HummingBoard Pulse & i.MX8M Quad SOM Quick Start Guide

Introduction

The following quick start guide provides background information about the HummingBoard Pulse.

The guide will give a technical overview about the product and by the end of it you should be able to boot an operating system and begin testing your application.

Revision and Notes

Date

Owner

Revision

Notes

28 Oct 2021

1.0

Initial release

Hardware Setup

Product specifications

Model

HummingBoard Pulse

SOM Model

NXP i.MX8M Dual / Quad core Arm Cortex A53 up to 1.5GHz (with Arm M4 GPP) NXP i.MX8M Mini Single to Quad core Arm Cortex A53 up to 1.8GHz (with Arm M4 GPP)

Memory & Storage

Up to 4GB LPDDR4 eMMC MicroSD

Network

2 x RJ45

Connectivity

2 x USB 3.0 * Mini PCIe M.2 SIM card slot

Media

HDMI 2.0 out ** MIPI-DSI 2 x MIPI-CSI *** Digital audio (Riser interface FPC connector) Onboard audio codec

I/O

1 x Reset button 1 x Configurable push button MikroBus click interface 3 x LED indicators RTC

OS Support

Linux

Environment

Commercial: Ambient temp.: 0°C to 70°C Enclosed ambient temp.: 0°C to 40°C CPU max die: 105°C Industrial: Ambient temp.: -40°C to 85°C Enclosed Ambient temp.: -25°C to 65°C CPU max die: 105°C Humidity (non-condensing): 10% – 90%

Dimensions

Board: 102mm x 69mm Enclosed: 141.5 x 78 x 30mm

Power

7V – 28V wide range PoE sink support

Enclosure

Optional extruded aluminum (IP32) enclosure

Buy Now

Supported with i.MX8M SOM. For more detailed information about our SOM-i.MX8M series please visit this user manual : i.MX8M SOM .

Please note (*) Only USB 2.0 supported with the i.MX8M Mini SoC. (**) Only supported with the i.MX8M SoC. (***) Only 1 x MIPI-CSI supported with the i.MX8M Mini SoC.

Block Diagram

The following figure describes the i.MX8M Block Diagram.

Visual features overview

Please see below the features overview of the connector side of the HummingBoard Pulse.

Print side connector overview of the HummingBoard Pulse.

Software Setup

Cable setup and prerequisites

Here is what you will need to power up and use the board:

Linux or Windows PC
HummingBoard Pulse with SOM
12V Power adapter (HummingBoard Pulse has wide range input of 7V-28V), alternatively you can use a PoE injector to power on the device.
Micro USB to USB for console, the HummingBoard Pulse has an onboard FTDI chip.
IP router or IP switch

Boot Select

Before powering up the board for the first time it is recommended to select the boot media. In order to configure the boot media, please refer to HummingBoard Pulse and Ripple Boot Select .

Booting from SD card

The following shows how to set the switches on the boot source selector:

Please Note: The black rectangle represents the switch position.

Once you set the switches, you can apply the following for booting from SD card:

1. Downloading the Debian image

wget https://solid-run-images.sos-de-fra-1.exo.io/IMX8/Debian/sr-imx8-debian-bullseye-20201020-cli-imx8mq-sdhc-hummingboard-pulse.img.xz

For more Debian releases, please visit Debian Release for i.MX8.

2. Writing the image to the SD card

Use the following commands for writing the image to an SD card:

xz -dc sr-imx8-debian-bullseye-20201020-cli-imx8mq-sdhc-hummingboard-pulse.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4k conv=fdatasync

For more information, please visit Flashing an SD card.

Note: Plug a micro SD into your Linux PC, the following assumes that the micro SD is added as /dev/sdX and all it’s partitions are unmounted.

3. SD card insertion

Please Insert the SD card into your device.

4. Power connection

Connect your power adaptor to the DC jack, and then connect the adaptor to mains supply.

5. Serial Connection

Please insert the micro USB into your device, then you can refer to Serial Connection for installing necessary serial connection software in Linux/Windows.

Once you installed the necessary serial connection software, you should be able to see the following:

In order to be able to log in , please insert “debian” as a username and password as follows:

More Features

Internet

Connect an Ethernet cable to your HummingBoard Pulse (for internet access during boot-up). Models HummingBoard with WiFi, can be connected via WiFi or wired Ethernet.

Please check you Ethernet connection.
Use the following commands in order to keep your system up-to-date:

apt-get update 
apt-get upgrade 
reboot

For more detailed information, please refer to i.MX8M Debian .

WiFi

You can connect to WiFi using any application, such as : connmanctl or wpa_spplicant.

An example for connecting to WiFi using wpa_supplicant:

1. To bring a WiFi interface up, run the following :

ifconfig wlan0 up

To discover your wireless network interface name, see Network Interfaces.

2. Install the wpa_supplicant package:

apt-get install wpasupplicant

3. Edit network interfaces file :

At the bottom of the file, add the following lines to allow wlan as a network connection:

cat <<EOF > /etc/network/interfaces.d/wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp

EOF

4. Create a configuration file with the relevant ssid:

cat <<EOF > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=/run/wpa_supplicant
update_config=1

network={
    ssid="MYSSID"
    psk="passphrase" 
}

EOF

Check your personal ssids by running : ‘iw dev wlan0 scan’

5. Make sure it works:

Restart your device and it should connect to the wireless network. If it doesn't, repeat above steps or get help from an adult.

For more information about using wpa_supplicant , you can refer to wpa_supplicant or wpa_supplicant.

Bluetooth

For Building Newt Nimble BLEHCI firmware, you can follow this page Building Newt Nimble BLEHCI firmware for the iMX8MQ NINA-B1 Module .

Cellular Modem

The cellular modem is a more fully featured extension of which contains a cellular module with additional hardware interfaces and a SIM card slot.

You can connect your cellular modem to the mPCIe, and insert a SIM card.

For some cellular modules to be connected, please refer to Cellular Modules .

Please Note: In order to use the mini-PCIe, a HummingBoard Pulse must not be combined with a microSOM that has WIFI. For more information, please refer to: mini-PCIe