BeagleBone Black / Bela Mini Compatibility

KoanLab

I was planning a project centered around the Bela Mini, however I recently received word from Mouser that their order of PocketBeagles was cancelled and that Seeed told them it had been discontinued. Since the PocketBeagle is built around the Octavo Systems OSD335x series of SiP chips, I was hoping to use their OSD3358-SM-RED development board featuring this chip.

Their documentation indicates that the board is compatible with BeagleBone Black capes, but only the Bela Mini + Multichannel Audio Expander has the 8 ins and 8 outs of high quality audio that I need without the high cost of the CTAG capes. Would it be possible to adapt the Bela Mini over to BBB pins and get it working that way? It seems it must be feasible since the core chip is the same as the PocketBeagle.

If not would it be better to have a custom PCB made using the OSD chip and the correct pinout? I plan on eventually going down that route but for now I would prefer to prototype with something ready made. I can also get a free sample of the OSD board for evaluation which makes that preferable as well (its normally $350).

I really appreciate anyone who would be willing to give me some advice on this, thanks.

giuliomoro

with a passive breakout board you should be able to adapt the BelaMini to a BeagleBone Black easily. Many pins will match directly (see https://github.com/beagleboard/capes/blob/master/README.mediawiki for cross referencing), while some others might have to be matched by picking a suitable replacement. IIRC, the specific pins we use for I2C, McSPI and McASP are matched exactly, while some of the pins we use for GPIO have changed between Bela and BelaMini because they were not all available on BelaMini. You can map BelaMini GPIOs to Bela GPIOs by cross-referencing the two enums highlighted here: https://github.com/BelaPlatform/Bela/blob/master/include/digital_gpio_mapping.h#L101C1-L136C3

I think the only other pins we are using are

P2.34 which should go to P9.27
P2.17 which should go P8.32.

Needless to say, this is unsupported, so we won't be able to help you freely on the forum, however if you need our professional consultancy services, feel free to email info at bela io .

KoanLab

That is excellent thank you very much