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Raspberry Pi Model B Schematics

raspberrypi.org

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Re: Raspberry Pi Model B Schematics

#3

Post by zdw »

Wow... 17 unattached GPIO pins off the CPU. I wonder if they just ran out of room to put them on the board, or if they have lack alternate pin-specific capabilities that the used pins have.

I kind of wish there was a harder to use card edge connector for these - they could likely implement an additional 2 SD card slots or similar I/O.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model B Schematics

#4

Post by A1kmm »

rollypolly wrote: post #2

This has to be one of the most hacker-friendly companies out there. Kudos!

It is worth noting that they are an educational charity, not a for-profit organisation.

I think it is great that they have released this - and I think that Broadcom also deserves credit for allowing them to release a schematic giving away the pin-out of the BCM2835 SoC - it makes the Raspberry Pi so much more useful to know what the outputs of the system are.

This opens up the possibility of trying to work out how to use the unused pins on the BCM2835 based on the names. I haven't been able to work out what the HD pin group does (probably not SATA or PATA based on the number of pins, and HDMI has its own pin group). There seems to be a CAM0 not connected to anything - given CAM1 seems to be a camera, it looks like it is for an additional camera. It also has CCP2 outputs for a CCP2 camera. I also haven't been able to work out what SLIM is - but given it has two pins, CLK and DAT, I guess it is some kind of serial data protocol.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model B Schematics

#5

Post by A1kmm »

A1kmm wrote: post #4
rollypolly wrote: post #2

This has to be one of the most hacker-friendly companies out there. Kudos!

It is worth noting that they are an educational charity, not a for-profit organisation. I think it is great that they have released this - and I think that Broadcom also deserves credit for allowing them to release a schematic giving away the pin-out of the BCM2835 SoC - it makes the Raspberry Pi so much more useful to know what the outputs of the system are. This opens up the possibility of trying to work out how to…

Although they look like they are in the middle of the BGA ball array, and probably on a pad that is just floating, so actually connecting anything to the pins that the board isn't designed to allow access to is probably effectively impossible.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model B Schematics

#6

Post by joezydeco »

zdw wrote: post #3

Wow... 17 unattached GPIO pins off the CPU. I wonder if they just ran out of room to put them on the board, or if they have lack alternate pin-specific capabilities that the used pins have. I kind of wish there was a harder to use card edge connector for these - they could likely implement an additional 2 SD card slots or similar I/O.

Man...two unused pins on the external LVDS display header. They could have thrown an I2C pair on that and made it really easy to add an external touchscreen or other kind of display device. Shame.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model B Schematics

#9

Post by lwat »

chj wrote: post #8

is there anybody specialized in circuit design? i mean, how hard is it to build a cheap Pi equivalent board? If this is so popular, why no commercial version?

Make no mistake, clones are on the way. For example this device: http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/ is supposedly both cheaper and more powerful than the Pi.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model B Schematics

#10

Post by elliotanderson »

chj wrote: post #8

is there anybody specialized in circuit design? i mean, how hard is it to build a cheap Pi equivalent board? If this is so popular, why no commercial version?

The Pi has kicked off some interest in hardware hacking for myself too. My question is how hard would it be to embed an 802.11 radio into the same board for a discreet sensor project
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