Our other BeagleBone cards featured on Tindie

• BBB-GVS-3
• BBB-COMMS-2

What is it?

Easily and quickly connect devices and sensors to the Beaglebone Black.

Why did you make it?

We love the Beaglebone Black. With all of its I/O connections it offers exciting potential for embedded/connected devices. The two PRU I/O Coprocessors have potential for Input/Output that no other board in its class can offer. It even has real mounting holes which let the board be used for real-world applications.

When we got our first Beaglebone Black we were excited to try it with some of our Arduino GVS (Ground/Voltage/Signal) sensors and GVS output devices but couldn't since they are all 5V sensors. Sure we could cobble together some level shifters on a breadboard but in the end we wouldn't have something that could be deployed in a real application What we really wanted was a 5V Sensor shield like the one we use for our Arduino. But there were none out there. So we designed one.

Introducing the BBB-GVS cape.

What makes it special?

• (5) 5V GPIO GVS connections (auto direction detection)
• (4) 5V GPIO/Timer GVS connections (auto direction detection)
• (2) 5V UART Tx/Rx connections (auto direction detection)
• (1) 5V PWM GVS connection
• (1) 5V I2C bus 4-pin connections (auto direction detection)
• 5V pins are all ESD protected pins with 15 kV of protection
• Cape configuration EEPROM
• (7) 3.3V GPIO connections
• (1) 3.3V UART Tx/Rx connection
• (1) 3.3V PWM GVS connection
• (7) 1.8V analog GVS connections
• Resettable Fuses on 5V and 3.3V power
• Selectable 5V source
• 3.3V and 5V power status LEDs
• Beaglebone Black form factor

Ordering Options - Bare vs Assembled boards

• Assembled capes have all the parts installed and are tested before shipping.
• Bare capes are electrically tested by the manufacturer but you need to source the parts and install the parts yourself. The bare board option might work well for people who want to wire up to the GVS pins but beware the Surface Mount parts are tiny and if you don't have experience working with them you might have trouble.

Backordering

We set this product to accept backorders. The Kickstarter didn't fund so we expect some folks from the Kickstarter to want a card. We went out on risk and bought 20 PWBs. When they run out the boards will go on backorder.