Some suggestions for Homework USB board
zpekic
Posts: 1
Hi all!
I recently got the homework USB board and it is great little device, very good quality and fun to work (ok, play :-)) with. However, I think I few simple hardware improvements would make it much more versatile and useful. For example:
- expand the breadboard area a bit. now it is 17*10, but a 24*10 could fit the same PCB size and would accommodate that extra IC or component just needed for the experiment
- make the reset signal available from the black female connector. This could be directly from the pushbutton on the board or some conditioned signal derived from it. Many components use some reset or clear, this would save one Px pin not to have to use it for that purpose or implementing one on the breadboard and using up space there
- make some clock signal available on the connector. This could be the same the microcontroller uses or some divide factor of it, or maybe even both. This would be super useful for some higher frequency counter experiments etc
- make +12VDC available. A simple charge pump (50mA or so) on the PCB should suffice and have that voltage available on the female connector. Lots of devices use this as programming voltage for example, and having this could open a new field of use.
Thanks,
Z.
I recently got the homework USB board and it is great little device, very good quality and fun to work (ok, play :-)) with. However, I think I few simple hardware improvements would make it much more versatile and useful. For example:
- expand the breadboard area a bit. now it is 17*10, but a 24*10 could fit the same PCB size and would accommodate that extra IC or component just needed for the experiment
- make the reset signal available from the black female connector. This could be directly from the pushbutton on the board or some conditioned signal derived from it. Many components use some reset or clear, this would save one Px pin not to have to use it for that purpose or implementing one on the breadboard and using up space there
- make some clock signal available on the connector. This could be the same the microcontroller uses or some divide factor of it, or maybe even both. This would be super useful for some higher frequency counter experiments etc
- make +12VDC available. A simple charge pump (50mA or so) on the PCB should suffice and have that voltage available on the female connector. Lots of devices use this as programming voltage for example, and having this could open a new field of use.
Thanks,
Z.
Comments
First of all let me start by saying we appreciate customer feedback on our products. That said I wanted to respond to some of the suggestions and to why certain things are the way they are. The HomeWork Board was designed to be a lower-cost version of the Board of Education and so much of the board is designed to be compatible with the BoE. Changing the breadboard may seem trivial but the wiring diagrams for both boards are currently compatible and changing the size of the breadboard would affect that.
One possible issue here is that the reset line on some chips is active-high instead of active low as the HomeWork Board uses. So adding that would only affect a very small percentage of customers.
Since the BS2 does not have a CTC or other hardware designed to make use of such a signal there would be no benefit as the code would have to stop to count a fixed-frequency pulse, unless I am missing what you mean.
It sounds like you're trying to make a device programmer of some sort. There are other microcontrollers, such as the Propeller, which would be more appropriate for this task, however even if you use the BS2 then 12V could be obtained from the VIN connection. Simply power the board from VIN and use the VIN connector above the breadboard to access this voltage. This is typically how higher voltages are handled on our development boards. Except for a few specialized projects there is no other benefit to adding this supply directly on the board. Other boards might be able to provide a better path to a custom solution, such as the Super Carrier Board, which would allow you to add more hardware to your project.
My comments are just my thoughts from an engineering perspective, however as this is an educational product our education department would make any decisions based on your feedback. I will make sure they see this thread. Thanks for your input!