A few notes relating to a bit of kit I bought called “The Bifferboard”.
Basically, it’s a tiny PC comprising a 150MHz CPU equivalent to a 486, has 32MB of RAM and a 1MB flash storage memory. It has a USB 2.0 port and a 10/100 ethernet port. It costs just under £30, and is available here.
I had the following goals that I wanted to achieve with my BifferBoard:
1. IP-enable a USB webcam
2. Control motors/servos in order to secure the chicken coop at night
3. Connect to the RFID tagging system I had put together to track the chickens in/out of the coop.
In order to achieve this, I’m using the following parts:
Bifferboard with enclosure
Logitech E3500 Quickcam
USB Bit Whacker
2 x USB 2.0 Hubs
5v DC Power Supply (modified for mounting outside) {link to short article detailing this}
1GB USB Memory Stick
USB-TTL Adaptor
Light Dependant Resistor
First step was to get some power to the BB and connect to the serial output pins in order to watch it boot and administer it.
{pic of header soldered to board}
{pic of terminal during boot}
I now needed to get a root file system on to a USB memory stick, as the 1MB flash storage is only used for the kernel in order to get the board “up and running”.
I used a 1GB mmory stick and prepared it as follows on a Debian VM:
- mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1
- mkdir /mnt/memstick
- mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/memstick
I used the generic pre-compiled rootfs from here, new versions may appear, but I carried out the following:
- cd /mnt/memstick
- wget http://bifferos.planetlee.eu/bifferboard/bb-bin-1.4.tar.bz2
- tar -jxvf bb-bin-1.4.tar.bz2
- cd bb-bin-1.4
- mkdir rootfs
- mv bifferboard-rootfs.tgz rootfs/
- cd rootfs/
- tar -zxvf bifferboard-rootfs.tgz
- rm bifferboard-rootfs.tgz
- cp * /mnt/memstick/ -r
You can now connect the memory stick to the bifferboard (optionally via a hub) and it should boot to a prompt within the serial console.
My next post will detail how I flashed a different kernal to the device, and details on how I got my USB peripherals working.
