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Electronics => Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff => Topic started by: nudge on December 04, 2016, 05:51:59 pm

Title: Open sourcing my microcontroller design (pics inside)
Post by: nudge on December 04, 2016, 05:51:59 pm
Hey all!

Long time lurker, I reckon its about time I contribute back to the community :)

Anyways, I am thinking of open sourcing a microcontroller board that I designed about a year ago. What is the preferred format for open source hardware these days? EAGLE, KiCad, CircuitMaker, etc? The board was originally designed in Altium Designer. This might be a good exercise to start playing around with some other tools. Not sure how difficult it is to export/import designs but might give it a shot -- worst case i'll just open up the Altium design files.

The MCU board is based on a Texas Instruments Piccolo F28069 which is a great little chip. Its zippy (90MHz + FPU and CLA co-processor) and has lots of control oriented peripherals (fast PWMs and ADCs) and has 256KB Flash, 100KB RAM and a USB interface. The original design was for a power converter, but maybe someone will find use for it too.

A cool aspect about this board is that it integrates a USB->JTAG bridge using a FTDI FT2232H which emulates a XDS100 Ver 2.0, so it is possible to program the micro directly via USB ;)

Here's some pictures:
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/open-sourcing-microcontroller-design-which-format/?action=dlattach;attach=275706;image)

(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/open-sourcing-microcontroller-design-which-format/?action=dlattach;attach=275708;image)

(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/open-sourcing-microcontroller-design-which-format/?action=dlattach;attach=275710;image)

(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/open-sourcing-microcontroller-design-which-format/?action=dlattach;attach=275712;image)

(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/open-sourcing-microcontroller-design-which-format/?action=dlattach;attach=275714;image)





Cheers,
David
Title: Re: Open sourcing my microcontroller design (pics inside)
Post by: ebclr on December 05, 2016, 01:42:33 am
A similar board ready top use for 24.99 USD

https://store.ti.com/LAUNCHXL-F28069M-InstaSPIN-MOTION-and-InstaSPIN-FOC-enabled-C2000-Piccolo-LaunchPad-P50823.aspx (https://store.ti.com/LAUNCHXL-F28069M-InstaSPIN-MOTION-and-InstaSPIN-FOC-enabled-C2000-Piccolo-LaunchPad-P50823.aspx)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfUcBFwlW_o (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfUcBFwlW_o)
Title: Re: Open sourcing my microcontroller design (pics inside)
Post by: diyaudio on December 12, 2016, 02:17:08 pm
I really wish companies would make smaller dev boards like these and just drop the ISP section to reduce cost, even though its mandatory they could just sell it as a separate pcb/unit.
 
Title: Re: Open sourcing my microcontroller design (pics inside)
Post by: JoeN on December 12, 2016, 02:29:59 pm
Nice board.  4 layer?  Where did you have it manufactured?  What were the design rules for vias and traces?  Also, why the big crystal for USB and a more modern one for the microcontroller?