Mononymous maker Tom, also called “NomDeTom,” has constructed a quasi-single-board pc for individuals who wish to experiment with each low-power Linux purposes and the Meshtastic mesh networking venture: the Femtofox Professional.
“Femtofox is a versatile and environment friendly Arm-based Linux improvement board designed for hobbyists, builders, and engineers who need a compact, low-power computing platform with built-in Meshtastic help, intensive GPIO [General-Purpose Input/Output] entry, and versatile connectivity,” Tom explains of the system. “Whether or not you are constructing a solar-powered Linux node, an IoT [Internet of Things] gateway, a mesh networking system, or one thing utterly new, Femtofox offers the inspiration to make it potential.”
The Femtofox Professional goals to ship a one-stop system for embedded Linux and Meshtastic improvement. (📷: NomDeTom)
The Femtofox Professional is constructed round a low-power Rockchip RV1103 hosted on a Luckfox Pico Mini A single-board pc, giving it a single Arm Cortex-A7 core working at as much as 1.1GHz and 64MB of DDR2 reminiscence. Whereas these specs could seem sedate by trendy requirements, it is sufficient to run a tweaked Ubuntu Linux distribution dubbed Foxbuntu — whereas drawing a powerful 0.27-0.4W throughout lively use, relying on radio utilization.
The radio in query is an EBYTE E22 LoRa transceiver, constructed across the Semtech SX1262, which offers the system with its connection to Meshtastic — a community-driven mesh community that permits nodes to speak through textual content and knowledge messages and share their places. There is a USB Sort-C port related to a WCH CH340 USB to TTY serial adapter for entry to the Linux console, USB 2.0 Host and USB Sort-C On-The-Go (OTG) connectivity for peripheral gadgets, and a Raspberry Pi-style general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) header with UART, I2C, SPI, and pulse-width modulation (PWM) help. There’s additionally a footprint for a real-time clock, although this is not offered as customary, and an RJ45 port for wired Ethernet networking.
The SBC-like board is pushed by a Luckfox Pico Mini A single-board pc (higher left). (📷: NomDeTom)
“In contrast to different improvement boards that require cumbersome energy sources or excessive vitality consumption, Femtofox is designed for ultra-low-power operation whereas nonetheless delivering the facility of Linux,” Tom claims of the gadget. “You may deploy it wherever, run full-fledged purposes, and leverage LoRa mesh networking for off-grid communication.”
{Hardware} design recordsdata for the Femtofox Group Version, and a “Smol” size-reduced variant, can be found on GitHub below a Artistic Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 license; assembled Femtofox Professional boards can be found to order from Tom’s Tindie retailer at $81.95 plus transport.