
LoFive – Tiny RISC-V Microcontroller Board - rbanffy
https://hackaday.io/project/26909-lofive
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jmptable
The Pocketbone project by the same guy is also worth checking out. It's a
small Beaglebone based on the Octavo 3358, which is a huge SoC that integrates
all of the hard parts of a minimal Beaglebone-like system. That project (also
in KiCAD) can serve as a jumping off point for any embedded project where you
need a tiny Linux system with hard real time performance and easy integration
with high speed peripherals (thanks to the weird and wonderful PRUs in the
AM3358 Sitara processor). These sorts of projects are really valuable in the
embedded world because they demo a minimal implementation and in doing so
reduce the magic that bogs down newcomers who just want to do something cool.

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rbanffy
I'd love to see something 3358-based with the Ethernet connected to a male
RJ-45 - Just plug it into the switch and have an instant cluster.

Extra credit if you can have it with power over Ethernet. Double extra credit
if the Ethernet, power and one USB are available on an edge connector so a
backplane with a simple switch like the Microchip KSZ8997 could easily be
built.

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qume
Brilliant!

Can't wait for KiCAD to become more mainstream. Projects like this will
definitely help.

Great work guys, fantastic.

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analognoise
Kicad is only viable if your time is worth less than money - basically only if
you're doing the simplest kinds of boards.

If Kicad were as good as GCC, we'd have a revolution.

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kbumsik
So what do you recommend instead? I think KiCad is still not a bad choice for
hobbyist use.

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dom0
There really aren't any good ecad packages for low prices (at least not that I
ever heard of it). All cheap packages are just glorified 2D drawing programs
(e.g. eagle, target).

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PoachedSausage
Even some of the expensive EDA packages can be rather user unfriendly. I've
just started a new job where we use Cadence Orcad so I'm having to learn that.
It's not exactly intuitive.

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dom0
I found all I used (eagle, kicad, target, protel) not intuitive to use and not
very user friendly (which is said about almost every CAD package), but within
even that group there are _massive_ differences in capability.

