Top Recommendations for Boards, Instruments, and Books of the Year (with Prize List)

Dear fans,

Hello! June 10, 2019, is the first day of Darwin’s establishment, and today marks exactly five months. Thank you for being here. We have read all your messages, private messages, and comments, but we haven’t had time to reply, so I decided to write everything I want to say here.

In June, you asked me:“What is Darwin?”

I was very happy that someone finally paid attention! Darwin is a homophone for Darwin. We hope to evolve ourselves and become an electronic video learning platform that teaches and solves problems.

In July and August, you said:“Will I see you at this year’s smart car competition?”“How to do the Electric Competition A and C questions?”

At the Weihai finals, we met, bringing eight live broadcast rooms.

At the hot Tongji University, we met, sharing series of national first-class competitors.

Then, you asked:“Is there a sharing for postgraduate entrance exams?”“Graduation design course?”“What about job hunting?”“Power supply course?”“Artificial intelligence course?”….”

We heard all of it and have worked hard to fulfill those wishes.

Later, you said you watch my WeChat official account and Bilibili videos every day, and you specifically thanked me for the learning journey at Darwin and for the good luck. I smiled, knowing it was just “sweet talk,” but I accepted it all.

I want to say more than just “thank you.” I just want to keep these in my heart and repay you with actions in the future.

——Nimo at dawn

Here are the annual top recommendations for boards, instruments, books, etc., along with reasons for the recommendations.If you think there are any great items that I missed, please feel free to add them in the comments.

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Board Category

Embedded Development Boards

☞ Seeeduino Lotus

Reason for Recommendation:Open-source, rich peripherals, quick to get started.

The Seeeduino Lotus board has a variety of peripheral modules integrated together. It uses the original Atmel AVR microcontroller as the main control, while also bringing out many connector interfaces, making it easy for everyone to DIY different peripherals. Our current board includes some commonly used peripherals.

In terms of resources, this development board has a Chinese application manual and over ten case tutorials to teach everyone how to DIY, such as a water reminder cup, smart watering device, etc. You can reply with “seeeduino” on the Darwin WeChat official account to get materials.

☞ STM32F401 Nucleo

Reason for Recommendation:Widely used, abundant resources.

The Arduino development board mentioned above is based on the AVR 8-bit microcontroller, which may not meet the performance requirements for some applications. At this time, we need to recommend the ARM Cortex-based microcontroller. ST has done very well in terms of resources, and a complete beginner can find Chinese guides easily. The F4 is a product launched by ST in 2011 based on the Cortex M4 core. Compared to STM32F1/F2 and other Cortex M3 products, the biggest advantage of STM32F4 is that the main frequency has increased from the original 72MHz to 168MHz, and it has added a hardware FPU unit and DSP instructions. Therefore, it can be used in high-performance scenarios.

☞ RT1064 Development Kit (RT1064 Core Board, Motherboard,Ling Tong Color Camera, 2.0-inch IPS Parallel Color Screen)

Reason for Recommendation: High performance, solid development board performance, fully equipped (components, materials).

The RT1064 core board is the smallest board on the internet, only 52.83mm*37.08mm, and has many interfaces with a 2.54mm spacing. The board integrates a TF card slot and a Type-C USB interface that supports reversible insertion. It reserves a flash interface, which can be soldered if large amounts of data need to be stored. There is an LED on the board, which is a unique core indicator light that visually shows the core status and allows you to check if the power-on sequence is normal. Additionally, this board solves a very serious problem for RT — the power-on sequence, so you don’t have to worry about it when using RT.

The motherboard has various functional module interfaces, facilitating the expansion of other functions, such as encoders, motor drive signals, cameras (supports dual cameras for simultaneous capture), screens, etc.

The Ling Tong Color Camera is small and exquisite, using a four-layer PCB with a high aesthetic value in black and gold. From a software perspective, with the CSI interface, the maximum capture frame rate is 60 frames/s, and the resolution can reach 640*480. The maximum capture frame rate for the FlexIO port is 25 frames per second, with a resolution of 320*240.

The 2.0-inch 8-bit IPS parallel color screen has a resolution of 320*240, a PPI of up to 200, fast transmission speed, accurate colors, and excellent viewing angles.

☞ Wildfire Embedded Development Platform i.MX6ULL

Top Recommendations for Boards, Instruments, and Books of the Year (with Prize List)

Reason for Recommendation:High class, “Wildfire”.

The Wildfire i.MX6ULL Linux development board adopts a core board plus baseboard design. The core board has three styles: stamp hole, BTB interface, and gold finger interface. The MPU is Cortex-A7 with an 800M main frequency, 512MB memory, and 8GB eMMC FLASH. The board has an HDMI port that can be directly connected to a 27-inch 1080P display, with four USB ports for expansion, supporting various NES games, allowing you to relive childhood joys such as Contra, Adventure Island, Tank Battle, etc.

The Wildfire i.MX6ULL Linux development board comes with over 1800 pages of tutorials and complete video tutorials.

IoT Development Boards

☞ BearPi

Reason for Recommendation:Born for IoT.

Since it’s born for IoT, it achieves one-stop IoT development, connecting to Huawei Cloud in 10 minutes, and will support over 60 different IoT cases in the future. BearPi is defined as an IoT development board, allowing different communication and sensor boards to be replaced for quick IoT product prototype development. It has a genuine ST-Link V2.1 downloader onboard, drag-and-drop program downloading; a 240×240 full-color LCD screen; a patented AT switch that allows for one-click switching between PC and MCU; WAN Interface that can achieve 2G, WIFI, NB-IoT, HiLink, LoRa communication, so all IO ports are exposed.From entry-level to advanced to practical, everything is open source..

FPGA Development Boards

☞ XiaoMei Ge AC620 Altera FPGA Development Board

Reason for Recommendation:Professional — an excellent development board representative from Intel (Altera).

XiaoMei Ge has been committed to researching Intel (Altera) products since making FPGA development boards and teaching work, from the first-generation red FPGA development board to the current second-generation black FPGA development board, optimizing more in terms of peripherals, performance, and versatility. It uses the Cyclone IV EP4CE10 large-capacity multi-pin FPGA chip, with onboard 12MB SDRAM high-speed memory, 12-bit 8-channel high-precision ADC, IIC interface RTC real-time clock, RS232/RS485 serial port, CAN automotive electronic communication interface, RTL8210 10/100M Ethernet, 24-bit CD-quality audio codec, 12-bit dual-channel high-precision DAC, 8-bit bright digital tube, and infrared receiver decoder.

Materials — buying the board is actually most important to buy materials: a total of over 120 video lectures; over 1000 pages of supporting books and documents; and ongoing updated materials; over 100 example program source codes.

☞ Spartan Edge Accelerator Board

Xilinx and Seeed collaborated: Spartan entry-level learning FPGA edge acceleration Xilinx development board with WiFi Bluetooth ESP32 Arduino.

Reason for Recommendation:This is a lightweight Xilinx Spartan7 FPGA development board; currently, there are not many development boards made using Xilinx Spartan7 chips on the market. Using the 7 series chips also means you can use the Vivado tool for development, making it easier to learn and use Xilinx’s new development methods, which is very good.

☞ PYNQ-Z2 Kit

Reason for Recommendation:Officially recognized board. PYNQ-Z2 is designed for the Xilinx University Program to support the PYNQ (Python productivity for Zynq) framework.

The chip is ZYNQ XC7Z020-1CLG400C, with the PL side using the Artix7 FPGA architecture + PS side using a 650MHz dual-core Cortex-A9 processor architecture, and the PS and PL communicate through the AXI bus.

The onboard hardware is fully equipped, with memory and storage (512MB DDR3, 16MB Quad-SPI flash, MicroSD slot), 2 HDMI ports (input and output, with a 24-bit I2S DAC with a 3.5mm TRRS jack; input line with a 3.5mm jack), compatible with Raspberry Pi and Arduino expansion connectors.

Very suitable for FPGA acceleration of convolutional neural networks (CNN), image and audio transmission experiments, such as automatic video monitoring systems and gesture recognition, using Python, OpenCV library, and PYNQ framework to implement computer vision project development on this platform.

Instrument Category

☞ ADALM2000 M2K Advanced Active Learning Module

Reason for Recommendation:“Multiple instruments combined into one,” the ADALM2000 (M2K) active learning module is an economical USB-powered software-defined instrument that integrates the functions of an oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, arbitrary waveform generator, network analyzer, and digital power supply, known as a “pocket laboratory,” making it convenient for electronics enthusiasts to test and measure various functions of circuits anytime, anywhere.

☞ MS05000 Oscilloscope (150MHz Probe)

Reason for Recommendation: The domestic ace of Chinese chips, produced by RIGOL, is the king of cost-performance ratio for digital oscilloscopes, with 7-in-1 functions, all hardware integrated.

Private Book List

A private book list:

“Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence Application Development Series”——Reason for Recommendation: 9 books covering popular applications from embedded systems to motor drives to automotive electronics, practical training series.

Beginning Hardware First Book “Circuit” Qiu Guanyuan ——Reason for Recommendation: The first book for beginning hardware, establishing a knowledge system, very basic, do not skip, must read every chapter and section carefully, the prototype of a hardware engineer is taking shape.

Essential Digital Circuit “Fundamentals of Digital Circuit Design” Yang Chunling Wang Shujuan——Reason for Recommendation: It is now the digital age, so you must master digital circuits, which helps form the framework of hardware and is very beneficial for chip design and the development direction of embedded systems.

Power Supply Trilogy “Mastering Switch Power Supply Design”——Reason for Recommendation: The power supply is the lifeblood of all products; without a good power supply, there can be no good products. This power supply trilogy is sufficient; no other power supply books are needed.

Oscilloscope “High-Speed Digital Interface” Principles and Testing Guide Li Kai——Reason for Recommendation: Working with low power, especially in electronics, is inseparable from oscilloscopes and various high-speed interfaces, protocol specifications, etc. Highly recommended.

For more private book lists, you can reply with “private book list” in the backend of the “Darwin Says” WeChat official account to get them.

Top Courses

Switching Power Supply Simulation and Application Based on Simplis——Centered around the star simulation software in the switching power supply field — Simplis basics and applications for quickly achieving accurate switching power supply simulation and application.

19 Lessons Unlocking Deep Learning Neural Network Accelerators and SOC Chip Design——Fudan University experts teach you step by step, focusing on the underlying hardware for neural network accelerator and SOC chip design.

How to Play with M2K——From basic instrument application explanations of M2K to how to use M2K for circuit measurement and analysis, hands-on teaching to unlock various ways to use M2K!

17 Lessons of Dejie Graduation Design Skills Series——How to complete the last lesson of university, learning various skills for graduation design with Dejie Electronics’ graduation design series courses.

The above good courses can be watched through the following channels:

Darwin Official Website:www.darwinlearns.com

WeChat Official Account:Darwin Says, see the advanced boutique column

Tool Category

☞ T12 Smart Soldering Station

Reason for Recommendation:Smart PID temperature control, 80 degrees-500 degrees, heating block (can melt solder in 6 seconds), stable temperature (temperature stable, no fluctuation), automatic sleep (can protect the soldering iron tip), with four theme colors (gray-white, green, blue, red).

☞ Fluke 15B Multimeter

Reason for Recommendation:Voltage, current, capacitance, resistance, etc., all in one machine for multi-functional monitoring. This multimeter does not require adjusting the range; just select the function to measure.

☞ PCB Ruler/Mouse Pad

Reason for Recommendation:It can be used not only as a mouse pad but also as a “fashion shawl,” large and smooth. Of course, the various shortcut keys on the mouse pad will allow you to find what you need immediately.

☞ Wang Yibo’s Same Model Hai Fei Si Anti-Hair Loss Shampoo Set

Reason for Recommendation:Tested and found to be effective, engineers need it! Don’t say you don’t need it; whether fast or slow, you will choose Darwin’s recommendations in a few months or a year or two.

Thank you to all the fans who have always supported us. Darwin will continue to contribute to the electronics industry, and I hope that the day we meet again, we can say to each other:“I liked your article today” “Thank you, I look forward to your guidance.”

Special thanks to all the heroes who supported us during this Double 11:ADI, Digi-Key, Infineon, NXP, Rigol, Seeed, ST, Xilinx, Wildfire Electronics, XiaoMei Ge, Bear Intelligent, Zhibo Education, Zhufei Technology, etc.

Attached Prize List: (Please send your address to [email protected], all prizes are cash on delivery.)

Seeeduino Lotus: Cheng Xiaobai, boogieM

STM32F401: 2147158883_bilibili, Bi An Hua Hua Kai Bi An, Running Han

Ling Tong Color Camera: A Rabbit in Love with a Princess

i.MX6ULL Linux Development Board Kit: NVregret

BearPi: One Radish, One Pit, I Am Really Dou Dou, Li Bai Who Quits Smoking but Not Drinking, That Summer When Flowers Fell

Spartan Edge Accelerator Board: Jie Xiong (WeChat nickname)

Oscilloscope Probe: Shaohua Qingfu 123

NXP Books: Latest Technology Says, This Age Group Can Sleep Well

Zhibo Mouse Pad: Scraped Injury Tragedy

Zhibo Ruler or Harbin Institute of Technology Ruler: Enthalpy Change and Entropy Change, Soy Sauce Brother Selling Soy Sauce, sunshine7337

PYNQ Pink Board: Junfeng

STM32F469: yfyfuuyg

99 USD XILINX Developer Conference Beijing Station Ticket: zcyazmh

Hai Fei Si Anti-Hair Loss Shampoo Set: Cheng Deng Deng Deng Ah

Aurix275: Cat Like a Dog

END

Recommended Reading:

Electric Competition Series | Artificial Intelligence | Postgraduate Entrance Exam | Job Hunting

Essential Knowledge Points | Graduation Design | Switching Power Supply

We are Nimo, the founder of Darwin, a girl who only talks about technology and does not flirt. The Darwin online education platform aims to serve professionals in the electronics industry, providing skill training videos covering popular topics in various subdivisions, such as embedded systems, FPGA, artificial intelligence, etc. We tailor layered learning content for different groups, such as commonly used knowledge points, disassembly assessments, electric competitions/smart cars/postgraduate entrance exams, etc. Welcome to follow us.

Official Website: www.darwinlearns.com

Bilibili: Darwin

QQ Group: 786258064

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