Am I on the right lines with where I want to go with bbb?

Hi all

I am just starting out with the beaglebone (and linux for that matter), I am running through derek molloys fantastic book and getting on OK.

Can you correct me if I am going in the completely wrong direction here, but my intentions are as follows;

I have a project in mind (automotive based) (I do not necessarily want to commercialize it, but I want to design my own single PCB which will include the base BBB design and external circuitry.

My plans are;

  1. Learn everything I can with the BBB via Derek Molloy and possible other embedded linux books…
  2. Prototype external circuitry with BBB
  3. Field test
  4. After design is verified, integrate external circuitry into a single PCB with BBB
  5. Package it

I am an electronic engineer by day, although I will need to make some progress with high speed digital design but hey if you don’t try you won’t learn anything! No doubt I will make mistakes…

Is this what the BBB was intended for?

Or is it intended to only really be used with capes?

Looking at the content of derek molloys book so far, it seems that there is a standard linux distro on the board, with a hardware specific device tree. My plan is to eventually (when I have learn what on earth I am doing) modify the device tree to suit the hardware I integrate…

Interested to know your thoughts…

I could have gone for major vendors embedded linux/arm development board but I figured my learn curve would be much faster with the support of this fantastic community…

I plan to document my journey to help others…

Thanks truni…

This is the perfect platform for what you want to do. If you haven’t done any high speed digital design, I would advise that you keep the BBB layout as it is and then add your circuitry around the edges of the BBB circuitry. Modifying the BBB layout is not advisable unless you understand high speed digital design. Also be aware that many PCB manufacturers cannot make this board and not many PCB assembly houses can place the components with a low error rate. Circuitco who manufacturers the BBB does both PCB and assembly very well. There are also several members of the BBB community who would be willing to look at your layout and make suggestions on how to make improvements.

Regards,
John