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Chumby Hacker Board [v1.0]
Chumby Hacker Board [v1.0]

Chumby Hacker Board [v1.0]

via Adafruit
$391.60
SKU AF-278

The Chumby Hacker Board is a cool single board Linux computer that has much of the same hardware as the famous Chumby One. It's great for people who are experienced with Linux and want to have the power of a microcomputer with audio and video output while at the same time getting all the peripherals of a microcontroller such as analog-to-digital conversion, PWM outputs, sensors, bit twiddling, and broken-out GPIOs!

While we believe that the CHB is a fairly easy-to-use Single Board Computer, having a pre-installed OS on the included uSD card and drivers for the peripherals, it's not designed for beginners! The board is best used by those with previous Linux experience. The good news is you don't have to have another Linux computer to set up the CHB but you should have familiarity with shells and shell scripting, gcc, make, dmesg, etc. We also suggest having had some poking around with microcontrollers such as BASIC Stamp, Arduino, AVR, PIC, 8051, etc. So that when we say "i2c" and "not 5v tolerant I/Os" you can follow along

This is the v1.0 release, slightly updated from the Beta. This version does not have 'Arduino' headers on the back anymore, since they were not terribly useful. Instead, the 0.1" header breakout has been expanded to include more useful pins. This makes the CHB slimmer but just as useful. The SD card has been doubled in size.

Please note, the CHB is not in any way officially supported by Chumby Industries! Chumby has generously offered a Forum and Wiki where they will try to share information but there is absolutely no tech support or guarantee that the CHB will meet your project needs. Please do not contact Chumby directly either by email or phone for help with your CHB. If you have questions, please post to their forums to receive help from others and the occasional assistance from a CHB developer.

Whats so great about it anyhow? Well! We have a list!

  • Freescale iMX.233 processor running at 454 MHZ
  • 64 MB onboard RAM
  • Comes with 1 GB uSD card with 100 MB Linux installation all ready to go
  • Dimensions are 3.9" (100mm) x 2.4" (60mm) x 0.375" (10mm)
  • 3.3V I/O pins can talk to most sensors, motor drivers, etc. No struggling with 1.8V levels.
  • Low power, fanless CPU draws only 200 mA at 5V
  • Built-in Lithium Ion/Polymer battery charger and 5V boost converter for portable projects
  • Three USB ports!
  • 1.9W mono speaker amplifier into 4ohm (0.1" JST onboard connector)
  • Microphone input (0.05" JST onboard connector)
  • LCD controller with 2mm output port
  • 3.5mm A/V output jack with stereo audio and NTSC/PAL composite video
  • GPIO outputs on 0.1" header spacing, serial port, ADC's, PWM, GPIO, 4th USB port, all running at 3.3v logic
  • Quadrature encoder connections onboard
  • 5-way joystick on-board
  • MMA7455 3-axis +-2G to +-8G accelerometer on-board
  • 3.3V TTL serial port for easy shell access
  • Full GCC toolchain is ready for you to download and get crackin'!
  • Schematics, Gerbers and original layout files are at the Wiki

You'll want to pick up a 5V switching power supply, a 2.1mm to 1.7mm adapter cable, a 3.3v FTDI cable and an A/V cable to get started.

Want some more information? Check out our Getting Started with the Chumby Hacker Board tutorial page which will show you how to get booted, connected and read data from the on-board triple-axis accelerometer in an evening. Wow!

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