Lichee Pi Zero is a delicate Cortex-A7 Board which is almost SD-sized(44.6x25.5mm (1.76x1.00inch)), breadboard-compatible, and wifi/lora available .
Zero based on Allwinner V3S (ARM Cortex-A7 CPU, 1.2GHz, 512Mbit DDR2 integrated), and it can boot from on board SPI Flash or TF card.
We transplant newest linux 4.10 kernel for it!
Zero has various low speed peripherals just like most MCU: GPIO,UART, SPI, I2C,ADC,PWM...
And it has other useful High Speed interfaces : OTG USB,MIPI CSI,EPHY,RGB LCD
It also integrated codec: you can connect it to headphone or microphone directly.
Here is the architecture diagram:
Top side of Zero:
- left to right: RGB LED, MPU, TF SLOT, LCD backlight circuit, micro usb(OTG & Power)
Buttom side of Zero:
- left to right: Touch Screen Controller, DCDC Power, on board SPI Flash, FPC40 RGB Connector.
Zero compare to SD Card, it is pretty cute, right?
Generally speaking, small board, especially about SD-sized board, has unfriendlly connector.
for example, the intel edsion:
Its connector is impossible to solder by hands or connect to breadboard, and you have to buy the "breakout board": edsion cost $37, and breakout board cost $22, it is not a wise chioce obviously...
Well, Zero is well designed for the pin out, it is easy for DIYers:
- 30 frequently-used pins output via 2.54mm (100mil) pins
- two rows' intwerval is 900mil, which means it can directly plug to breadboard !
- other 30 unfrequently-used pins output via 1.27mm half-holes
- 1.27mm half-holes also can be soldered to 2.54mm pins (half intwerval offset), it is easy to connect
- on board FPC40 Connector can be connect to many peripherals (not only the lcd)
plug to breadboard:
solder all 60 pins tactfully:
Zero can easily append wifi ability too.
Zero has customized "TF WiFi Card", and it can be plug in to tf slot, or sloder to 2.54 pins (the pin order is well designed).
In the other hand, Zero is cute in power consume, so you needn't prepare huge cooling fin for it : )
Zero consume about 90mA when run linux without LCD, it is pretty good. (it is run in 1GHz, you know STM32F4 consume 90mA in 168MHz...)
And the temperature is fine too, it is about 40℃ (run linux, idle).
It raise to 63℃ after run cpu-burn program 6 minutes.
It is much better then Raspberry Pi (80℃) or H3-based boards(90+℃, that's terrible...)
Zero's FPC40 Connector is useful:
you can connect it to RGB LCD:
you can connect it to VGA :
you can connect it to HDMI:
If you have idle laptop screen(LVDS), you can connect to it:
It even can connect to a DVP camera module!
or, you want more GPIO, it can extend 22 GPIOs, 2 ADC, and several power pins for you:
In addtion, Zero have Powerful Docker!
It has 5M MIPI carmera, 4 ADC-keys, battery manger, Ethernet RJ45 Connector, microphne, 3.5mm jack ,one more tf slot, and several pins for UART,SPI,I2C,PWM.
Behind TF slot, there is a PA slot, you can plug PA module in it:
several speakers is supported:
1W spearker:
3W Speaker:
even bone conduction speaker!
The Docker support OLED and small size LCD, always cute : )
0.96 inch 128x64 OLED
1.3 inch 128x64 OLED
2.4 inch 240x320 TFT:
um... I know you guys want DIY it as a micro GameBoy, right?
Here is the joystick and key board:
The Docker has several communication interfaces:
- Ethernet RJ45 connector
- TF Wifi Card Slot
- Lora Module (it is awesome RF module if you don't know yet)
Let me tell you how awesome the lora is:
- Its RF range is 15km in 20dbm(as same as normal wireles router) output power. can you image you can connect to your wireles router 15km away?
- We designed a customized protocol for it, instead of LoRaWAN, why? LoraWAN chip is about $50 and the loraWAN module is more than $200!
- Our protocol is even better than LoRaWAN in many cases:
- Price: <$20, les than one-tenth of LoRaWAN gate module!
- Ad-Hoc Network
- Authority Management
- Seamless Switching between netgates
- Auto Disaster Recovery
- Support more than 10,000 node online!
- Also, we provide efficient cloud server interface for it
- one server supports up to 1,000,000 nodes without ssl, up to 100,000 with ssl
You can DIY your own IoT system, or even your own cell sites ( just like AT&T!)。
The 3.5mm headphone jack can connect to our Microphone Array too.
You can DIY your "Echo" by it:
- six electret mic or silicon mic, 24 leds indicate direction of sound, OLED indicate work status
- location precision better than 15°
- reverberation eliminate
- beam forming, up to 5m ASR
- keyword wake
- up, signal out put
- one analog audio output, one I2S output
- config by uart/i2c
- speaker recognition
- and the price is lower than $20 !
Zero is cute, powerful and friendlly, you can easily DIY your works without professional tools like 3D-printer.
For example, I make a Mini "laptop" with Zero in 5min:
All you need is: A Lichee Pi Zero, A wireless keyboard, a Li-Polymer Battery, a simple holder, some tape.
thanks for zero's FPC40 connector, you can directly connect it to LCD, and then stick it to the back of LCD, as well as battery.
At last, stick holder behind wireless keyboard, and plug LCD in holder, finished!
The first version of Zero laptop:
You can package the screen with black tap, and it will be more compact.
Let's turn off light and take look at it:
poweron:
startx, running debian desktop!
open some windows:
you can see 800x480 LCD is much clearer than PocketChip's 272x480 LCD, and it is in 3/4 price !
Play some games:
Super Mario!
Pokemon!
DOOM: video here
Suprise! Zero even can run RASPBIAN JESSIE WITH PIXEL !
More pictures for enjoy !
Thanks for reading!
If you have any suggestions or questions, please commit below!