What be this then?

[jason]

I often come across interesting things in my searching for XMOS related stuff in the online world. Today I found the following via a Tweet by Pytey on XCore - ( or @pytey on Twitter). What could it be?

[Doug]

Well that black thing appears to be attached to an integrated GSM and GPS receiver on the main board, a Telit GM862-GPS

http://www.telit.com/en/products.php?p_ ... c=show&p=7

I guess this device is designed for some kind of portable application?

[jason]

Ah yes you can just make out the logo now you mention it. I want to know what that #ff0000 button does. *presses it*

[bsmithyman]

The circuit board looks custom for the Telit GSM module (+GPS) and the XK-1. It has a barrel plug (shown on one of the boxes too), a JST connector, and an FTDI FT232. It looks to me like the JST connector is for a lithium polymer battery and there's a charging circuit between the regulator and the FTDI chip. The space is about right for a large lithium polymer pack. Below the connection for the knob (pot, encoder?), the SOIC8 chip is labelled as an op-amp in the silkscreen, so it seems like it probably drives a speaker. There's a two-wire connection for a sensor, but we don't see where it goes to, and the vias suggest parts on the other side. It's possible there is a combo ADC/DAC that reads the sensor and drives the speaker (possibly a CODEC). Equally the op-amp could be conditioning a PWM signal that's coming off of one of the XK-1 pins, and the sensor could be digital. It also has a connection for an IR emitter right beside it (driven by the SOT-23 transistor), so there's at least a chance the sensor is also IR.

Also just a note, the other box (with the red button) is easier to see in the full version of the picture. It has a 50/60 Hz gauss unit on the display. Seems to me it's most likely an EMF measuring device for finding buried power lines, and then reporting the location to a remote system over GSM.

Probably most of these guesses are wrong, but it's fun to speculate :)

Edit: Guessing the knob is just a volume control for the speaker.

[jason]

Wow now there is an analysis if ever I did see one!

[otitov]

internet radio receiver?

[leon_heller]

It's a Telit GM862 module, I've got one. It just supports GSM/GPS.

[otitov]

Leon, I followed the link Doug provided and I see in specs that module has a built-in tcp/ip stack, so I assumed a possibility to make it work as internet radio receiver. I may be very-very wrong. :D

[leon_heller]

I'd forgotten that it had a TCP/IP stack. I've never actually used it but I have used the smaller GM-863 with a PIC.

[bsmithyman]

internet radio receiver?

Don't see any signs of extra memory or something like a SD card, so I'm guessing there wouldn't be enough internal memory to buffer internet radio. Of course there's lots of room on the board for things we can't see, especially on the underside, and I don't know if the Telit module has a buffer for IP data.