B Series Evaluation board

This is a simple breakout board for Particle's B series of cellular IoT modules. It breaks out all of its pins via easy to use headers. The board features a redundant USB port, connector for the LiPo battery, a barrel jack power connector, buttons, RGB LED, and charge status LED.

The Eagle CAD design files, Gerber files, and bill of materials can be found in the SoM eval board GitHub repository.

Block diagram

Description

Jumpers J12

These pins are intended to be connected across using removable two-pin jumpers to connect features on the board to standard ports.

Jumpers J13

These pins are intended to be connected across using removable two-pin jumpers to connect features on the board to standard ports.

For more information about Ethernet, see the application note AN037 Ethernet.

Power jumpers

Expansion connector

PWM Differences

On the B Series SoM, pins D4, D5, D7, A0, A1, A6, and A7 can be used for PWM. Pins are assigned a PWM group. Each group must share the same frequency and resolution, but individual pins in the group can have a different duty cycle.

• Group 2: Pins A0, A1, A6, and A7.
• Group 1: Pins D4, D5, and D6.
• Group 0: Pin D7 and the RGB LED. This must use the default resolution of 8 bits (0-255) and frequency of 500 Hz.

On Gen 3 Feather devices (Argon, Boron, Xenon), pins A0, A1, A2, A3, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, and D8 can be used for PWM. Pins are assigned a PWM group. Each group must share the same frequency and resolution, but individual pins in the group can have a different duty cycle.

• Group 3: Pins D2, D3, A4, and A5.

• Group 2: Pins A0, A1, A2, and A3.

• Group 1: Pins D4, D5, D6, and D8.

• Group 0: Pin D7 and the RGB LED. This must use the default resolution of 8 bits (0-255) and frequency of 500 Hz.

These rules also apply to tone() (square wave with 50% duty cycle), however since each group must share the same frequency you can only generate two different simultaneous tones of different frequencies on the B Series SoM. You cannot generate tone on group 0.

Basic setup

The basic setup for the B series to be operational is shown below:

• Plug the cellular antenna into the U.FL connector labeled CELL on the SoM. Remember never to power up this board without the antenna being connected. There is potential to damage the transmitter of the u-blox module if no antenna is connected.
• If you are going to use mobile app setup or BLE, connect the 2.4 GHz antenna (the smaller one) to the BT U.FL connector on the SoM.
• Connect power the USB (3) or a LiPo battery (4).
• Turn on the appropriate power switches (5).

Using the PMIC and fuel gauge (recommended)

There is support for bq24195 PMIC and MAX17043 fuel gauge in Device OS so you don't need to add any additional configuration.

It requires these jumpers, which should be installed at the factory:

• ADC6 to PM_INT
• SDA to PM_SDA
• SCL to PM_SCL

Power consumption

We do not recommend using the B Series eval board for power consumption measurements. It's impossible to completely disconnect the Wiznet W5500 Ethernet interface without removing the chip from the board. This will result in significantly higher power consumption measurements than you would have in most applications.

Using the MicroSD card

To use the MicroSD card, you must add the jumpers for the SD_ pins.

You will normally use this with the SdFat library.

With the jumpers installed, it will use the secondary SPI (SPI1) and pin D5 as the chip select.

Using ethernet

To use Ethernet, you must add the jumpers:

• CS to ETH_CS
• SCK to ETH_SCK
• MISO to ETH_MISO
• MOSI to ETH_MOSI
• GPIO0 to ETH_INT

With the jumpers installed, it will use the primary SPI and pins D8 as the chip select and D22 as the interrupt pin.

Using the Grove connectors

Evaluation board schematics

PMIC

Fuel gauge

3.3V Regulator

Ethernet

SD Card

Mechanical specifications

Dimensions and weight

Revision history