SmartBox powered by BeagleBone

[This an Avealabs project, I am grateful to Avealabs due to facilities provided to me]

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Once upon a time, there were PIC microcontrollers which are being used to make electronics projects at home. Then, Arduino kits have been released and led a paradigm shift in the DIY community. They were easy to use and program, they had a large community and lots of working examples. I admit that it is quite unlikely that they will be replaced by any other kit but Rasperry PI like open source hardware singleboard computers are coming into the scene in a very fast pace. I know many people have already started to implement their cool ideas with these tiny computers. NinjaBlocks is a very good example of it.

Here in this project, I will show you only one example of how these computers can be utilized in a productive way. I called this project as SmartBox, I admit I wasn't a creative guy thinking of a name but it will indeed serve as a small computer that can do many jobs. As a first application, I will use that box to show tweets, e-mail notifications and current time on its LED scrolling display. I will also notify status with a blinking RGB Led fading in and out attached to the back side of the box. 

In this tutorial, I am going to start from scratch. I will first show you my first design on paper and the idea behind it. Then, I will move on to the electronics design of the product, namely, LED Scrolling Panel, Power LED Driver, Circuit to drive LED Panel etc... In the next phase, I am going to share my product design sketched in Google SketchUp. And lastly, I will show you how the software works.

I don't expect you to do the same of this project but I am hopeful that it will inspire you for other way cooler projects in which BeagleBone can be used. 

Step 1: First sketches on paper

First, there should be some limitations on my design. In the front side, scrolling led panel will show tweets and it would be more stylistic if that led panel doesn't cover too much space. Therefore I planned to make rotating/adjustable led panel on the front side. On the back side of the module, there should be enough space to place Beaglebone, Led driver circuit, and some extra space to place extra usb stuff - such as - wireless dongle, 3G modem etc...

I have intentionally designed a small box and also slim one because it looks prettier. Here is my first sketches:

Comments

[sabuncu]

Nice job!

I assume you are in Turkey. Can you please give the name of the place where you got the laser cutting done?

Also, don't worry about the critics, they know nothing. Keep on innovating.

[jman 31]

Very nice project! Any chance you could upload the sketchup file?

[amandaghassaei]

nice work! how does beaglebone compare to arduino?

[mdemirst]

I think they're in different categories: Beaglebone has advantages over Arduino as it has running OS on it, internet connection, USB support etc... but I can still prefer Arduino for basic prototyping, sensor reading, user interaction etc..