Help me start my single board computer project - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: nick39
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2021, 11:30:30 pm
content: Hi,I'm new to the forum and I would like to ask you guys for ideas on how to start a project. I'm a junior Electronics Engineer and I would like to develop a single board computer similar to a Raspberry pi. I don't have experience designing such a system. So I want to know how should I start such a development. I have experience developing simple boards with much simple microcontrollers like PIC32, AVR, LPC. Should I try to develop a simple system first? and if so what would that be? from what I've been looking at I'll need to learn about DDR memories, SoC, high speed routing, HDMI, and lots of other things. What do you think? I'll appreciate any comment.Thanks!

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2021, 11:43:08 pm
content: You could look at cloning / modifying this board:https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A64/A64-OLinuXino/open-source-hardwareBe prepared for a steep learning curve. Ultimately you can use the schematic and board design as a base for your own design leaving out some components, adding different ones and have a different form factor. Be advised that having a prototype produced can be quite costly and procuring the Allwinner SoC can be tricky. I'm wondering if some of the 'cheap' Chinese prototyping services could assemble a board for a reasonable price including procuring the chips. It could be worth checking this in advance. If you have the time it is a nice project to hone your skills and it is great to put on your resume. Even if you don't get to something which works the experience gained will be worth a lot in your carreer.

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 01:13:04 am
content: The newest raspi sillicon pico rp2040 ichttps://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-silicon-pico-now-on-sale/not affiliated, just discovered this

author: nick39
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 06:51:30 pm
content: I liked the A64-OLinuXino project, I'm going to read more about it and see what I can do.

author: wizard69
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2021, 03:07:46 am
content: You didn't mention what the target use case is. You have two choices, start simple or build something better than a PI4.I'd go simple myself, but far more than the average Arduino board. You would of course want to get as much functionality out of an SOC suitable for embedded usage.Once you decide on a good SoC, hopefully with more than one core, you need to consider what is outside of that SoC. This is where a lot of boards, Arduinos included, fall down. I would think about some carefully designed "standard" I/O. That is I/O preconditioned for a specific usage, say a serially connected, isolated, industrial I/O chip, a keypad scanner chip or maybe an A/D with hardware to support a temperature transducer conditioning already set up. A protected and proper RS232 port should be considered.The idea is this, bare bones development boards are dime a dozen in a vary crowded market. If you instead try to come up with an attractive set of standard features you may get more customers looking for a solution instead of a development board. I look at this from both the perspective of a hobbiest and an industrial user of electronics. Sometimes a well done and debugged solution beats trying to roll you own.Too tired too continue but I hope you get the idea.