Mechatronics engineer and maker Andy Geppert isn’t any stranger to badge life, having designed various Easy Add-Ons [SAOs] — however his newest creation is designed to make life simpler when it comes time to testing an demonstrating them: the SAO Demo Controller.
“There are two intermediate must keep away from having a darkish and immobile SAO in your badge,” Geppert explains of the issue he got down to clear up. “A) The necessity to reveal what our SAOs are able to. B) The choice to make use of the SAO with out creating firmware on each badge you need to use the SAO with. To satisfy these two intermediate wants, this undertaking was conceived.”
The SAO Demo Controller, seen right here in early prototype kind, goals to make it simpler to experiment with and exhibit Easy Add-Ons (SAOs). (📷: Andy Geppert)
The SAO Demo Controller is, successfully, a man-in-the-middle gadget with one SAO plug and one SAO socket — permitting it to take a seat between any badge and any add-on following the Easy Add-On commonplace. The controller itself has an on-board Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, which may host work-in-progress firmware and demo purposes to indicate off SAO capabilities — with out having to program the badge itself, and even with out having to make use of a badge in any respect.
“Extra options of the SAO Demo Controller are: Twin SAO plug mounting possibility. Possibility to attach the SAO plug header vertically (edge) or horizontally,” Geppert writes. “Proper-angle pass-through adapter. Use it the naked board without any consideration angle adapter to your SAO, with pass-through performance. Join I2C equipment. Add one or two QWIIC/STEMMA QT sockets to leverage these broad I2C ecosystems. Experiment with the RP2040-Zero as an adjunct to your badge through I2C or UART.”
The undertaking is documented on Hackaday.io; on the time of writing, Geppert had not but launched design information for the board.