Well, I just ordered a new new batch of Arduino gear. This time it’s a couple of Mega 2560s and 3 Arduino Dues. I’ve been working on projects that need more connectors and more space on the processor that a Arduino Uno R3 provides.

Like it says the the Arduino website,

The Arduino Mega 2560 is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega2560. It has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 15 can be used as PWM outputs), 16 analog inputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial ports), a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. The Mega 2560 board is compatible with most shields designed for the Uno.

And the site says this about the Due,

The Arduino Due is a microcontroller board based on the Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3 CPU. It is the first Arduino board based on a 32-bit ARM core microcontroller. It has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 12 can be used as PWM outputs), 12 analog inputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial ports), a 84 MHz clock, an USB OTG capable connection, 2 DAC (digital to analog), 2 TWI, a power jack, an SPI header, a JTAG header, a reset button and an erase button.

Warning: Unlike most Arduino boards, the Arduino Due board runs at 3.3V. The maximum voltage that the I/O pins can tolerate is 3.3V. Applying voltages higher than 3.3V to any I/O pin could damage the board.

The board contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a micro-USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. The Due is compatible with all Arduino shields that work at 3.3V and are compliant with the 1.0 Arduino pinout.

The big with this one is the power requirements.

Here’s a photo of my IoT work area. The laptop and desktop can be moved when I need more room. I’ve also added a few cheapo oscilloscopes to the mix that I also use for my music pursuits.

Well, I haven’t had anything to gripe about since I finally got my Snickerdoodle Black, but I haven’t had a chance to delve into it, since I have other projects that I’ve been working on. I’m in between contracts, but the holiday season has put a crimp on “work” time. Besides the Snickerdoodle Black, I’ve got a number of Raspberry Pis, a few Pine A64s, 2 TinyFPGA BXs and about a half dozen Arduino Unos. Nothing like a little variety to keep the creative juices flowing. Bought a new laptop to put all the IDEs on because it was a pain to keep on cluttering up my office with all the detritus from the little boards and all the peripherals. Bought some cases for the Unos and they got delivered today. Hope to be posting some of my investigations on GitHub or GitLab. I don’t know if I’ll post notices here or on Objectnets.org, so keep an eye on both places.

Finally some good, maybe great news! I got an email saying my snickerdoodle black and piSmasher have shipped. Now all i need is the rest of my order, the power supply and SD card with OS to ship. Of course the main reason for ordering this was to develop a product, but the cost increase has made it infeasible.

It’ll still be interesting to develop some software for this product, I haven’t done FPGA programing for 15 years, and I’m sure things have changed.

Well, more “news” from krtkl: the rest of the preorders of snickerdoodle black have finally arrived, less some parts. So I guess that means shipments will take place in the next couple of months unless there are more delays. I placed my order March 2016, 2 1/2 years ago. And the piSmasher still hasn’t shipped, even though it’s 3 times the price I ordered it at. I’d say these products are the ultimate fail. Makes me hesitant to back any more non-shipping products lest I get involved in another vaporware product.

Well, finally got another update from krtkl:

Also, in snickerdoodle news…another shipment of ~200 boards just landed at Crowd Supply and we’ve started the next batch of snickerdoodle blacks. Combined, this will represent the LAST of the preordered snickerdoodles – we made it!!! These are likely still several weeks from shipping, but the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to get a lot brighter.

Well, it is progress, but it’s been over 2 years in the making, and I haven’t gotten it yet.

Well, finally got an update from krtkl about snickerdoodle. No mention of the snickerdoodle black, bu there was this:

This could be a LOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGG wait. Two more months (at least).

Edit:

Oops, I didn’t read the whole update, they state:

• 100 more snickerdoodle blacks (including the last of the ‘connectors up’ preorders) are scheduled to be delivered to Crowd Supply by the end of June.
• piSmasher is going to fab the last week of May; if all goes according to plan, we should (finally) be shipping production units by mid July.

That’s still 2 months out, unless the dates slip again.

No updates from krtkl since April 10, 2018. I don’t know if I even care when it arrives. There’s no way I’d give them anymore money if I was to develop a product using the snickerdoodle black. Time to look more for alternate platforms.

Well, there’s been an update from krtkl, but snickerdoodle black wasn’t mentioned. I guess no news is bad news. They mentioned the supply chain has completely broken down, they just can’t get parts. Not that that helps the backers. They still haven’t gotten to the point that they are making piSmashers. So the snickerdoodle black wouldn’t do me too much good. Maybe if I could get the software I could start developing something for the vapor hardware.

Well, there haven’t been any updates from krtkl about progress on shipments, so I’ve started to look around for another vendor that supplies an SBC integrated with an FPGA for a project I want to do. Results for my search so far has yielded the SYZYGY Brain-1 at $350 which comes from a company with a little more street cred, Opal Kelly, and the Z-turn board at $119 from MYIR Tech Limited. The $99 part is a Zynq-7010 part whereas I’m interested in the more powerful Zynq-7020 at $119. I sent off an inquiry to the company, but so far I haven’t heard back from them.

Well, here’s the latest update from krtkl:

snickerdoodle black – qty 1
This is a pre-order. Originally expected to ship on Jun 29, 2016
Currently expected to ship on Apr 20, 2018

piSmasher SBC – qty 1
This is a pre-order. Originally expected to ship on Jun 29, 2016
Currently expected to ship on Mar 08, 2018

Well. still waiting for delivery. I contacted Krtkl and told them it was a waste to ship me the snickerdoodle black without the pi smasher. So maybe they’ll just ship them both a the same time.

Here’s their video of the snickerdoodle:

Here’s some specs

Well, I’ve got another update. Snickerdoodle black is now due December 28, 2017 and the piSmasher SBC is now due March 8, 2018. Just another disappointment. I wonder if it was just an overly ambitious project. There’s been a number of schedule delays .Krtkl does keep us updated on the latest delay, I’ll give them that. I’ll be interesting to work with a Xilinx processor after being away for about 15 years. Yeah, 2003 was the last time I touched one of their processors.

The one positive thing is that if I ordered the snickerdoodle black now it’s up to $195 and the piSmasher SBC board is up to $195, but I’m not sure whether what I bought are the same devices. It’s taken so long to get these, I don’t even know what I’m going to use them for, because the project I was going to use them for has been shelved.

Well, this is the latest update from Crowd Supply:

Originally expected to ship on Jun 29, 2016

Currently expected to ship on Oct 31, 2017