Power Over Ethernet

I’ve been reading up on POE (Power Over Ethernet). This is a really cool technology. I’ve partially added this feature to the Linuxstamp. I’ve put an ethernet jack on the board that is made for POE, and has the rectifier built in providing the 48v power pins. This allows a motherboard to implement a 48v -> 5v power supply. Transtek Magnetics has a very nice part for this. Tyco also has parts for POE with the rectifier on them, but they have a 10 week lead time and very large minimum orders. That seems like a very poor way to bring in new business.

Cross compiling and u-boot

I’ve added a couple of sections to the Linuxstamp site. I have a working cross compiler now (gcc-4.1.1), and I have successfully compilied u-boot for the Atmel AT91RM9200 Development Kit (it’s a standard u-boot configuration). Now I just have to modify the u-boot configuration to work with the Linuxstamp. I have Christopher Hallinan’s book “Embedded Linux”, and I’m finding it very helpful. Now I’m going to try and compile the kernel for one of the AT91RM9200 boards.

Linuxstamp project up and running

So I am finally posting my embedded linux module. This is a really cool module. It is based on the AT91RM9200. It has an ethernet port, SD card slot, 32Mb SDRAM, 8Mb dataflash and an onboard USB/Serial converter to alow access to the debug serial port via USB. The BOM cost for QTY 100 is less than $60. The design is in done in Eagle. I have a whole directory structure for this design, and that is about 15Mb zipped. Opencircuits doesn’t seem to like a file that big. Hopefully I will have that up soon too. In the meantime check out the site

First project

Ok, so I don’t think wordpress.com will let me share non picture files. So I will post my projects on the opencircuits.com site. Here is my first project

Hello world!

Hello and welcome to the open hardware blog. This site will be devoted open source hardware. The PCB designs are all done in Eagle. you can download a free (an in beer) version at cadsoft.de. As soon as I figure out how to upload non image files I will post some designs. Including an embedded linux design based on the atmel AT91RM9200.