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ELEKTOR Internet Radio

On April 2008, ELEKTOR magazine published an article about an Internet Radio based on Nut/OS. In November 2008 it had been presented at the Elektor Live Event in Eindhoven (Youtube video on the right).

Click on the picture to get a more detailed view.

Known Bugs

Read this first!

Kit Contents

Problem: The first kits shipped contain a wrong RS232 connector (K5). A male connector is required, but a female one had been packed.
Solutions:
* Replace the female connector with a male type. If you don't have one available, send an email to info at egnite dot de. You'll receive a replacement free of charge.
* Removing an already mounted connector isn't easy. As an alternative you can make a special cable which will work with the wrong connector. Click on the picture on the right to get the wiring schematic. Note that the cable plugs are shown in front view, with cables soldered on the back side. A so called Gender Changer should work too, when used with a Null Modem Cable.
* Another option is to send your board to egnite GmbH . Your connector will be replaced and your board will be tested and returned immediately, free of charge. Please do not forget to use the shielded bag to pack the EIR board.

CD Contents

Problem: The CD Version 1.1.1 links to the wrong firmware source file, webradio-1.2.0.zip. This source fails to compile.
Solution: The CD folder firmware also contains the correct file webradio-1.2.1.zip.

Expansion Port in Elektor Article

In table 1 it is stated, that PA20 at pin 21 of connector K1 is used for MMC DAT2. Actually this signal is additionally used for the Ethernet controller chip select.

In table 2 it is stated, that PB22 at pin 23 of connector K2 is used for the DataFlash chip select. Actually the chip select is at PA11. PB22 is not used and available for external hardware.

In table 3 it is stated, that PC23 at pin 24 of connector K3 is used for the Ethernet controller chip select. Actually the chip select is at PA20. PC23 is not used and available for external hardware.

Hardware

The hardware is build on a 100mm x 100mm 4-layer PCB and offers a large number of features, including:

• Atmel AT91SAM7SE512 ARM7 CPU with 512kBytes high speed flash and a wide range of peripheral functions.

• Micron/Samsung 64MBytes external SDRAM.

• Atmel AT45DB321D 4MBytes serial Flash.

• Davicom DM9000E Ethernet Controller.

• VLSI VS1053B Audio Decoder supports MP3, AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, WAV and MIDI.

• Philips PCF8563 Realtime Clock with double layer cap backup.

• Yamaichi MMC/SD-Card Socket.

• Wide range (5-24V) switching power supply.

Right now there is no user interface hardware (LCD, pushbuttons etc.) available. However, all CPU ports are accessible via three 2.54mm pinheaders, which may be used by an expansion board.

Software

webradio-1.2.1.zip
contains the complete source code as well as a ready-to-run binary.

To build the firmware from the source code, Nut/OS 4.5.3 (Beta) or any later release is required. Check the download page for the latest release.

Due to the lack of any user interface hardware, the radio runs an internal web server.

Documents

EIR Hardware Manual
Brief overview and schematics of the EIR 1.0 Rev-C Board.

EIR Assembly Instructions
How to populate the board with through-hole parts.

EIR Web Interface
Shows how to monitor and control the Internet Radio with a web browser.

EIR Wiki Pages
Presents several flash movies for trying out the EIR.

EIR Firmware Upload Using SAM-BA
Explains how to upload new firmware to the EIR board. This is the most simple way, but requires a Windows PC.

EIR JTAG Interface
Describes how to use the EIR with OpenOCD. This is supported on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X and offers an alternate method of uploading new firmware.

New: EIR Source Code Debugging
explains how to setup Eclipse and OpenOCD to allow source code debugging of Nut/OS applications running on the Elektor Internet Radio.

EIR Hardware Tester
Firmware for testing EIR boards.

Webradio Firmware Documentation
Source code reference.

EIR Expansion Port
Provides additional hints for attaching external hardware.

External Links

www.elektor.de
Monthly magazine, not only for hobbyists.

www.atmel.com/products/at91/
Atmel is the company that manufactures the AT91SAM7SE512. Under Tools & Software you'll find the file AT91-ISP.exe. Use this tool on a Windows PC to upload new firmware to the radio.

www.vlsi.fi
The website of VLSI Solution Oy, who offers the VS1053 audio codec.

www.yagarto.de
Michael Fischer offers a complete package, which allows you to create your own applications for the radio board. Of course you can also use YAGARTO to compile the radio application source code.

www.myway.de/ElectronicFreak/EIR.html
Erfahrungen und Methoden zum Elektor EIR: Christian Schöning created a document about how to use the EIR with Eclipse (German language).

www.raippa.fi/SOP/Hardware2009/
EIR pages of the Computer Engineering Laboratory at the university of Oulu.