Overview

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circuitpython_adafruit_circuit_python_stacked.png

So you've designed a microcontroller board that runs CircuitPython and you would like to show it off to the world by adding it to the circuitpython.org website? We can show you how.

Or perhaps you now have Blinka running on your Linux-based Single Board Computer (SBC) and want to share that to everyone? We can show you how to do that too.

There are two sections where you can add boards. The first is the downloads page for microcontrollers running CircuitPython and that will not only show off the details of your board, but provide links to download the latest stable and development releases of CircuitPython. If you haven't yet added your board to CircuitPython itself, first follow the instructions in the How to Add a New Board to CircuitPython guide.

The other section is the Blinka page which house all of the boards that support Blinka, which is our CircuitPython library compatibility layer for SBCs and Python 3. This page allows your to display all of the stats for your board as well as point to a guide for setting up Blinka on your board.

The Process

Either way, the process is about the same. Adding a board to the circuitpython.org website is easy and only requires three images and one Markdown or MD file per board.

Getting setup is very easy. The first thing you'll need to do is head over to Github and create a fork. If you would like more information, be sure to check out our Contribute to CircuitPython with Git and GitHub guide.

The repository to create a fork of is https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython-org. Once you create a fork, you will need to clone it with git and you will have access to all of the source files for the website.

Let's continue with preparing our images!

Preparing the Images

Please submit images in the 4:3 or 13:10 aspect ratio

Images should ideally show a clear view of the board with a little space between the board and the edge of the photo. It should also be free of text other than what is printed on the board itself. This will help to keep it consistent with the existing images.

To add a board to CircuitPython.org, you will need three sizes of the same image for each board.

  1. Small Size Minimum Width of 292 pixels. (Most photos are 300x225 or 293x225)
  2. Large Size Minimum Width of 590 pixels. (Most photos are 800x600 or 780x600)
  3. Original Size Photo in a Large Size

A good aspect ratio that looks nice for the photo size is 13:10 or 4:3. These are the ratios used for most of Adafruit's product photos. We will start with finding an image, if you don't already have it, resizing it to the appropriate size, and optimizing it for the website.

Finding Images on Flickr

Adafruit has many products available on Flickr in high resolution. Most of the photos are in the 4:3 or 13:10 aspect ratios.

  1. Go to https://www.flickr.com
  2. Type "Adafruit Industries" into the search box and click "Search people"
  3. Click on Adafruit Industries
circuitpython_adafruit_result.jpg

Click the Magnifying Glass icon on the right

circuitpython_magnifier.jpg

At the top, type in your Search Term and press enter

circuitpython_double_searchbox.jpg

Click on a Photo in the Search Results

circuitpython_search_results.jpg

Verify the Description matches the item that you're looking for

circuitpython_export.jpg

Click the Arrow icon on the right side and select a size that will be your Original Sized photo

Resizing Photos

Photos can be resized in your favorite photo editor such as PhotoShop or GIMP or via websites such as ezgif.com

All three images should have the exact same filename.

PhotoShop

PhotoShop is one of the most popular pieces of Photo Editing software by Adobe, however it is not free. Here are the steps to resize the image in PhotoShop.

circuitpython_photoshop.jpg
  1. Open the Original Sized Photo
  2. Go to Image→Image Size...
  3. Type a width like 800. The height should automatically adjust.
  4. Press OK
  5. Go to File→Export→Export As...
  6. Select JPG for your Format and you can leave the quality as 100%
  7. Click Export All... and save the file into a folder where you'll remember it. Choose a filename appropriate to your board.
  8. Click Edit→Undo until you undo the resizing of the image
  9. Repeat at step 2 for the small sized image, except choose something like 300 for the width

GIMP

GIMP, which stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Program is another very popular, but free piece of software. Here are the steps to resize an image in GIMP.

circuitpython_gimp.jpg
  1. Open the Original Sized Photo
  2. If it asks about Converting to RGB Working Space, click Convert
  3. Go to Image→Scale Image...
  4. Type a width like 800. The height should automatically adjust
  5. Press Scale
  6. Go to File→Export As...
  7. Select JPG for your Format and you can leave the quality as 100%.
  8. Click Export to save the file into a folder where you'll remember it. Choose a filename appropriate to your board.
  9. Click Edit→Undo until you undo the resizing of the image
  10. Repeat at step 2 for the small sized image, except choose something like 300 for the width

ezgif.com

ezgif.com is a website that provides all kinds of free image manipulation tools. This is a great option if you don't want to install any software on your computer. Here are the steps to resize the image in ezgif.com.

circuitpython_ezgif.jpg
  1. Navigate to https://ezgif.com/resize in your browser
  2. Click Choose File and select your image
  3. Click Upload!
  4. Type a value like 800 into the width box and 600 into the height box.
  5. Under If the aspect ratio does not match you can either leave it as Center and crop to fit or change it to Stretch to fit depending on which result looks better to you.
  6. Click Resize image!
  7. Scroll down and under the resized image, click save
  8. It will download as ezgif.com-resize.jpg into your downloads folder
  9. Find it in your downloads and rename it to something more appropriate
  10. Repeat for the small sized image, except choose something like 300 for the width
Image compression now automatically occurs in the Pull Request, so optimizing the images is not necessary anymore.

Optimizing Images

Use your favorite image optimization website such as compressjpeg.com which we will cover.

circuitpython_Screen_Shot_2019-07-24_at_9.19.50_AM.png
  1. Navigate to https://compressjpeg.com/ in your browser
  2. Drag and drop all of your images into the area labeled Drop Your Files Here
  3. Once they are done automatically compressing, click the Download All button
  4. Unzip the file that downloads
  5. If you had several similar filenames for the same board, you can look at the file size to determine the appropriate file.
  6. Rename the files to the final name you would like to use.

Your images should now be ready for adding a board.

Adding to Downloads

The Downloads section is for microcontroller boards which incorporate CircuitPython compatibility. If you have a Single Board Linux computer, see the Adding to Blinka page.

Image Location

Once you have your images prepared, you will want to place them into the three folders inside assets/images/boards as follows:

  1. The Original Sized image should be placed into the original folder.
  2. The Larger of the two resized images should be placed into the large folder.
  3. The Smaller of the two resized images should be placed into the small folder.

All three images should have the same filename.

Markdown File

The markdown file contains all of the information used for the board. To create a Markdown file for your board, go into the _boards folder and make a duplicate of the unknown.md file.

You will want to rename the duplicate to something like board_name.md to match your image files. For instance, if your images were named feather_m4_express.jpg, you would want to use feather_m4_express.md.

Open up the new markdown file in your favorite text editor. This should be a text editor like Windows notepad and not a word processor such as Microsoft Word because word processors add extra data that will not work well with the Markdown file format.

We'll start with the header section and go line by line to make sure you have the correct information added. The header section always starts with three hyphen characters and ends with three hyphen characters. You can always look at the other Markdown files for examples too. We're going to take a look at the Feather M4 Express file.

Download File
Copy Code 
---
layout: download
board_id: "feather_m4_express"
title: "Feather M4 Express Download"
name: "Feather M4 Express"
manufacturer: "Adafruit"
board_url: "https://www.adafruit.com/product/3857"
board_image: "feather_m4_express.jpg"
date_added: 2019-3-8
family: atmel-samd
bootloader_id: feather_m4
features:
  - Feather-Compatible
  - Battery Charging
  - Breadboard-Friendly
---

This feather is powered by the ATSAMD51J19 -  with its 120 MHz Cortex M4 with floating point support and 512 KB Flash and 192 KB RAM. Your code will zig and zag and zoom, and with a bunch of extra peripherals for support, this will for sure be your favorite new chipset.

And best of all, it's a Feather - so you know it will work with all our FeatherWings! What a great way to quickly get up and running.

The most exciting part of the Feather M4 is that while you can use it with the Arduino IDE - and it's bonkers fast when you do, we are shipping it with CircuitPython on board. When you plug it in, it will show up as a very small disk drive with main.py on it. Edit main.py with your favorite text editor to build your project using Python, the most popular programming language. No installs, IDE or compiler needed, so you can use it on any computer, even ChromeBooks or computers you can't install software on. When you're done, unplug the Feather and your code will go with you.

The Feather M4 Express uses the extra space left over to add a Mini NeoPixel, 2 MB SPI Flash storage and a little prototyping space. You can use the SPI Flash storage like a very tiny hard drive. When used in CircuitPython, the 2 MB flash acts as storage for all your scripts, libraries and files. When used in Arduino, you can read/write files to it, like a little datalogger or SD card, and then with our helper program, access the files over USB.

Easy reprogramming: the Feather M4 comes pre-loaded with the UF2 bootloader, which looks like a USB storage key. Simply drag firmware on to program, no special tools or drivers needed! It can be used to load up CircuitPython or Arduino IDE (it is bossa-compatible).

Comes fully assembled and tested, with the UF2 USB bootloader. We also toss in some headers so you can solder it in and plug into a solderless breadboard.

## Technical details

* Measures 2.0" x 0.9" x 0.28" (50.8 mm x 22.8 mm x 7 mm) without headers soldered in
* Light as a (large?) feather - 5 grams
* ATSAMD51 32-bit Cortex M4 core running at 120 MHz, 32-bit, 3.3 V logic and power
* Floating point support with Cortex M4 DSP instructions
* 512 KB flash, 192 KB RAM
* 2 MB SPI FLASH chip for storing files and CircuitPython code storage.
* No EEPROM
* 32.768 kHz crystal for clock generation & RTC
* 3.3 V regulator with 500 mA peak current output
* USB native support, comes with USB bootloader and serial port debugging
* Built in crypto engines with AES (256 bit), true RNG, Pubkey controller
* 21x GPIO pins with following capabilities:
  * Dual 1 MSPS 12 bit true analog DAC (A0 and A1) - can be used to play 12-bit stereo audio clips
  * Dual 1 MSPS 12 bit ADC (6 analog pins some on ADC1 and some on ADC2)
  * 6x hardware SERCOM - Native hardware SPI, I2C and Serial all available
  * 16x PWM outputs - for servos, LEDs, etc
  * I2S input and output
  * 8-bit Parallel capture controller (for camera/video in)
* Built in 100 mA lipoly charger with charging status indicator LED
* Pin #13 red LED for general purpose blinking
* Power/enable pin
* 4 mounting holes
* Reset button

## Tutorials

* [Feather M4 Express Overview](https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-feather-m4-express-atsamd51)

## Purchase

* [Adafruit](https://www.adafruit.com/product/3857)
* [Digi-Key](https://www.digikey.com/short/p87f17)

Header

layout

Leave this set to download since we're on the downloads page

board_id

This should be the name of the board for example "feather_m4_express".

title

This is the page title and should be more descriptive and end with the word Download. For example "Feather M4 Express Download".

name

This is the name of the board and should be the same as Title but without the word Download. For example "Feather M4 Express".

manufacturer

The name of the board manufacturer. For example "Adafruit".

board_url

This is a full URL that the use to view the product information for the board. For example "https://www.adafruit.com/product/3857".

board_image

This is the filename only for the image you created. The path for the appropriate sized will automatically be generated. For instance "feather_m4_express.jpg".

date_added

This is the date the board was added to CircuitPython, or if you're not sure, you can just use the current date. The format is YYYY-M-D with a 4-digit year, 1 or 2 digit month, and 1 or 2 digit day. In this case, the date it was added was March 8, 2019 or "2019-3-8".

family

This is the bootloader family and should correspond to one of the values in here such as atmel-samd.

Download File
Copy Code 
{
    "bootloaders": {
        "nrf52840": {
            "version": "0.7.0"
        },
        "atmel-samd": {
            "version": "v3.15.0"
        },
        "esp32s2": {
            "version": "0.18.1"
        },
        "esp32s3": {
            "version": "0.18.1"
        },
        "esp32c3": {},
        "esp32c6": {},
        "esp32h2": {},
        "esp32": {},
        "stm": {},
        "cxd56": {},
        "mimxrt10xx": {},
        "raspberrypi": {},
        "broadcom": {},
        "litex": {},
        "silabs": {}
    }
}
View on GitHub

bootloader_id

This is the bootloader ID and should be included, if available, on bootloader certain bootloader families that have a version number in the file above. To find the ID, you can look in the following repositories:

downloads_display

This can optionally be included in order to hide your board by setting it to false. Omitting this value or setting it to true will display your board. The value should be true or false.

features

This is a list with features that the board has such as Battery Charging, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. Items in this list are preceded by two spaces, a hyphen character, and another space. Features should be limited to the items in this list and spelled exactly the same:

  • Speaker
  • Solder-Free Alligator Clip
  • Feather-Compatible
  • Battery Charging
  • Display
  • Wi-Fi
  • Bluetooth/BTLE
  • Robotics
  • LoRa/Radio
  • GPS
  • STEMMA QT/QWIIC
  • USB-C
  • Breadboard-Friendly
  • Arduino Shield Compatible
  • Xiao / QTPy Form Factor

Body

The body is more free form and should include at least one paragraph for a description of the board. This is often copied from a product page.

Purchase Section

If a board is available for purchase, it should include a Purchase section with one or more links. The link text should be the name of the website it linked to such as Amazon, Adafruit, AliExpress, etc.

Learn More Section

This section is more commonly found on pages where the board is not yet available for purchase. This should include informational links about the board. The link text should be the name of the website it linked to such as GitHub, NVIDIA, etc.

Submit a Pull Request

Now that you have your changes made, go ahead and commit your code to Github and submit a Pull Request. It will be reviewed and if it looks good, it will be merged in.

Adding to Blinka

For Linux-based Single Board Computers, you will want to add the new board to the Blinka section of the website.

Image Location

Once you have your images prepared, you will want to place them into the three folders inside assets/images/boards as follows:

  1. The Original Sized image should be placed into the original folder.
  2. The Larger of the two resized images should be placed into the large folder.
  3. The Smaller of the two resized images should be placed into the small folder.

All three images should have the same filename.

Markdown File

The markdown file contains all of the information used for the board. To create a Markdown file for the board, go into the _blinka folder and make a duplicate of one of the other files.

You will want to rename the duplicate to something like board_name.md to match your image files. For instance, if we're going to add the Raspberry Compute Module 3, we'll make a copy of raspberry_pi_3b.md because the board is the most similar to the board we're adding. We'll name it raspberry_pi_cm3.md and we'll makes sure all of the images are named raspberry_pi_cm3.jpg.

Open up the new markdown file in your favorite text editor. This should be a text editor like notepad and not a word processor such as Microsoft Word because word processors add extra data that will not work well with the Markdown file format.

We'll start with the header section and go line by line to make sure you have the correct information added. The header section always starts with three hyphen characters and ends with three hyphen characters. You can always look at the other Markdown files for examples too.

Here's the file that we're starting with.

Download File
Copy Code 
---
layout: download
board_id: "raspberry_pi_3bplus"
title: "Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ Download"
name: "Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+"
manufacturer: "Raspberry Pi Foundation"
board_url: "https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-3-model-b-plus/"
board_image: "raspberry_pi_3bplus.jpg"
download_instructions: "https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-raspberrypi-linux/installing-circuitpython-on-raspberry-pi"
downloads_display: true
blinka: true
date_added: 2019-6-17
features:
  - Wi-Fi
  - Bluetooth/BLE
  - Ethernet
  - HDMI/DisplayPort
  - 40-pin GPIO
---

The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is the most popular Raspberry Pi computer made, and the Pi Foundation knows you can always make a good thing better! And what could make the Pi 3 better? How about a faster processor, 5 GHz WiFi, and updated Ethernet chip with PoE capability? Good guess - that's exactly what they did!

The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is the latest product in the Raspberry Pi 3 range, boasting an updated 64-bit quad core processor running at 1.4GHz with built-in metal heatsink, dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless LAN, faster (300 mbps) Ethernet, and PoE capability via a separate PoE HAT.

- Broadcom BCM2837B0, Cortex-A53 (ARMv8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.4GHz
- 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM
- 2.4GHz and 5GHz IEEE 802.11.b/g/n/ac wireless LAN, Bluetooth 4.2, BLE
- Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0 (maximum throughput 300 Mbps)
- Extended 40-pin GPIO header
- Full-size HDMI
- 4 USB 2.0 ports
- CSI camera port for connecting a Raspberry Pi camera
- DSI display port for connecting a Raspberry Pi touchscreen display
- 4-pole stereo output and composite video port
- Micro SD port for loading your operating system and storing data
- 5V/2.5A DC power input
- Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support (requires separate PoE HAT)

## Purchase
* [Adafruit](https://www.adafruit.com/product/3775)

## Contribute

Have some info to add for this board? Edit the source for this page [here](https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython-org/edit/master/_blinka/{{ page.board_id }}.md).

Header

Let's take a look at the Header Options. You may notice that there's a few more here than the downloads page has.

layout

Leave this set to download. Even though this is the Blinka page, the layout should be the same as the download page.

board_id

This should be the name of the board for example "raspberry_pi_cm3".

title

This is the page title and should be more descriptive and end with the word Download. For example "Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 Download".

name

This is the name of the board and should be the same as Title but without the word Download. For example "Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3".

manufacturer

The name of the board manufacturer. For example "Raspberry Pi Foundation".

board_url

This is a full URL that the use to view the product information for the board. For example "https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module-3/".

board_image

This is the filename only for the image you created. The path for the appropriate sized will automatically be generated. For instance "raspberry_pi_cm3.jpg".

download_instructions

This should be the full URL that points to the appropriate setup guide. For example "https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-raspberrypi-linux/installing-circuitpython-on-raspberry-pi". Leave it blank if there are no board setup instructions.

downloads_display

This can optionally be included in order to hide your board by setting it to false. Omitting this value or setting it to true will display your board.

blinka

This value should always be set to true. This tells the downloads layout to look for the additional Blinka page header options.

date_added

This should be the date that the new board was merged in and released in Blinka. It should be in the format of YYYY-M-D. 

features

This is a list with features that the board has such as Battery Charging, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. Items in this list are preceded by two spaces, a hyphen character, and another space. Features should be limited to the items in this list and spelled exactly the same:

  • Ethernet
  • HDMI/DisplayPort
  • Wi-Fi
  • 40-pin GPIO
  • GPS
  • Feather-Compatible
  • Bluetooth/BLE
  • STEMMA QT/QWIIC
  • USB 3.0
  • Infrared Receiver

Body

The body is more free form and should include at least one paragraph for a description of the board. This is often copied from a product page. If this is available on the vendor website, this would be the preferred text. If not, we usually make it concise, but informational.

Purchase Section

If a board is available for purchase, it should include a Purchase section with one or more links. The link text should be the name of the website it linked to such as Amazon, Adafruit, AliExpress, etc.

Learn More Section

This section is more commonly found on pages where the board is not yet available for purchase. This should include informational links about the board. The link text should be the name of the website it linked to such as GitHub, NVIDIA, etc.

Final File

After editing the duplicated file, this is what it looks like. In this case, it was not available on adafruit.com, but was available through the Raspberry Pi Foundation website.

Download File
Copy Code 
---
layout: download
board_id: "raspberry_pi_cm3"
title: "Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 Download"
name: "Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3"
manufacturer: "Raspberry Pi Foundation"
board_url: "https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module-3/"
board_image: "raspberry_pi_cm3.jpg"
download_instructions: "https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-raspberrypi-linux/installing-circuitpython-on-raspberry-pi"
downloads_display: true
blinka: true
date_added: 2019-6-24
features:
  - HDMI/DisplayPort
---

The Compute Module 3 contains the guts of a Raspberry Pi 3 (the BCM2837 processor and 1GB RAM) as well as an optional 4GB eMMC Flash device (which is the equivalent of the SD card in the Pi). The Pi 3 has a processor speed of 1.2GHz and runs at roughly 10 times the speed of the Pi 1 due to its quad-core CPU. This is all integrated on to a small 67.6mm x 31mm board which fits into a standard DDR2 SODIMM connector (the same type of connector as used for laptop memory). The Flash memory is connected directly to the processor on the board, but the remaining processor interfaces are available to the user via the connector pins. You get the full flexibility of the BCM2837 SoC (which means that many more GPIOs and interfaces are available as compared to the Raspberry Pi), and designing the Module into a custom system should be relatively straightforward as we’ve put all the tricky bits onto the Module itself.

The Compute Module is available for purchase in single units, or in batches of hundreds or thousands. To get started designing a PCB to use the Module, we provide an open-source breakout board with a single Module in an affordable development kit.

## Purchase
* [Raspberry Pi Foundation](https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module-io-board-v3/)

Submit a Pull Request

Now that you have your changes made, go ahead and commit your code to Github and submit a Pull Request. It will be reviewed and if it looks good, it will be merged in.

Testing Changes Locally

To test the changes locally, you before creating a Pull Request, you can run a copy of the the circuitpython.org website locally to see what everything looks like.

1. Open up a terminal or command prompt window.

2. You need "ruby" and "ruby-bundler" installed locally. Installation varies by system.

3. As needed, git submodule update --init --recursive to fetch the submodules.

4. One time, run bundle config set path 'vendor/bundle' && bundle install.

5. Run bundle exec jekyll serve 2>&1 to generate the site locally. The 2>&1 is optional and just suppresses a bunch of warning messages.

circuitpython_running_locally.png

6. Visit the displayed server address in a browser.

After most local edits, the content will be updated. You will need to reload (ctrl-r/command-r or F5) your browser

Running Automated Checks

You can run the automated checks locally to verify it passes. You will first need to make sure you have the necessary packages installed on your system:

Copy Text 
pip3 install python-frontmatter pillow python-dateutil

Make sure you are in the root folder of the circuitpython.org repository, then you can run the checks:

Copy Text 
python3 check-boards.py
python3 check-images.py

Troubleshooting

My PR has been approved and merged, but my changes aren't showing up

It usually takes a few minutes for the pages to update.

I've waited more than a few minutes and they still aren't showing up

Very rarely, but on occasion, Github Pages runs into a problem and doesn't upload the changes. You can check this by going to https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython-org, going to the Settings tab, if you have access, and scrolling down to the Github Pages section to check for an error.

Submitting a new PR will cause it to repair itself. If you want to submit an empty Pull Request (no changes), you can first create an empty commit with the following command:

git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger GHPages Rebuild"

You can change the message to be whatever is appropriate. After that, submit a new Pull Request.

My changes were merged, but the image is wrong or missing

You will want to check that the image specified in your markdown file matches the image name and does not include a path.

Some of the images are right, but not all of them

First try refreshing the page in case the data is cached in your browser. If that doesn't work, make sure all of the image filenames match.

There are some Unknown boards showing up in addition to the board I added

If the new board you added is showing up and there is also an existing ID for your board, make sure to use that first. To find the ID, Right-click on the Unknown board and choose Inspect. Look for the data-id tag to get the board ID. The correct ID should be the same name as the board's name in CircuitPython. See: https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/tree/main/ports.

There is an Unknown board and the board I added isn't showing up

Check the formatting of the Markdown file you just added. Extra or too few of spaces can cause it to not be parsed correctly.

This guide was first published on Jul 24, 2019. It was last updated on Sep 07, 2020.