Introducing: Project Palawan I want to learn more about hardware design, and the best way to learn something is to do it. I’ve started work on a new project to create an easy-to-use hardware input platform. The project, codenamed Palawan, allows you to make contraptions that show up wirelessly as a keyboard, joystick, or mouse. All with no software to write and no hardware to solder. Unless you want to, of course. Palawan is built around an NXP Kinetis KW01 CPU with a 48 MHz ARM Cortex M0+ and a sub-GHz wireless radio in it.
Palawan's USB Stack is Now Known as Grainuum The USB stack from project Palawan has grown beyond its original scope. The bootloader contains a completely separate copy, and it has been ported to at least one other platform. It is confusing to refer to both the hardware platform and the USB stack as “Palawan”. To help alleviate confusion and help the the projects stand on their own, the USB stack will be broken out into its own project and renamed Grainuum.
Palawan DVT1 Build I’ve just finished taping out Palawan DVT1. This is the first build in a long time, and is a rather heavy redesign. The three biggest changes are: New CPU/Radio pair 433 MHz operation Redesigned in KiCad KL02 and RFM69HW Previously, Palawan was based on a Freescale KW01. This two-in-one chip functioned as both the radio and the processor. This worked well, and enabled one chip to do the work of two.
Palawan project #1: button box June saw lots of progress on Palawan. Many bugs were fixed in the Grainuum stack, the bootloader was fleshed out, and stability was improved. The system is usable now, and just about feature-complete. Enough to think about shipping. An image is worth many words, so let’s start with a box that uses Palawan: The box is some cheap arcade buttons sourced from the markets of Shenzhen put into a plastic takeout container I got from the local food supply store.