Open Call for the LattePanda Alpha and Delta Ecosystem
LattePanda 2017-12-12 23:14:25 72483 Views41 Replies Happy Holidays to everyone, we hope everyone’s winter isn’t as cold as ours!
As you all know, we have just recently released the Kickstarter crowdfunding page for both the LattePanda Alpha and Delta series. Our friends who follow and love the LattePanda products and style are now able to click on this link to support the project, helping us to realize and together bring the product line to the market.
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Through our previous experiences with users, we have recognized the importance of rich potential and scalable capabilities in the market and the ecology of LattePanda. For example, many users have come up with the Arduino expansion board, different shields and even 5-inch and 10-inch screen are also very popular. There are also unexpected and surprising invention proposals based on the LattePanda design such as robotic distance, point-to-point, height profiling, this could possible stimulate the imagination of the new autonomous RC car or Drone market.
In order to better support external features at the motherboard level, this time we struggled with designing and defining all functional interfaces, and a few months after the group had quarreled on the topic, we wanted to be able to extend our ecology and potential; the best way being that applications brings more possibilities.
For this reason, we are calling out all Developers, hardware designers, case makers, basically everyone who has an extended design based on the LattePanda, please contact us with your idea! This can be done through the community, or email (lattepanda@outlook.com). Come up with a description that is as detailed, achievable, and clear as possible for our team.
By January 15, the team will select projects for in-depth cooperation to provide the World's first batch of free LattePanda Alpha / Delta engineering Special Edition Kit to support the project/ability to incorporate with new products whenever possible to the market.
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For reference to expansions and shields, we will give you an example of the sort of projects we will encourage:
The new Gen of LattePandas have THREE very special expandable interfaces: The M.2 Keys and the dual 50-Pin connectors. Both of these are very versatile and have huge possibilities.
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The Alpha comes with the M and E Key while the Delta comes with B and E Key. M.2 interfaces cover a wide range of communication protocols such as high speed PCIe to low speed I2C. Since it is a small device, a variety of high-low-speed peripherals can be added; E-Key is most scalable hence it being on both boards. M-Key supports the highest speed peripherals hence on the Alpha and B-Key is typical for SSD expansion. This means that you can speed up AI development by expanding with the AlphaPanda, such as a modular expansion card.
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The LattePanda’s now have a standard, full-feature USB-C port. This means it has PD with voltage adaptation capability, which can bring more load and more power and support when equipped with high-speed peripherals. Alpha and Delta both have USB-C support for external expansion like display output for multi-screen experience and double productivity. It also has USB 3.0 communication function, compatible with most peripherals. It is a very versatile connector that has tremendous capability. Shields using this connector are highly encouraged since it is future-proof.
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2x50pin interface covers the needs of most embedded scenarios:
1. For example, the integration of RS232 industrial interface; stability and compatibility of traditional setups can directly drive industrial servo motor or CNC communication control.
2. Another example is the I2S interface; you can quickly expand the sound card: high resolution and audio amplifier expansion is possible. I2C also helps you to directly extend the possibilities of PC industry standard peripherals.
3. Then the system is working status indication signal, such as whether to switch on the machine, sleep, etc., so that the motherboard and peripherals have better integration and interaction. For example, manage the system shutdown and reboot processes on a robot.
We recommended making or prototyping a form of peripheral design that is akin to an expansion board. Shields, Expansion boards, stacking designs, all are welcome, or any ideas that you might have!
Why is it worth joining the LattePanda hardware ecosystem?
The Alpha series CPU is Intel’s 7th Gen Core M3-7Y30, it is the market’s strongest performing mobile chip in the line-up; it runs faster than 3700 or even slightly higher than the macbook. It has much less constraints on it than other products, hence the real performance.
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Alpha and Delta are the flagship features in a hackable computer and come with all the necessary accessories to power any setup.
We have defined this generation of products to cater to solutions slightly higher than 1st Gen LP could. Mainly because we have realized the market demand for performance slightly higher than 1st Gen. While most players are only pursuing low-cost RPi’s, people ignore the limitations of low-cost and low-end solutions for many applications such as human-computer interaction, image recognition (deep learning), cross-platform development, HD image processing, big data Localization Edge Analysis, and more.
We want to bring a truly remarkable engineered product to individual developers and commercial markets with better performance needs in one go and meet the market requirements from prototype to volume production in one device. We hope you can help us expand our Eco System!
Update 1:
Hi LattePanda Developers!
We would like to announce the initial two selections for the new the new generation of LattePanda boards.
@GTC has made a truly remarkable Power Management System that has impressed all of us with its clean, concise and precision design. Its utility is also one of the factors that have convinced us of its noteworthy status. Above all, this contraption can basically be used in a wide-array of situations not limited to size or application since its related to a core-usage of the Panda. We would like to congratulate GTC on his design and selection for the initial batch of Engineering Kits. We will be getting in touch with him soon!
The second proposal came to us on email, so we will keep the identity anonymous but will tell the idea is similar to that of the PiTop. This cost effective solution will definitely empower users to pursue it as a portable solution with just one wire for power. We hope we can pursue this soon and get you all the information and accessories you can from us.
Lastly, we would like to apologize in announcing these results. Its been quite busy here with the Kickstarter campaign and getting ready for production. Second, as a note to all other contributors, this is not the final selection for all LattePanda shields or accessories. We have not ruled out any yet and we encourage you to please keep letting us know your great ideas since we will have another round of evaluations for more open source hardware! As a reminder, we will pursue this with a mind to mass-manufacture them and also sell them alongside the LattePanda itself.
As you all know, we have just recently released the Kickstarter crowdfunding page for both the LattePanda Alpha and Delta series. Our friends who follow and love the LattePanda products and style are now able to click on this link to support the project, helping us to realize and together bring the product line to the market.
In order to better support external features at the motherboard level, this time we struggled with designing and defining all functional interfaces, and a few months after the group had quarreled on the topic, we wanted to be able to extend our ecology and potential; the best way being that applications brings more possibilities.
For this reason, we are calling out all Developers, hardware designers, case makers, basically everyone who has an extended design based on the LattePanda, please contact us with your idea! This can be done through the community, or email (lattepanda@outlook.com). Come up with a description that is as detailed, achievable, and clear as possible for our team.
By January 15, the team will select projects for in-depth cooperation to provide the World's first batch of free LattePanda Alpha / Delta engineering Special Edition Kit to support the project/ability to incorporate with new products whenever possible to the market.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For reference to expansions and shields, we will give you an example of the sort of projects we will encourage:
The new Gen of LattePandas have THREE very special expandable interfaces: The M.2 Keys and the dual 50-Pin connectors. Both of these are very versatile and have huge possibilities.
1. For example, the integration of RS232 industrial interface; stability and compatibility of traditional setups can directly drive industrial servo motor or CNC communication control.
2. Another example is the I2S interface; you can quickly expand the sound card: high resolution and audio amplifier expansion is possible. I2C also helps you to directly extend the possibilities of PC industry standard peripherals.
3. Then the system is working status indication signal, such as whether to switch on the machine, sleep, etc., so that the motherboard and peripherals have better integration and interaction. For example, manage the system shutdown and reboot processes on a robot.
We recommended making or prototyping a form of peripheral design that is akin to an expansion board. Shields, Expansion boards, stacking designs, all are welcome, or any ideas that you might have!
Why is it worth joining the LattePanda hardware ecosystem?
The Alpha series CPU is Intel’s 7th Gen Core M3-7Y30, it is the market’s strongest performing mobile chip in the line-up; it runs faster than 3700 or even slightly higher than the macbook. It has much less constraints on it than other products, hence the real performance.
We have defined this generation of products to cater to solutions slightly higher than 1st Gen LP could. Mainly because we have realized the market demand for performance slightly higher than 1st Gen. While most players are only pursuing low-cost RPi’s, people ignore the limitations of low-cost and low-end solutions for many applications such as human-computer interaction, image recognition (deep learning), cross-platform development, HD image processing, big data Localization Edge Analysis, and more.
We want to bring a truly remarkable engineered product to individual developers and commercial markets with better performance needs in one go and meet the market requirements from prototype to volume production in one device. We hope you can help us expand our Eco System!
Update 1:
Hi LattePanda Developers!
We would like to announce the initial two selections for the new the new generation of LattePanda boards.
@GTC has made a truly remarkable Power Management System that has impressed all of us with its clean, concise and precision design. Its utility is also one of the factors that have convinced us of its noteworthy status. Above all, this contraption can basically be used in a wide-array of situations not limited to size or application since its related to a core-usage of the Panda. We would like to congratulate GTC on his design and selection for the initial batch of Engineering Kits. We will be getting in touch with him soon!
The second proposal came to us on email, so we will keep the identity anonymous but will tell the idea is similar to that of the PiTop. This cost effective solution will definitely empower users to pursue it as a portable solution with just one wire for power. We hope we can pursue this soon and get you all the information and accessories you can from us.
Lastly, we would like to apologize in announcing these results. Its been quite busy here with the Kickstarter campaign and getting ready for production. Second, as a note to all other contributors, this is not the final selection for all LattePanda shields or accessories. We have not ruled out any yet and we encourage you to please keep letting us know your great ideas since we will have another round of evaluations for more open source hardware! As a reminder, we will pursue this with a mind to mass-manufacture them and also sell them alongside the LattePanda itself.
