Breakout Boards - When Will They Be Available?

[vega01]

I'm happy to design a little RS-232 board that plugs right into the back of the Pandora. Personally, that is where the 'Open' in OpenPandora should be: with stuff other people can actually build! I will gladly share all schematics and gerbers for these little addons and I bet we could make small batches of these serial boards for about $20 each. I'll handle getting these little connectors as we need to order more soon anyway. No one has to worry about trying to buy thousands on their own.

Is there any posiibility that those boards will be available to buy any time soon? Or at least the EXT port connectors, so that we could get one with the first batch Pandoras? Personally I would like to be able to pay using PayPal, it's not so expensive for me as a bank transfer.

 

[torpor]

Someone do a MIDI plugin for the Pandora, please! I know we can use stock USBMIDI class-cables but it would be so nice to have a little MIDI docking station, a la Yamaha CX5M ..

 

[Bigun]

I'm happy to design a little RS-232 board that plugs right into the back of the Pandora. Personally, that is where the 'Open' in OpenPandora should be: with stuff other people can actually build! I will gladly share all schematics and gerbers for these little addons and I bet we could make small batches of these serial boards for about $20 each. I'll handle getting these little connectors as we need to order more soon anyway. No one has to worry about trying to buy thousands on their own.

Is there any posiibility that those boards will be available to buy any time soon? Or at least the EXT port connectors, so that we could get one with the first batch Pandoras? Personally I would like to be able to pay using PayPal, it's not so expensive for me as a bank transfer.

I'm mainly interested in getting the device first, but afterwards I wouldn't mind having one myself.

 

[Unfathomable Depths]

Someone do a MIDI plugin for the Pandora, please! I know we can use stock USBMIDI class-cables but it would be so nice to have a little MIDI docking station, a la Yamaha CX5M ..

How good would that be?
The Atari ST was a general purpose computer but just by adding MIDI ports it became a music industry standard.

Imagine your Pandora balanced on top of your synth....

 

[Polossatik]

I'm happy to design a little RS-232 board that plugs right into the back of the Pandora. Personally, that is where the 'Open' in OpenPandora should be: with stuff other people can actually build! I will gladly share all schematics and gerbers for these little addons and I bet we could make small batches of these serial boards for about $20 each. I'll handle getting these little connectors as we need to order more soon anyway. No one has to worry about trying to buy thousands on their own.

Is there any posiibility that those boards will be available to buy any time soon? Or at least the EXT port connectors, so that we could get one with the first batch Pandoras? Personally I would like to be able to pay using PayPal, it's not so expensive for me as a bank transfer.

hum, maybe an idea to simply put an ext connector straight in the box? no idea what they cost each, doubt if it's really a lot of $$$
I think simply putting them in box will reduce a fair amount of "overhead" to get these things shipped/payed.

 

[Pleng]

Someone do a MIDI plugin for the Pandora, please! I know we can use stock USBMIDI class-cables but it would be so nice to have a little MIDI docking station, a la Yamaha CX5M ..

How good would that be?
The Atari ST was a general purpose computer but just by adding MIDI ports it became a music industry standard.

Imagine your Pandora balanced on top of your synth....

I don't see how adding MIDI ports to a breakout board equates to the same thing as having them built into the unit itself. I also don't see what the advantage of having a dedicated MIDI breakout board is as opposed to using a USB interface?

 

[WizardStan]

I don't see how adding MIDI ports to a breakout board equates to the same thing as having them built into the unit itself. I also don't see what the advantage of having a dedicated MIDI breakout board is as opposed to using a USB interface?

Isn't a MIDI port just a serial communications ring? Serial data in on one pin, out on another? I wonder if there's a way to rig the UART pins on the ext connector and handle the whole thing in software.

 

[Yoyobuae]

The question is: Can Pandora's UART work at the speed used by the MIDI interface (31,250 baud)? PC's serial ports don't seem to be able to.

 

[willrandship]

I'm happy to design a little RS-232 board that plugs right into the back of the Pandora. Personally, that is where the 'Open' in OpenPandora should be: with stuff other people can actually build! I will gladly share all schematics and gerbers for these little addons and I bet we could make small batches of these serial boards for about $20 each. I'll handle getting these little connectors as we need to order more soon anyway. No one has to worry about trying to buy thousands on their own.

Is there any posiibility that those boards will be available to buy any time soon? Or at least the EXT port connectors, so that we could get one with the first batch Pandoras? Personally I would like to be able to pay using PayPal, it's not so expensive for me as a bank transfer.

hum, maybe an idea to simply put an ext connector straight in the box? no idea what they cost each, doubt if it's really a lot of $$$
I think simply putting them in box will reduce a fair amount of "overhead" to get these things shipped/payed.

Don't......change........the case or it will take forever all over again to get this thing. Building it in means a different case, which means a heck of a lot more production time!!!!

 

[fr4n]

D'oh.

Failed to engage brain.

 

[mindlord]

Don't......change........the case or it will take forever all over again to get this thing. Building it in means a different case, which means a heck of a lot more production time!!!!

He was just suggesting OP LTD toss an ext connector in with the shipment... not changing the case.

 

[Exophase]

Don't......change........the case or it will take forever all over again to get this thing. Building it in means a different case, which means a heck of a lot more production time!!!!

I think he meant packaging an EXT adapter in the box the Pandora is shipped in, not as part of the Pandora itself.

Nonetheless, the percentage of people who will want access to the EXT part outside of what the TV out cable gives is going to be very low, far too low to justify spending money and wasting materials on sending them to everyone who orders. For most of the things that a serial connection would be used for USB, WiFi, or even bluetooth can be used instead. Linux is capable of providing a transparent serial port over all three of these interfaces, you just need the OS/software to provide it on the other end as well.

If you just want a console or file transfer ssh/scp will suffice instead.

I know I mentioned these things in the other thread, but I feel it bears repeating. As far as I can determine, direct UART access is only useful if you intend on hacking outside of Linux. You could argue that it'd be useful for interfacing with UART-only devices. But a USB-to-serial adapter is cheap, probably cheaper than a breakout board, and more compact. You can get them in TTL or RS232 levels.

Even if you brick the Pandora you don't need UART to recover it, since its boot ROM can load off of SD.

115200bps is a pretty standard baud rate for a PC.

Yes, but 31250 isn't. You'll note that 115200 is not divisible by it.

 

[fr4n]

Yes, but 31250 isn't. You'll note that 115200 is not divisible by it.

I blame the beer.

 

[urjaman]

Yes, but 31250 isn't. You'll note that 115200 is not divisible by it.

You forget that the OMAP3530 UART is much better than the old PC UART.
48Mhz Clock/divisor/16 = baud.
Especially, with divisor=96, baud=31250 (exactly)

...

EDIT: FFS, why I'm always the one reading the OMAP datasheets...

EDIT: /me too wants this RS-232-board. For me it's for low-latency high-speed (above 115200) serial communication between the pandora and a microcontroller. No USB dongle can beat hardware UART in round-trip times.