HummingBoard Gate Quick Start Guide

Revision and Notes

Introduction

The following quick start guide provides background information about the HummingBoard Gate product which use the i.MX6 System on module.

The guide will give a technical overview about the product and by the end of it you should be able to boot an operating system and begin testing your application.

Hardware Setup

Product Specifications

SOM Model

NXP i.MX6 based Solo to Quad Core SOM

Memory & Storage

Up to 2GB DDR3*

 

uSD

Connectivity

1xRJ-45**

 

4*USB 2.0

 

Mini-PCIe with SIM card holder

Media

HDMI-Out

 

MIPI-CSI-2 and MIPI-DSI

 

Parallel Camera

I/O

Reset Button

 

36 pins GPIO Header

 

RTC with Battery

 

mikroBUS click interface

OS Support

Linux

Dimensions

102mmx69mm

Power

7V-36V, 5.5mm in (Twist and Lock mechanism)

Environment

Optional metal enclosure

 

Supported with i.MX6 SOM. For more detailed information about our SOM-i.MX6 series please visit this user manual : i.MX6 SOM Hardware User Manual .

 

Block Diagram

The following figure describes the HummingBoard Gate Block Diagram.

Visual features overview

Please see below the features overview of the connector side of the HummingBoard Gate.

 

Print side connector overview of the HummingBoard Gate.

Software Setup

Cable setup and prerequisites

Here is what you will need to power up the board:

  • Linux or Windows PC

  • HummingBoard Gate with SOM

  • 12V Power adapter (HummingBoard Gate has wide range input of 9V-36V, it is recommended to use 12V power adapter)

  • USB to UART cable

  • IP router or IP switch

Booting form an SD card

On the HummingBoard Gate it is possible to boot from different media.

For Booting from an SD card, jumpers need to be setup at J5005 as follows:

Before you set the boot jumpers, please refer to HummingBoard Edge/Gate Boot Jumpers for more information about J5005.

Once you setup the jumpers, you can apply the following for booting from an SD card.

1. Downloading the Debian image

Download the Debian image by running the following command on your Linux/Windows PC:

wget https://solid-run-images.sos-de-fra-1.exo.io/IMX6/Debian/sr-imx6-debian-bullseye-20210904-cli-sdhc.img.xz

2. Writing the image to the SD card

Use the following commands for writing the image to an SD card:

xz -dc sr-imx6-debian-bullseye-20210904-cli-sdhc.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M conv=fsync

Note: Plug a micro SD into your Linux PC, the following assumes that the micro SD is added as /dev/sdX and all it’s partitions are unmounted.

3. SD card insertion

Please Insert the SD card into your device.

4. Power connection

Connect your power adaptor to the DC jack, and then connect the adaptor to mains supply.

5. Serial Connection

Please connect the UART cable to the pins on connector J25 as shown in the below picture, then you can refer to Serial Connection for installing necessary serial connection software in Linux/Windows.

Once you installed the necessary serial connection software, you should be able to see the following:

  • In order to be able to log in , please insert “debian” as a username and password as follows:

Install to eMMC

  • You can follow this document Install to eMMC to install debian to an eMMC device.

More Features

Internet

  • Please check you Ethernet connection.

  • Use the following commands in order to keep your system up-to-date:

apt-get update apt-get upgrade reboot
  • For more detailed information, please refer to i.MX6 Debian .

Wi-fi

An example for connecting to WiFi using wpa_supplicant:

1. To bring a WiFi interface up, run the following :

2. Install the wpa_supplicant package:

3. Edit network interfaces file :

At the bottom of the file, add the following lines to allow wlan as a network connection:

4. Create a configuration file with the relevant ssid:

5. Make sure it works:

Restart your device and it should connect to the wireless network. If it doesn't, repeat above steps or get help from an adult.

Bluetooth

1. For showing all Bluetooth devices, run the following:

2. Choose a device, and turn it on:

3. Set up the Bluetooth name:

4. Make your Bluetooth detectable by other devices:

5. If you want to connect to other devices:

  • Start by scanning for other Bluetooth devices:

  • Choose a MAC address and connect :

  • You can check the communication between the devices by writing :


Cellular Modem

The cellular modem is a more fully featured extension of which contains a cellular module with additional hardware interfaces and a SIM card slot.

You can connect your cellular modem to the mPCIe, and insert a SIM card.

GPIO pins Control

In order to be able to control the GPIO pins, please refer to HummingBoard Edge/Gate/CBi GPIO Pins Control .

MikroBus

For standard use of mikroBUS please refer to i.MX6 mikroBUS .

External use of mikroBUS:

  • SPI

  • UART

  • I2C


Install GUI Support

Wayland

1. Install weston :

  • Connect your HDMI cable and you should be able to see the following :

2. Start weston FROM A PHYSICAL TERMINAL (from the above terminal, not remote or serial session):

This will bring up the following:

  • For more applications, you can refer to GUI Support to install X11, OpenGL-ES, GStreamer, or you can follow this page Gnome for installing Gnome desktop.

 

List Of Supported OS


Build U-Boot & Kernel from sources

 

Documentation

  File Modified

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet HummingBoard Gate BOM rev 1.4.2.xlsx

Dec 26, 2021 by SolidRun

PDF File mikrobus_specification-rev2.pdf

Dec 26, 2021 by SolidRun

ZIP Archive HummingBoard2-v1.4-layout_pcb.zip

Dec 26, 2021 by SolidRun

ZIP Archive HummingBoard2-gerber-rev1.2.zip

Dec 26, 2021 by SolidRun

PDF File rtc-datasheet-onboard.pdf

Dec 26, 2021 by SolidRun

ZIP Archive HummingBoard2 PCB parts assembly Rev 1.4.zip

Dec 26, 2021 by SolidRun

PDF File HummingBoard2 Schematics.pdf

Dec 26, 2021 by SolidRun

ZIP Archive HummingBoard2 Assembly-Files.zip

Dec 26, 2021 by SolidRun

ZIP Archive HummingBoard2 Enclosure-Files.zip

Dec 26, 2021 by SolidRun

 

 

 

SolidRun Ltd.