Open Source Hardware IoT boards ESP32-EVB and ESP32-GATEWAY now are available in industrial grade -40+85C

ESP32-EVB and ESP32-GATEWAY are two very popular IoT boards which are supported both by Arduino IDE and Espressif SDK.

Now we stock ESP32-EVB-IND and ESP32-GATEWAY-IND which are functionally same boards, but all components used in them work in industrial temperature grade -40+85C.

New Products in Stock: Magnetic switch, PT100 thermo sensor, Industrial inductive proximity sensor

SNS-INDUCTIVE is industrial grade inductive sensor working with 12VDC and detecting ferrous materials from 5 mm distance. The output is NPN open collector and can drive relays, LEDs or to be read by microcontroller if pull up resistor is added.  This sensor comes with 1 meter long 3 wire cable with VCC, GND and OUTPUT.

It’s very convenient for detecting moving objects, machine strokes, doors open/close events. Compared with optical proximity sensors SNS-INDUCTIVE can work in moist and dust environment without false triggers.

SNS-PT100 is precise temperature sensor with working range -50C + 250C. The accuracy is +-0.3C at 25C. It comes encapsulated in metal tube with size 30×4 mm. The temperature constant is 6 seconds.

MAG-SW is magnetic switch suitable for alarm systems, it can be placed on doors, windows and other moving parts. The sensor is two pieces, one is magnet, the second is reed contact. When the magnet approaches the reed contact at 5 mm the reed contact closes. Both parts has self adhesive tape on them for easy mounting.

STM32MP1 nice candidate for new industrial grade OLinuXino-LIME

ST Microelectronic released new interesting device it’s Cortex-A7 and Cortex-M4 in one package. This solves two problems – the connectivity and ample amount of DDR3 memory to run Linux on Cortex-A7 core and the additional co-processor with Cortex-M4 for Real Time tasks. On top of this it’s -40+125C operating temperature and with 10 years supply longevity warranty from ST.

The prices starts around USD 5, which is in same range as Allwinner/Rockchip.

Their top model STM32MP157C has 3D openGL ES2.0 and CAN. There will be finally properly documented Secure boot (we hope 🙂  ):

From recent Twitter post I see than Bootlin already works on Linux support for STM32MP1.

Overall STM32MP1 looks like very promising SOC for Industrial grade Linux computer.

If you need more memory and micro SD card for your Arduino project -OLIMEXINO-2560 is with 256K Flash and SD card on board

OLIMEXINO-2560 is Arduino Mega2560 like board which keeps ports conversion but adds UEXT connector to connect our wide range of modules and sensors, works on 5V and 3.3V, and has on board micro SD card for file storage and logging.

Power supply uses DCDC convertor with input range 6-15VDC when OLIMEXINO-2560 works on 5V and 5-15VDC when OLIMEXINO-2560 works on 3.3V.

ESP32-DevKit-Lipo, ESP32-POE and ESP32-POE-ISO boards now have option with external antenna and all our ESP32 boards can be build in extended temperature range -40+105C for demanding applications

Our popular ESP32-DevKit-Lipo, ESP32-POE and ESP32-POE-ISO now has option with external antenna, so you can use them even with metal boxes. The external antenna extends their range by 20-30%.

We stock now ESP32 modules with 16MB of Flash, so if you run out of memory you can order any of our ESP32 boards with 16MB Flash module too.

Also we have ESP32 modules in extended temperature range -HT (high temperature) which works from -40C up to 105C for demanding applications.

Long Term OLinuXino supply – How it works?

We got question from customer of ours: “We are using your A20-OLinuXino in our product and I’ve heard that you are going to stop the production soon, is this true?”

Most of our customers are industrial machine producers and they need long term supply from their vendors. They do certification for their machines which cost a lot and they can’t afford to spend more money every year because the Linux module is not produced or changed. We already wrote several post on our blog that we supply our boards until there is demand for them and that we have long term supply agreement with Allwinner, but some people spread rumors and I have to write it and make it clear again: We will produce OLinuXino boards until there is demand. It’s even included in our GTC.

When back in 2014 I posted that we can supply OLinuXino forever many people were skeptical (well yes it is exaggerated 🙂 ) and wrote back – do not believe Chinese suppliers, they will let you down etc. etc.

Allwinner though is keeping their promise and we can buy all Allwinner SOCs we use without problem. Our volumes allow us to meet their MOQ.

For instance A13 SOC is very old and Allwinner discontinued it several years ago, it’s even not listed on their web as product, but we still keep buying it and producing A13 boards for our customers. We have also many customers which used our boards as template to make their own variants and now we supply them with A13 SOCs so they keep manufacturing them. You will not find A13 for sale anywhere even in China, but we are expecting next lot of 90Kpcs A13 to come from Allwinner in few weeks. Yes we have to order such quantities as Allwinner need 3 month to produce the SOCs from the order to shipment.

Many customers ask can you guarantee 10-15-20 years of supply? I doubt anyone in industry can see so long ahead. Allwinner is young company, founded September 2007, i.e. less 12 years old. Who knows what they will do after 20 years? We see that Western companies with much more history change owners every year and no one knows what the new owner will decide to do, so no one can give you 10-20 years prediction or will simply intentionally or unintentionally mislead you.

For A13 and A20 this agreement works well last 7 years. Both we at Olimex and Allwinner has no reason stop production, which brings money to both of us. We got visit from Allwinner sales manager in March this year and he said that they never though they can sell A13 and A20 for so long time. Most of other SOCs they sell target consumer market where lifetime is 1-2 years top.

Linux and Open Source Hardware works well for them and prolong their sales.

Open Source / Free Software for Effective Industry 4.0 Meetup by Nexedi GmbH and Fraunhofer IAO on November 12th, 2018 in Stuttgart with Amarisoft, Linutronix, Olimex and Télécom ParisTech

On 12th of November in Stuttgart at Fraunhofer IAO (Nobelstraße 12, 70569 Stuttgart, GERMANY) will be held “Open Source / Free Software for Effective Industry 4.0 Meetup”  organized by Nexedi GmbH and hosted by Fraunhofer IAO.

Olimex will present there Open Hardware solutions for Industrial Automation.