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Interface Board sneak peek

A quick look at the upcoming Interface Board.

We're just about ready to release a new board in the Make Controller family, called the Interface Board.  The Interface Board is a cousin to the current Application Board but is much simpler and smaller.  It basically provides the raw signals from the Make Controller on 0.1" spaced sockets and gets out of your way!

Interface Board

It brings out a bunch of the peripherals on the Make Controller in groups to make it easy to interface to other devices (not just a clever name after all!).  In addition to USB and Ethernet, we have:

  • 2.5 serial ports (the third one is the debug port which only has send and receive, no hardware handshaking)
  • 2 SPI ports
  • 1 TWI (I2C) port (note - this will only work with the forthcoming v2.0 Controller Boards)
  • 1 CAN port
  • same old 8 analog ins
  • 15 general purpose digital inputs/outputs (configurable via software)
However, each of the signals in the peripherals can be used as digital I/Os as well, so if you were not using any of the peripherals above, you'd have a grand total of 35 signals, plus 4 dedicated analog inputs available to you!  
 
You'll be able to use the Interface Board with your current Make Controller Board - finally an opportunity to take it out of there and plug it in somewhere new!  And because the Controller Board is still the same, all your software should work fine (excluding Application Board specific stuff, of course).  In the meantime, you can have a look at the schematics and pinout right here.
 

Pics

I finally found my Flickr login info so I posted a few more snaps I took of it.

We'll be selling these assembled and just by the raw PCB very soon.  Stay tuned!
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