Open-hardware laptop computer modules description and concept.
These are electronic schematic modules as presented at https://balthazar.space/wiki/Balthazar with the main aim for team access. See the main repository for other designs.
BalthazarIO module is a simple USB2.0 four-port hub for the internal devices: keyboard and touchpad, webcam and optional audiocard. Additional simplification and pcb size reduction was done recently.
IO-board (here) means connectivity with peripheral devices. These can be seen as on-board and out-board. On-board Balthazar devices include: combined usb1.1 keyboard + trackpad, usb2.0 webcam and optional audio-card.
Since we are targeting the mini-computer family of systems (Raspberry PI. Banana PI, Orange PI, ...) - USB is the usual solution for this.
A simple usb 2.0 hub is enough, so a very ubiquitous usb hub chip was chosen. Main mini-computer board usually provides a much better hub for 4 downstream usb devices. At this point this is still mainly USB 2.x - slowly moving to usb3.x.
Mass storage / system disk - microSD – and especially versions of SSD (sata or pcie) – should be plugged to usb3.x directly (via usb adapter).
KiCad 5.1.5 files are uploaded here as well as the drawings and pictures.
All resources licensed under the CERN Open Hardware Licence CERN-OHL W V.2.0
Version 2.0 of the CERN-OHL introduces three variants of the licence – strongly (S) reciprocal, weakly (W) reciprocal and permissive (P) – which aim to address specific constraints caused by different collaboration models currently used in open-hardware projects.
The first two variants mean that if any product is made using an open hardware design, the design of that product, including any improvements or modifications, should be made available under the same licence as that of the original product. Permissive licences do not impose this condition.
See the LICENSE.md file for more information.
This project is funded through the NGI Zero Entrust Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet program. Learn more on the NLnet project page.
