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chumbysphere forum → Hardware → What would you like chumby to ship with?
How about bluetooth? There are several small portable bluetooth keyboards available, and for those times when a keyboard is needed, all you would have to do is sit it there. An email client can be made very thin.
Having the accelerometer hard-mounted on the same plane as the screen would be an improvement.
Using the accelerometer on the sensor PCB causes some inaccuracies, as the min/max values can be skewed artificially, by squeezing Chumby...
'Making' some space on the main PCB would be great...
Also, using a real 3-axis accelerometer, instead of a 2-axis accelerometer would help, as well.
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For apps that would use the accelerometer...
1. Having a velcro mount stitched onto the Chumby would be great... One could then just place it on the dashboard and be ready to go...
Bruce
It is a three-axis accelerometer.
Keep in mind that it measures vector forces, not rotations - it's not a gyroscope.
We considered Bluetooth, but it came out to be relatively expensive - and there are plenty of Bluetooth USB dongles out there. We're somewhat limited by how much hardware we can hang off this processor - things like USB come along for the ride, Bluetooth is an extra expense.
i think the production models will have two USB ports on the back - if you need more, we recommend a hub.
The Chumby Sensor Package schematics list the Accelerometer as an ADXL322 (U200 in the schematics).
The Analog Devices webpage for this part is:
http://www.analog.com/en/prod/0,2877,ADXL322,00.html
Where it is clearly described as a 2-axis accelerometer.
So - Either the schematics are incorrect, and the z-axis output on pin 8 is a misnomer... or a different accelerometer is being used.
The datasheet for the ADXL322 part describes pin 8 as: 'NC - DO NOT CONNECT'...
As a side note... If you watch the z-axis output on chumby in real-time, the only time it changes is if you turn around in a circle... Indicating some sort of rotational relationship.
Bruce
I believe it's a mistake on the schematic/BOM; I'm pretty sure the chip is actually an ADXL330, which is the three axis accelerometer in that same chip family, same as the one in the Wii Remote. If you've hacked apart your Chumby (as I suspect many of you have), flip over the daughtercard to the bottom side and you can see the little square package, clearly marked with XL, 330K.
(http://www.analog.com/en/prod/0,2877,ADXL330,00.html) for more info.
Would you please verify/validate this finding?
There is no BOM for the Sensor Package... Just schematics.
Bruce
That "Chumby Sensor Package" schematic was for some old stuff that Bunnie put together long ago for hardware hackers to play with - it's *not* the schematic for the current Katamari daughterboard.
what I would like is an FM radio reciever, and more importantly, (easily) upgradeable components. Imagine having the ability to swap out the 266 mhz for a 1 ghz processor (when they come out, at least) or swap out the 32 megs of RAM for 512 megs (again, when we can cram that much solid state memory into that small a chip). The customizability of a computer both in software and in hardware would be awesome.
Socketing the components for "upgrades" would be prohibitively expensive, even if it made any sense in the first place. Embedded processors are very small and designed for surface mounting - as they evolve, they tend to have radically different pinouts, unlike the typical processor you find in a general purpose computer. In some cases, the sockets cost more than the components they're holding, and not only is cost an issue, but also reliability.
The entire chumby circuit board is about the size of a pack of cards, and the production unit is reduced to the size of a credit card, so there's also a geometry issue.
I hope you'll find that the USB ports (chumby will have 2) give you the type of expandability and customization that you're looking for, i.e., opportunities for a variety of audio and storage devices to be plugged in, alternative "air interfaces/wireless network dongles," and other add-ons. Stay tuned for more info on some of these they Chumby will be providing.
Smallest possible power supply, please! Best would be the transformer directly inside Chumby, and no wallwart at all, but I know that's a pipe dream.
SD card port for extra memory somewhere on the back panel inside the unit inbetween batt and board have the slot integrated into the housing just a raised spot. SD is what I would want because they are small and fast and easy to add in. You can hack them into laFoneras easily this shouldn't be that bad to be put int the production model.
Also an optional(buy from the chumby store separately or as an an option that costs more because right now I am seeing a 9 volt) lithium rechargeable battery(include the charging circuitry on the daughter board and have a switch norm or rechargeable to be able to use a small lithium pack.) so you can put songs and movies on the sd and watch them like on an ipod on a road trip or on an airplane so your pillow plays music and tv while having a decent charge time.
SAMBA client onboard FTP server onboard for the SD memory FTP is light weight or we could just use a scp...
Backlight intensity like on laptops so when you unplug them the backlight goes to 1/2 power(switched resistor with a cutout) so like 2 parallel wires one with a resistor and one with a switch you hit the switch it goes to 0 ohm switch off 330 ohms or whatever even hook it up to an output on the board that has a pot thats controlled by the cpu) and ifconfig wlan0 power (less) when it is unplugged so there is less power used there?
hmmm....a rechargable battery...
A built in GPS
"Someday, a computer without GPS might seem as silly as a computer without a clock" http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
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