So you have a new board, that you want to get working with Blinka, our CircuitPython library compatibility layer for Single Board Computers, or SBCs. Adding a board to Blinka is a 2-part process with the first step being to add it to PlatformDetect so that Blinka knows what board it is working with.

In our PlatformDetect guide, we went over the steps needed to get your chip and board correctly detected so that Blinka knew what it was working with. In this guide, we will go over the second part to get your board functioning on Blinka.

This guide goes over everything that's left to get your board working with Blinka including:

  • Adding the Chip and Board files
  • Getting GPIO working
  • Getting I2C, SPI, and UART working

Along with some additional resources.

The way that Blinka works is it combines multiple techniques to access the parts of the board that it needs. For GPIO, libraries such as RPi.GPIO or libgpiod are used. For I2C, the PureIO Python library is used, and for SPI, we are using the spidev Python library.

When it comes to Blinka itself, there are two main components that need to be defined.

  • First there is the chip, the microprocessor definition.
  • Second, there is the board definition.

The chip defines which pins of the microprocessor are used by the GPIO library and the board defines which physical pin on the board maps to the pins defined by the chip file. There can be multiple boards that all use the same chip, but the specific implementation may be slightly different.

The overall layout of the way these files are accessed looks like this:

In this guide, we will be picking up where we left off in the PlatformDetect guide and going over what steps are needed to add a board such as the Pine A64 to Blinka.

Parts

USB to TTL Serial Cable With Type A plug and 4 wire sockets
The cable is easiest way ever to connect to your microcontroller/Raspberry Pi/WiFi router serial console port. Inside the big USB plug is a USB<->Serial conversion chip and at...
$9.95
In Stock
FTDI Serial TTL-232 USB Type C Cable
Just about all electronics use a UART serial port with RX and TX pins for debugging, bootloading, programming, serial output, etc. But it's rare for a computer to have a serial...
$19.95
In Stock
Single large LED lit up blue
Need some big indicators? We are big fans of these huge diffused blue LEDs. They are really bright so they can be seen in daytime, and from any angle. They go easily into a breadboard...
$9.95
In Stock
Angled shot of 10 12mm square tactile switch buttons.
Medium-sized clicky momentary switches are standard input "buttons" on electronic projects. These work best in a PCB but
$2.50
In Stock
Adafruit BME280 I2C or SPI Temperature Humidity Pressure Sensor
Bosch has stepped up their game with their new BME280 sensor, an environmental sensor with temperature, barometric pressure and humidity! This sensor is great for all sorts...
$14.95
In Stock
Angled shot of a Thermocouple Amplifier breakout board.
Thermocouples are very sensitive, requiring a good amplifier with a cold-compensation reference. The MAX31855K does everything for you, and can be easily interfaced with any...
$14.95
In Stock
Angled shot of a Thermocouple Type-K Glass Braid Insulated wire.
Thermocouples are best used for measuring temperatures that can go above 100 °C. This is a bare wires bead-probe which can measure air or surface temperatures. Most inexpensive...
$9.95
In Stock
Angled shot of GPS module breakout.
We carry a few different GPS modules here in the Adafruit shop, but none that satisfied our every desire - that's why we designed this little GPS breakout board. We believe this is...
Out of Stock

This guide was first published on Apr 01, 2020. It was last updated on Mar 19, 2024.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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