After coding up the BeagleLogic project, I thought that it would be great to have an add-on cape for the project that provides buffering and also makes the inputs of the BeagleBone Black tolerant to TTL logic voltage levels (up to 5.5V) allowing BeagleLogic to debug external projects with ease. Hence introducing the BeagleLogic cape, the 3D render of which you can see above. The design is done in KiCad.
The design source and gerbers will be made available on the BeagleLogic GitHub repository after I physically assemble and verify the design.
Design & Layout
The cape design is simple enough to just have a single layer layout, as you can see in the render above the top layer is entirely a ground plane but for a single trace. Since the top isn’t much populated I added useful information on the top silkscreen including indexing the pin headers on the Bone on both sides.
The logic channels are accessed via 2×14 right angled pin headers. The upper row of headers are the actual logic channels while the bottom row is all GND pins. The pin headers are arranged in a MSB-to-LSB fashion. This means that the rightmost pin when viewed from the top is raw bit 0 of the captured logic samples. Note that sigrok will use the names of the actual Bone pins so bit 0 (Channel 1) is to be identified as P8_45, bit 1 (Ch2) is P8_46 and so on. The numbering is a little non-obvious but it’s because that’s the way the pins are arranged on the BeagleBone GPIO header. But don’t worry as the cape lists the pin ID of each logic channel so you don’t have to look it up in the pin diagrams.
One important point here. Only the first 12 channels can be used by default. To use the last two channels, you must disable eMMC first and solder 0R resistors or bridge the two resistors R8 and R9 on the bottom side to enable them. Otherwise the buffer will drive those two pins and you will damage the eMMC of the board and also void the warranty.
Here’s a shot of the schematic (click to enlarge). This is for reference only with respect to the current board and the released schematic may or may not be the same
The active buffer is a TI 74LVCH16T245 or equivalent. The buffer is powered from the VDD_3V3B power rail. The OE pin initially pulled is driven using an arrangment of a BSS138 N-MOSFET whose gate is connected to SYS_RESETn of the Bone. This should ensure that the logic input pins, which are also the system boot pins, are not driven by the buffer until the startup has completed.
This version of the design has a 0R resistor through which the VDD_3V3B powers the VDDA side rail of the 16245. If you remove the short and connect it to a 1.8V supply it should become compatible with 1.8V logic levels. I am however thinking of a better solution to the problem and should address this in the next released design.
There’s the officially required cape EEPROM on the bottom side as well, I presume this could be rendered redundant as the community moves towards the Universal Cape concept. But the footprints are there, just in case.
Manufacturing
The first prototype cape has been manufactured by DirtyPCBs.com as a 2-layer Black 10x10cm protopack. It has been shipped as of the time of writing and should reach me next week. I ordered the boards as a Rush order (48h turnaround time) and got it shipped via DHL so that I could have the boards in hand before Christmas rush. I would be using their services further if the boards work out well, looking forward to receive them!
Since I had left space on the panel, and there’s free panelizing so I managed to squeeze some more of my designs into the panel and make the best use of the available real estate. I would write more about those in the coming posts.
So that’s pretty much it. Design suggestions are welcome, and I’ll see if they can be accomodated in the subsequent hardware revisions. Once I test and it all works, the design files will be made available as I have written above.