Omega Arduino Expansion Board

[Kit Bishop]

For any one that may be interested, I have designed and produced an expansion board for the e Omega that provides access to Arduino Shields.

The expansion board plugs in to the Omega Dock.
It has the form factor and pin configuration of Arduino shields.
A brief summary of features:

• connects Omega GPIO pins to Arduino Digital pins
• has an on board A/D converter accessible from the Omega using I2C
• power supplied either from the Omega or via the 5v Arduino pin or from an on board power regulator to provide power from external supplies
• has power indicator
• has reset button

Full details of this expansion board can be found on GitHub at https://github.com/KitBishop/Omega-Arduino-Expansion
In particular, the file omega_arduino_expansion.pdf
provides full documentation.

Included on the GitHub repository is code for accessing the A/D converter - this code is fully documented in the pdf documenation

To whet your appetite, the following photos show aspects of the board. These photos are included in the above referenced pdf documentation with annotations:

1. Board Top
   

2. Board Bottom
   

3. Omega Expansion Dock with Board
   

4. Omega Expansion Dock with Board and Arduino Battery Shield
   

5. Omega Expansion Dock with Board and an Arduino System
   

6. Omega Expansion Dock with a full stack of Arduino Shields
   

[Kit Bishop]

I have also published this on Hackster at https://www.hackster.io/KitBishop/omega-arduino-expansion-c8ff3c?ref=user&ref_id=93973&offset=0

[Lazar Demin]

@Kit-Bishop Looks awesome! Is that a home-grown board?
It would be super cool if you could put up some design/gerber files so other people could get this board made as well!

In any case, we'll be in touch regarding the Omega2 give-away!

[Kit Bishop]

@Lazar-Demin Yes, 100% home grown.

Designed using PCB123 from Sunstone Circuits (http://www.sunstone.com/pcb-products/pcb123) and produced by Sunstone via their online board manufacturing service - just supply the .123 design file and they do the rest - very quick and efficient, though not cheap for small quantities - I had 6 made and it cost a bit over $130 ($22 each) - if you order large quantities the price comes down a lot - e.g. for 100 the boards would be about $7 each

The .123 design file can be found in my GitHub repository at https://github.com/KitBishop/Omega-Arduino-Expansion/blob/master/Omega Arduino Expansion-v1.2.123

Thanks for the offer of an Omega2

[Kit Bishop]

@Lazar-Demin As a quick follow up to my previous message:

All the components used on the board are listed (with references) in section 3.3 Components in https://github.com/KitBishop/Omega-Arduino-Expansion/blob/master/omega_arduino_expansion.pdf

Some further figures on costs of Sunstone producing the boards in various quantities with and without silk screening (silk screening includes solder mask):

Quantity     No-silkscreen (each)    Silkscreen (each)
6            $22.82                  $63.84
100          $7.15                   $7.60
1000         $6.25                   $4.37

[Kit Bishop]

FYI: I have produced some small updates to the Omega Arduino Expansion Board design.
Specifically:

1. Added a jumper to allow Arduino VIn to be connected to the External Power Sources and the Power Regulator
2. Allowed for usage of TSR12450 power regulator (see https://www.adafruit.com/products/1065) as a compatible alternative to the L7805 regulator

All information on Github at https://github.com/KitBishop/Omega-Arduino-Expansion has been updated accordingly.