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Teensy 4.1 Development Board
- FpUser 6y agoI remember using Teensy based on AT90USB1286 microcontroller for 4 quadrant 3phase AC motor torque control. Worked like a charm. Glad to hear they're stilll in business.
- sgt 6y agoSounds cool. What did you need 3 phase 4 quadrant for, if I may ask out of curiosity?
- subhobroto 6y agoHave you been keeping track of the 4 quadrant 3phase AC motor torque control using STM32? The idea is to run these 3phase AC motors off DC
- FpUser 6y agoI am not sure I understand the question. I already stated the controller type. I have not done anything with STM32 but if it does have proper PWM and timers I assume it can bee done just as easy. Torque control is more complex than just simply running 3ph AC motor off DC.
- subhobroto 6y ago> Torque control is more complex than just simply running 3ph AC motor off DC. Fair enough, I got a bit too greedy with my wants. Right now, I'm interested in running 3ph AC motor (or brushless DC motors) off DC using STM32 but having a hard time finding good open designs with affordable (DIY) feedback systems.
- FpUser 6y agoI can't really help you much here. When I first needed it few years ago I did google search and found bunch of articles on motor control (from Microchip I believe) that also had some designs, Once I understood basic theory I then designed my own circuit that after few tries worked fine. It is highly specialized for my particular product. What is out there now in open designs I have no idea as I do electronics extremely rarely. I am developing mostly software products.
- subhobroto 6y ago> I do electronics extremely rarely. I am developing mostly software products. Ah got it! I do mostly software products as well with electronics a near and dear hobby. Would love to be in touch!
- cpach 6y agoJust out of curiosity, what could be a use case for this thingy?
- bflesch 6y agoAmateur spy tools, DIY IoT devices, etc :)
- ortusdux 6y agoTheir blog (when it loads) gives some great examples: https://www.pjrc.com/blog/ https://www.pjrc.com/blog/
- elihu 6y agoIt can be used for just about anything you can use a microcontroller for, but it seems particularly popular for art or music-related projects. For instance, audio synthesis, controlling large numbers of programmable LED strips, custom MIDI controllers, and so on.
- analog31 6y agoI've used mostly the Teensy LC, 3.2 and 3.6 boards. I use them as kind of a cross between a GPIO and a data acquisition board. For instance it's easy to plug one into USB and write a program that lets you talk to it, e.g., from Python, to read voltages, turn things on / off, etc. From there, it's not a huge quantum leap to program some lengthy sequences of operations into the Teensy itself rather than in Python, e.g., averaging 1000 consecutive analog readings, or interfacing with some interesting chip via SPI bus. Migrating this functionality onto the Teensy reduces the amount of USB traffic needed to implement a function, so the "system" as a whole becomes more efficient. Also, the Teensy can do stuff in real time based on its internal clock, that can be difficult on a modern operating system. The T3.6 has built-in floating point, which makes some kind of programming easier. So far I haven't created any stand-alone uses to speak of. I'm mainly interested in stuff that extends the functionality of my regular PC. I've even created such mundane things as a USB temperature sensor. While not the cheapest or most elegant way to do it, I was able to spin it up in no time flat for something that needed it.
- detaro 6y agoWoah, Ethernet is nice to see on a Teensy!
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y agoGenerally a very nice addition to the lineup. I'm personally fascinated by the support for soldering on an additional RAM chip; depending on how painful it is to actually access that memory, the extra 8MB could finally be enough to run uclinux.
- linarism 6y agoApparently it's as simple as using a different offset in pointers when enabled!
- MrBuddyCasino 6y agoThe ESP32 can do that too. Note that PSRAM is a lot slower than the embedded SRAM, so if you need to access that memory a lot, you're going to have a bad time.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y agoRest assured, when I'm trying to figure out whether I can coerce Linux into running on a board that was never meant to support such a thing, "slow" is a secondary concern:)
- mastax 6y agoWell in that case... http://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20on%208bit http://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20on%208bit
- ers35 6y agoMirror: http://archive.is/ewDJq http://archive.is/ewDJq
- jhloa2 6y agoArchive.is seems to be down at the moment.
- cpach 6y agoWorks fine here
- encore2097 6y agoGetting: Error 1001 - DNS resolution error
- kees99 6y agohttps://community.cloudflare.com/t/archive-is-error-1001/18227 https://community.cloudflare.com/t/archive-is-error-1001/182... tl;dr: cloudflare & archive.is: choose one.
- pugworthy 6y agoThe Teensy line just keeps getting better and better with each release.
- Youden 6y agoGenuinely curious, what kinds of projects are better suited to a Teensy than an Arduino, ESP32 or some form of Raspberry Pi? Is the main advantage the pin count?
- subhobroto 6y agoAh - we asked the same question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23144432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23144432 I can see why the Raspberry might not be a good replacement for Teensy - power hungry (ESP32/STM32 have fantastic ULP/Deep sleep) and/or form factor. > pin count? maybe but there are ultra cheap analog and digital multiplexers available.
- mister_hn 6y agoNot only that, also a full bloated OS wasting CPU cycles.
- pugworthy 6y agoExactly. When you want a powerful processor that is going to basically do one thing very well, use a Teensy. When you don't need the power, use Arduino.
- ashtonkem 6y agoRPI straddles the gap between regular computers and embedded systems. It can perform some of the duties of each, but the drawbacks become clearer the further away from the middle ground your use case gets.
- detaro 6y agomultiplexers are fine if you're either doing slow signals or uniform outputs. They're not worth the hassle if you want multiple high-speed connections.
- zeroflow 6y agoNo, it would be performance - for example regarding clock speed and RAM size.
- subhobroto 6y agoWith the supercheap sub $5 ESP32/STM32 boards (both have Arduino core support) and their equally cheap add onboards for camera, ethernet or USB OTG - who exactly are using the Teensy line today and why? I'm genuinely curious.
- btashton 6y agoThese are substantially more powerful than both of those families.
- ATsch 6y agoAlso substantially more expensive, especially compared to the likes of the banana pi zero, which gets you four cores at 1.2Ghz, 512MB RAM, Linux and a GPU for 35% cheaper. Pair that with a Blue Pill STM32 for $3 if you need realtime and you still have money left over.
- subhobroto 6y agoThat looks like a great stack! In the "Pi" family, for a Linux SBC, which pi/clone gives a good bang for the buck? banana pi zero has shown up multiple times but since you are in the know, I wanted to ask what's a good SBC to run OpenWRT on, for example
- subhobroto 6y ago> Blue Pill STM32 for $3 The Black Pill STM32 for $4 are an ever better value!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- clarry 6y agohttps://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/microcontrollers-microprocessors/stm32-32-bit-arm-cortex-mcus/stm32-high-performance-mcus.html https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/microcontrolle...
- jtchang 6y agoI've been playing around with boards like this that keep getting smaller and smaller. Do people generally prototype something using these boards and then go directly to manufacturing? I imagine you'd want to have a smaller package than use these types of components as part of you larger product right?
- tekstar 6y agomany synth kits use a teensy or a similar board for their CPU so that the builders don't need to do the SMD soldering but can still use high speed CPUs
- analog31 6y agoI wouldn't hesitate to do so. It all depends on what kind of price / volume you're trying to target. For very short run, garage-shop types of operations, not only is handling surface-mount a headache, but there's a learning curve to getting any kind of circuit boards manufactured. In addition to these microcontroller boards, you can find "breakout" boards for a variety of sophisticated components, and combine them on a carrier board that can be basic 2-layer hand soldered. It's quite a practical way for getting something simple out the door. There's a lot of garage shop types of businesses that combine small scale manufacturing with customer support, and are not looking to get into high volume consumer market. For instance a friend of mine develops industrial solutions, where the customer might buy 10 to 1000 modules for their own use, or to support a product, such as some kind of weird agricultural machinery. These folks make their money by being local, easy to deal with, and willing to listen and understand the customer's need. This is a clear case of "do things that don't scale."
- floatrock 6y agoDo these people write about what they do? Make and Hackaday are great for fun one-off projects, but I don't really know much about the world of small-scale commercial like this. Make went bankrupt because they couldn't support operations on a hobby budget... I'd love to know what the next step up looks like, especially if it's some large esoteric agricultural machine.
- whiskers 6y agoIf you're interested in this and based in the UK then we have stock coming shortly and you can sign up for notification here: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/teensy-4-1 https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/teensy-4-1
- The_Double 6y agoDoes this one have the JTAG/SWD pins available? I know that the teensy bootloader is one of its USPs, but not being able to connect a debugger is kind of a dealbreaker for any sort of complex project.
- btashton 6y agoYeah this is why I have 4 of the last revision sitting in a bag on a shelf. I got tired of print debugging, if you look in the forums there is some discussion on how to modify the hardware, but it is not easy.
- duskwuff 6y agoIt does not. This has been a longstanding issue with all of the ARM-based Teensy boards, and it's really the main reason I'd hesitate to recommend them.
- gxx 6y agoMany Arduino compatible boards support hardware debugging. For example the Adafruit Feather series have connectors for a J-Link debugger. The Arduino Nano 33 BLE and Sense have pads on the botom to solder the leads of a J-Link cable. STM Nucleos even have the debug probe built in accessible over the same USB port. PlatformIO https://platformio.org/ https://platformio.org/ is the preferred Arduino IDE (a plugin for VS Code). It has support for hardware debugging, C++ code highlighting, code completion and Intellisense.
- MuffinFlavored 6y agoWhat would it take to make CAN work with this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN_bus
- linarism 6y agoIt is supported in hardware for multiple protocols: CAN1.0, CAN2.0, and CANFD. I'm pretty sure there are 3 ports that can be used simultaneously and independently. I only use 2 with CAN1.0. Edit: By hardware support I mean that a CAN transciever connects to two GPIO pins with access to CAN chip hardware. No SPI interface needed.
- MuffinFlavored 6y agoDo you need a CAN controller and a CAN transceiver or just a transceiver?
- kettro 6y agoI'd likely buy a small CAN chip and just connect over SPI. CAN as a protocol is a complicated mess, so having HW support is important.
- mhh__ 6y agoA CAN transceiver? A few dollars + an SPI bus at a glance. https://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/can-transceivers/11287 https://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/can-transceiver...
- MuffinFlavored 6y agoDo you need a CAN controller and a CAN transceiver or just a transceiver?
- AWildC182 6y agoNo JTAG, not interested. JTAG is essential for being able to properly utilize chips like these. They need to pin it out.
- angst_ridden 6y agoThe Teensy line is great for folks like me, who are doing one-off projects and who know more about software than hardware. There are good libraries, a helpful developer, and a supportive community. I've used Teensies to make millisecond-accurate camera controllers, radar-triggered music/light-show devices, and burning-man style LED hats. If I were doing production, they'd probably be overkill (and too expensive), but they save me time and effort and are easy to use.
- wolrah 6y agoYup. I love Teensies for building USB input devices. It's trivial to get something basic working and not much harder to tweak it if you want to appear differently to the system or use a higher refresh rate for lower latency gaming. They're breadboard friendly, as easy to use as an Arduino, etc. For one-off builds that need lower power or tighter timing than I can achieve with a Pi I pretty much default to looking at the Teensy line unless I need some kind of wireless communications, in which case an ESP variant is usually my choice.
- dekhn 6y agoI've worked with all the various Arduino and other MCU boards as well as Pis. My preferred chip is still an Arduino Nano in a screw terminal carrier (just today I wired up one to make a rotating stepper that rotated in sync with a camera trigger, to do 3D scanning for Meshroom). I love the old Uno, it's solid as a rock but of course has very limited CPU and memory. I would only use an Uno if I had a specific shield that fit the Uno and needed 100% compatibility. The dupont connectors are too loose for permanent projets that get shaken around... it's 5V, which makes working with some hardware easier (although most things "kinda work" with 3.3v MCUs, some stuff doesn't). The Nano is like the UNO but smaller, although you can get nice little screw terminal carriers that make permanent connections more reliable. The Teensy is a faster arduino with some very good support libraries. It Just Works, most of the time. But I haven't ended up using it for anything; I've replaced it with Nanos or ESP8266 or ESP32. The ESP2866 and ESP32 are great systems, truly amazing what they can do even if they're just emulating an Arduino. however, there is a fair amount of compatibility problems with the 32 (for example, I have a sketch for a self-balancing robot, it works fine on Nano and ESP2866, but hangs on the '32). But the 32 has a special trick up its sleeve: the arduino functionality is really just an emulator that runs inside an RTOS. I started to play with FreeRTOS on ESP32 (https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32/api-reference/system/freertos.html https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32/...) and was really impressed. It feels a lot like my days using a 286- no virtual memory, a few megs of RAM, and basic networking.
- Marazan 6y agoTo answer the frequent question about Teensy. Paul. Paul is the reason to buy a Teensy. His dedication and support is inspiring. Phenomenal.
- subhobroto 6y agoHaving raised this question [1], I am impressed at how well written the software is! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23144432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23144432
- fermienrico 6y agoI wish Teensy was open source, it is not. It is amazingly well engineered including the bootloader, just that it's all closed source.
- detaro 6y agoIsn't the bootloader chip the only not-open thing?
- fermienrico 6y agoDo I get a license for hardware schematics and board layout and other aspects besides the bootloader? Where can I find a license in writing? If a license is not provided, I can't do anything with it besides hobby work. Here is the schematic page but no mention of a license: https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/schematic.html https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/schematic.html This is NOT open-source. It is visible-source. Please note, I am not demanding an open-source license. Closed source projects are totally fine, I feel absolutely no entitlement to get stuff for free. I am just pointing out projects that are closed-source but disguised as open-source, thereby taking advantage of the hobbyist community. Paul may be a cool guy, but objectively that doesn't change anything.
- detaro 6y agoTrue, board layouts aren't either, forgot about that. The circuit itself can't be copyrighted, so you do not need a license to make your own board with the same components. I personally quite like the approach of using the bootloader chip as light DRM: The majority of the value is in software you can freely use, with licenses provided. Prototyping with a Teensy and then making a product using the same parts and the libraries, not a problem. Just if you want to provide the same easy dev-board experience you need the bootloader chip (which you can buy and use for your own design) or invest your own development of an alternative.
- fermienrico 6y agoYep, I really like how the bootloader works - upgrades are drag and drop. I'll write to Paul if he is open for selling the bootloader license to me for commercial use. I am sure we can come to an agreement.
- numpad0 6y agoCortex-M7 @ 600MHz, pads for PSRAM(8MB or more), microSD, wait, isn’t this thing Linux Kernel compatible at that point?
- tyingq 6y agoμClinux, since there's no MMU.
- Endlessly 6y agoμClinux is a variation of the Linux kernel, previously maintained as a fork, that targets microcontrollers without a memory management unit (MMU). SOURCE: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ΜClinux https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ΜClinux ——————————- How uClinux provides MMU-less processors with an alternative https://www.eetimes.com/how-uclinux-provides-mmu-less-processors-with-an-alternative/ https://www.eetimes.com/how-uclinux-provides-mmu-less-proces...
- Nican 6y agoTaking a look at this. It looks like it only supports ICMP and UDP? https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/60532-Teensy-4-1-Beta-Test?p=237096&viewfull=1#post237096 https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/60532-Teensy-4-1-Beta-Test?p=...
- asmithmd1 6y agoThat was the low-level access. Below that they talk about porting a LWIP: > I developed test sketches for NTP, DNS, multicast, web server, web client, httpd with SD or SdFat-beta lib, tfttp server (SD, SdFat-beta, or SPIFFS), ftpd (get/put) with SD lib, and TCP/UDP client/server
- mastax 6y agoYou need a TCP implementation. A few posts down shows someone using lwIP.
- vorpalhex 6y agoThis is fantastic, especially with functional wired ethernet at such a price point. This is a lot of customizable horsepower in a small form factor with great peripheral support!
- non-entity 6y agoI've been playing around embedded stuff and hardware design recently and mostly started with arduino's and esp8266/32's, but have wanted to play around with both FPGA's and ARM boards for designing more complex things. I'm kinda lost on what ARM board to get though. This thing seems pretty cool, and others have recommended an STM32 board, but theres dozens of those in various form factors and chip features and I'm just not sure. Anyone know a good comparison of ARM based dev boards that gives a good description of the differences and maybe recommended applications?
- akiselev 6y agoI recommend the BeagleBone as a better starting point than STM32s. It combines an ARM processor core capable of running linux with microcontrollers so you can run Linux on the CPU and realtime firmware on the MCU cores. If you want to get into FPGA development, I would recommend a ZYNQ based board [1] which is similar to the BeagleBone except instead of microcontrollers, ZYNQ chips combine an ARM CPU with an FPGA. I'd recommend something like the Analog Discovery 2 [2] for data capture since 90% of FPGA development is test benches and validation. [1] https://store.digilentinc.com/cora-z7-zynq-7000-single-core-and-dual-core-options-for-arm-fpga-soc-development/ https://store.digilentinc.com/cora-z7-zynq-7000-single-core-... [2] https://store.digilentinc.com/analog-discovery-2-100msps-usb-oscilloscope-logic-analyzer-and-variable-power-supply/ https://store.digilentinc.com/analog-discovery-2-100msps-usb...
- wiremine 6y agoThe thing with microcontrollers in general is that they tend to come in MANY variations to support all the various use cases out there. So, it really comes down to your use case. Once you have that figured out, it's much easier to pick an ARM platform. Most of the time people are taking about the M-series, so you want an M0, M3 or an M4. I'd recommend an M4 if you don't have something specific in mind. The STM discovery series is an easy place to start: https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/stm32-discovery-kits.html https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/stm32-discovery-kits.... I'd also recommend checking PlatformIO: It's a great project that streamlines development and abstracts a lot of the details: https://platformio.org/ https://platformio.org/ To answer your question directly, here's a good start: https://developer.arm.com/ip-products/processors https://developer.arm.com/ip-products/processors And here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-M
- ohazi 6y agoPSA: Networking on microcontrollers is a giant pain in the ass. Don't get me wrong, boards like this (and ESP/Realtek boards with WiFi) are great for hacky prototypes. But if you're building an embedded device that will be deployed in any sort of volume, a small application processor running Linux will make your life dramatically easier. You can keep it asleep most of the time if your power budget is tight. The hard part is not cramming in an Ethernet PHY or a 2.4 GHz radio, it's the mountain of software that you need to run on top of it to get the kind of reliable, secure communications channels that we've come to expect. Bare metal networking stacks like LwIP have a reputation for being buggy, and are nowhere near as battle-tested as the Linux/BSD networking stacks security-wise. Some of the more memory constrained devices can barely fit a complete certificate chain. Are you really prepared to roll out updates on a system like this when the next Heartbleed comes along? Also, the layers tend to pile on, so while you might get away with a bare-bones wire protocol initially, you'll be starting your project close to the limits of what is practical. Somebody will eventually ask you if you can connect to a websocket. I know buildroot and yocto look a little scary at first, but they're better than designing yourself into a corner before you even get off the ground.
- realharo 6y agoHow are things on the commonly used RTOSes? I'm not really into hardware much, only fairly recently learned basic electronics as a hobby, but I've seen ARM push their "mbed" (https://os.mbed.com/ https://os.mbed.com/) thing in many places recently (most recently saw their logo printed on a nRF52 BLE dev kit). I've also seen Amazon get more involved with (in charge of?) FreeRTOS (https://aws.amazon.com/freertos/ https://aws.amazon.com/freertos/) quite some time ago. Don't such things solve most of these issues?
- adammunich 6y agoThe RTOS world is much less of an 'operating system' and more so a bare-bones task scheduler. It's not like a POSIX environment at all.
- realharo 6y ago
- postit 6y agoIf you want to see a cool project done with Teensy check this custom midi controller/sequencer interface with motorized sliders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH-grgRmClY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH-grgRmClY https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/54995-Zeus-Commander-SPS-16-MIDI-step-amp-pattern-sequencer?p=196699#post196699 https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/54995-Zeus-Commander-SPS-16-M...
- paddlesteamer 6y agoEvery time I ran across these boards, I always think of "Apollo Guidance Computer"[1] which is used on Apollo spacecrafts. They have 16KB ram 2000MHz cpu freq so I feel like I can build a spaceship witha couple of teensies :D [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
- crgwbr 6y agoOne note: they had a 2.048 MHz CPU, not a 2000 MHz CPU. 2000 MHz only slightly below modern clock speeds.
- jepler 6y agoThese are great little boards, and they already have support in the latest beta of CircuitPython! https://circuitpython.org https://circuitpython.org