bubulindo
Member
Well... I think that with the Due now on the market people will start using the ARM platform with it. So I think that's probably why seeedstudio discontinued the Maple.
In my opinion, one possible way for the Maple to evolve, now that the Due is out, would be some effort in adapting Due libraries to the Maple so that the code could be as platform independent as possible. But that depends on where LeafLabs wants to take the Maple.
gbulmer
Moderator
IMHO speculation about why Seeed Studio dropped the Maple, without some evidence or facts, isn't very helpful.
So I will put a counter suggestion ;-)
Maybe Seeed are doing Maple II and don't want any old stock of Maple!
I have no evidence for this suggestion either :-)
I am assuming LeafLabs are trying to make a living, and that may compete for time and resources with the 'public' face of Maple.
So I am assuming that we have control over the direction of Maple too.
cbrunschen
Member
So, there's a new blog post: http://leaflabs.com/2013/02/more-state-of-the-maple/
more state of the maple
So it would appear that LeafLabs has done a pretty bad job the past few months of keeping everyone in the loop, and for that we definitely apologize. So here’s a status report, and a look at what’s in the pipeline.
First off, we want to say that Maple and Maple Mini will be available for the foreseeable future. There is no intention of discontinuing either product line; we plan to keep making and selling them as long as people are interested in buying. So don’t panic! If you’ve got a Maple-based project (or were planning one), you should be able to get your hands on new boards as you need them.
The bad news is that there are no concrete plans to expand our hobby line at the current time. Unfortunately, at the moment it’s just not financially viable. We hope this will change in the near future! We’ve been exploring some industry partnerships, and there’s also hope that some of the other projects we’ve been working on (outside the hobby-hardware space) will become lucrative enough to fund expansion of Maple and related products. But nothing has solidified yet. We will try to keep you updated as things develop.
Despite this, we do plan on continuing to maintain Maple, that is, fixing bugs, accepting patches, responding to questions, and keeping you all abreast of awesome new Maple-related projects. This hasn’t been going so well recently, and for that we apologize. But we’re going to do better! We’ve got lots of plans for how to do that, not the least of which includes bringing Bryan Newbold (bnewbold from the forums) back on board to help out. So keep your eyes peeled for a blog post with more details in the very near future.
In the meantime, thanks for sticking with us.
So I have been looking at using elua as a platform and noticing that the ret6 has about enough resources to run it. (they have an official branch based around the futurelec ret6 based "stamp"). In the background I am in the process of fixing some of "design" issues with the maple (in particular power supply, simplified usb connection, larger more diyable lipo circuit ) and will roll a few boards for testing.
Is anyone else in a community led redesign or the base maple around the ret6 (with the option of moving to the f302/303....)?
gbulmer
Moderator
feurig - I am fiddling around with the design for two breadboard-pitch Dual-In-Line boards.
I resurrected this recently (at the weekend) when I noticed Farnell have started stocking 48pin and 64pin STM32F3's.
The STM32F3's only go upto 256KiB flash, but that should be enough for many of my projects, and PyMite/p14p.
Changes:
1. ditched the LiPo charger because:
a) Schools don't use LiPo's
b) folks I know who do use LiPo's use multi-cell.
2. Replaced one of the voltage regulators with something a bit 'beefier' to support higher Vin voltages and more current out.
3. Added USB ESD and better USB filtering (I'm trying a different USB ESD to Siy)
4. Replaced USB pull-up circuit with a variant of Siy's PNP digital transistor approach
5. Converted 0402 to 0805 to make it easier (for me) to make
The 48pin LQFP (which I started yesterday on the train) is wider than a Maple Mini, but pin compatible, so it has Vbat on a pin, and carries all those changes.
For the 64pin LQFP, all pins are on the Dual In-Line headers including Vbat, though I am dithering over bringing out analogue Vcc and analogue ground.
Both boards are only double sided, not 4-layer, so they may even by DIY-able PCBs! (I am pretty sure Siy could DIY the PCBs, but I'm not so sure I can)
mikep
Member
Gbulmer can answer this in more detail, and there were quite a few threads in the past about redesign, such as this one: http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1390
And at the time gbulmer had created a repo to hold all the design files: https://github.com/gbulmer
HTH,
Mike
gbulmer
Moderator
feurig - "do we have schematics?"
I have mostly complete schematics and barely draft-quality layouts (see comments below).
Now is probably a good time to start to share them. AFAIK I can't just paste a pdf into pastebin or gist (which I could do now), so I'll try to load them up at the weekend.
"I was looking at the dacs on the f3s ..."
Yes, and the faster ADCs, and more analogue support than STM32F103 or STM32F4.
IMHO STM32F3 is more interesting than the STM32F4 in some ways.
".. The max of 48k of sram makes it a little snug for the elua but I think it may be worth it."
The 48k RAM isn't contiguous. I don't know about elua, but the extra 8KiB of "core coupled memory" might be hard to make use of.
"It did occur that since the existing maple and mini both have significant design flaws and neither are moving forward can we do a group rehabilitation of each and submit them as pull requests"
We could try to submit pull requests, however I think LeafLabs have their own direction.
LeafLabs please correct me if I've misunderstood.
However, I think we can do whatever we want!-)
I had turned to other things when the STM32F-Discovery boards seemed a good way to go. They are great for low-cost software development and testing, IMHO amazing value . However they are quite big, and awkward to use in some projects (double row pin headers are not breadboard or veroboard friendly).
I am not aiming for a Maple-clone (Arduino pin headers). Instead I like bread-board friendly, dual-in-line boards, so my LQFP64 is very different from Maple. It is a subset of Maple functionality (no LiPo charger), with some useful (to me) changes.
The LQFP48 board is currently 'logically' pin-compatible with Maple Mini, but the board is wider because I'm using bigger components (for reasons outlined above) so it isn't physically compatible.
Hence I don't think my designs are close enough to LeafLabs designs to help.
Open issues on mini-schematic which need decisions:
1. connect AV+ to Vcc (retain inductor-isolated AV- which is analogue ground).
I've changed the 'digital-side' voltage regulator to support higher voltages (and power). If the board is running at, say, 9V, and the user draws significant current from AV+ then the MCP1700 will either shutdown or be damaged. There are several threads on the forum about 'smoking' the MCP1700.
2. Remove analogue MCP1700 voltage regulator. This would save space, and maybe allow the board to be 0.1" smaller pitch. It's currently 0.8" pitch.
3. Add 32KiHz crystal. This would be optional, so it'd be through hole.
The LQFP64 schematic is stable except for issue 1, removing AV+. I am dithering on that.
Both currently Maple bootloader compatible.
I would like to change the 64LQFP to make a few things more convenient, but I don't have the time to hack on the bootloader. Based on threads in the forum, ala42 has a better bootloader approach than LeafLabs; a future project?
(Edit: Please could we shift this to a more relevant and encouraging subject name?)
Usually you do that but ok how about this.
http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=10410
siy
Member
gbulmer, I have some new designs (most of them single sided, as usual :) ). Going to commit them into repo once finish prototyping. By the way, one of them is 0.8" DIP48 breadboard-friendly design for LQFP64.
P.S. sorry for long silence, had long business trip to US and then was busy finishing project at main job. these leaves no time for hobby :(
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