1.) The following commands will need to be executed as root. It’s popular to prefix the commands with ‘sudo’, but you can also become root by using the command (may vary depending on distribution): su - 2.) Plug in your SD card and then use the following command to see which /dev/ node it’s located on (be sure of this!): fdisk -l 3.) Unmount the disk (using /dev/sda as example, verify with step 2): umount /dev/sba* 4.) Use the ‘dd’ command to copy the image file (ts-image.dd) to the entire disk: dd if=ts-image.dd of=/dev/sda Also, you can write the image to the specific partition numbe ..read more

Imagine for a moment that you’re in charge of a new scientific research project where a remote device will be deployed to automatically collect data samples and report back to the lab. The device might be deployed several times to different locations throughout the year, and one requirement is that a scientist back at the lab can send a command to actuate some mechanical device, like a motor, and respond with collected data or status at any given time. For a project like this, you’ll need to somehow wirelessly communicate with the device. These remote areas are likely well beyond the reach of ..read more

  Single Level Cell (SLC) NAND flash is no longer the stuff of headlines. Consumer markets are chasing the latest nodes and densities in Multi Level Cell (MLC), Tri-Level Cell (TLC), or the up and coming 3D NAND memories, leaving SLC NAND to the smaller “high reliability” market. However, in the world of embedded systems where product life cycles are measured in decades rather than years, SLC NAND is still in heavy use. Despite continued use in applications requiring long life or high-reliability solutions, NAND manufacturers have quietly made changes to their SLC NAND offerings that have ..read more

Your package is being delivered.                                                                                                          I’d like to take a moment to shine some light on an area of our business that is generally unthought of and under appreciated — packaging and shipping. The stuff that happens to get your product fr ..read more

Technology has become more than just a battle of sheer numbers. It has somewhat morphed into a “less is more” philosophy to see what’s possible with less. We pitted these three ARM CPUs together to find out if there are any positive impacts to using a slower clock speed CPU: 800 MHz PXA166 ARM CPU (TS-7250-V2) 1066 MHz PXA168 ARM CPU (TS-7250-V2) 696 MHz i.MX 6UltraLite ARM CPU (TS-7553-V2) What we found is very promising in that in most tests, the 696 MHz i.MX 6UltraLite provided a huge advantage over the 800 MHz PXA166 and even the 1066 MHz PXA168. Let’s take a quick look at our findings ..read more

Servos are a ubiquitous and versatile part of everyday electronic gadgetry. From unlocking doors to dropping a soda out of the vending machine, nearly anywhere a computer needs motion you will probably find a servo. Servo control is an important trick in any embedded systems software engineer’s repertoire. The TS-7180 SBC makes a conveniently apt servo controller, however there are some caveats that might surprise the uninitiated.    Home You can also read this article in Servo Magazine! Assumptions This article does make some assumptions: You already know how to obtain serial cons ..read more

Abstract The basis of this project is to provide a solution to any resource monitoring applications that involve sharing a limited resource for increased productivity or throughput optimizing. The solution involves use of a single board computer to monitor remote sensor nodes, manage a queue for any assets waiting to use the resource, and notifying the assets. This specific example is monitoring and managing a queue for use of company bathrooms and notifying employees when they become available. Employees can subscribe to the bathroom status using SMS text messaging and become alerted when it ..read more

Radiation tolerance, power efficiency, and fast write performance also characterize F-RAM non-volatile storage technology.                  Home Ferroelectric Random Access Memory (F-RAM) is a non-volatile storage technology that offers low power, fast write performance, and a greater write endurance when compared to EEPROM or flash technologies. For example, the write endurance of F-RAM from Cypress Semiconductor is 10^14 (100 trillion) write cycles. Presuming the device takes 4 ms to rewrite every cell, it would take a minimum of 126 years for a f ..read more

Introduction I say, if your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes Green-thumbed techno junkies rejoice! For today, we’re going to take an introductory, prototype look at what it takes to digitally monitor the soil moisture content of a common houseplant so we know when to water it. We’re talking about using a single board computer to read from a soil moisture sensor from an Analog to Digital Convertor (ADC) and toggle an indicator LED using Digital Input and Output (DIO). Specifically, we’re going to be usin ..read more

As you may have seen in my TS-7970 Home Security Systems video on YouTube, I took a TS-7970 quad core single board computer and built it into my very own home security system using the open source software Zoneminder. This product works very well for the two camera system that I have hooked up. In case you didn’t get a chance to see the video, I wanted a security system that was cost effective and still worked well with the capability to expand if I so desired. I was referred to Zoneminder by a good friend and coworker of mine. Since I work at Technologic Systems I thought it would be cool to ..read more