout, and I think it's spot-on. I just kinda assumed, since the Arduino & Amicus boards were such an "open platform" that someone that already had shield board layouts would be a tad more "open" with the physical board layouts for shields..;o)

RF Digital has agreed to provide a couple PCBs, parts, and more, so I want to get a shield board ready soon, and was just looking to save a bit of time.

Microchip now offers a PIC32 board that's compatible with the Arduino compiler, shields, and more, so maybe I'll put together a few apps for this one, Arduino, and Amicus boards!

An Arduino compatible board, with a PIC32 processor, running at 80MHz, looks pretty darn enticing.

Check Microchips website for the details. I'm going to grab one and develop a few shields/code examples for them.

The only reason the Arduino is so popular, is because they don't say, buy our boards, buy our shields, or figure it out for yourself - so here's my contribution to the mix. Haven't had a board made yet, but dimensions match one from a link Lester provided. There's a .DXF and DipTrace board file for a blank shield.

Might save someone a few minutes not having to design the shield from scratch, and you can use the free version of DipTrace to make your own shields.

[Gevo]

Hi Dave & Bruce,

I see that the shield dim PDF from me. Ik will take a look for a physical PCB layout.

I think, Microchip get never so much ground in the open source like the Arduino. The Arduino is world famous and very very popular by hobbist, education, profs etc.

But, it will be nice that some shields be compatible.

Good luck, Bruce with the RF shield.

/ Gevo

[dhouston]

Here is my initial layout. It lacks connections and needs a few other tweaks. I'll wait until I receive the Xino Basic board I ordered and until Tibbo releases the long-promised firmware for the EM500/GA1000 combo.

My health won't let me do much besides the prototype. If Bruce or Lester wants to offer it, the layout is my donation. Although, if Crownhill prices the bare shield at the £1199.99 inc. VAT price their web page has for the other bare shields, I'll want a cut should they ever sell one.

These are much larger than life-size. Maybe a moderator can reduce them a bit.

[Gevo]

Nice work Dave,

A big shield for little hardware :-)

I work on a carrierboard with the Ami18 Stamp Module, maybe we have some place for the Tibbo module.

Best regards,
/ Gevo


Yes, the Crownhill shields a little expensive :-)

[dhouston]

A bit of progress - I've identified the terminals along top & bottom of the board and have 3V3 and GND for the EM500 & GA1000. All that I need now are to decide on TX, RX, & RESET for the EM500 and the SPI connections between the EM500 & GA1000. Are there any suggestions for RX, TX & RESET? I don't want to create any conflicts.

The GA1000 page at Tibbo says...

The module utilizes SPI interace and only requires five I/O line to control. Flexible mapping allows your application to use any five available I/O pins.

This applies to EM1000/EM1202/EM1206 but it's unknown whether it will apply to EM500 until Tibbo actually releases the long-promised firmware for the EM500/GA1000 combo.

[dhouston]

In the spirit of the Audino/Amicus/Xino/??? projects I want to make this as universal and flexible as possible.

Looking at the pictures of the Xino Basic board I have on order, they do not have the 4-pin power connector in the upper left corner, so it looks like I need to use the 3V3 from the lower edge.

Also, I would like to use an SMT socket beneath the board for the GA1000 as it should simplify supporting the cantilevered board (e.g. with a stick-on dot) and keep the overall height to a minimum. How much vertical clearance is there on the bottom of the shield?

Eight of the EM500 pins are available as GPIO pins if the EM1000 is not used. I'll try to work out a through-hole pad pattern to allow LEDs or digital inputs. Does anybody make LEDs with internal resistors suitable for 3V3?

Any other thoughts and suggestions?

[dhouston]

I see that the shield dim PDF from me.

I captured it, redrew all the dimensions with a larger, darker font and created a new, more readable PDF.shield_v1.pdf

[jdaniels]

Thank you for posting this...

John

[rmteo]

.....Microchip now offers a PIC32 board that's compatible with the Arduino compiler, shields, and more, so maybe I'll focus on that rather than code or shields for an Amicus board.

An Arduino compatible board, with a PIC32 processor, running at 80MHz, looks pretty darn enticing.

Are you referring to this? http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/...=CHIPKIT-UNO32

[dhouston]

Are you referring to this? http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/...=CHIPKIT-UNO32

That's also missing the 4-pin power connector so it confirms the need for me to use the other power point.

@Any moderator: Why is the EDIT function for recent posts so random? Sometimes I see it but most of the time, no.