I received a Binho (Portuguese name, deminutive of Reuben) USB Host adapter the other day. It’s a compact, USB to I2C, SPI, SWI, 1 wire or GPIO adapter. It looks like a candidate to replace my old Total Phase Aardvark, which I have used to drive GPIO, but mostly use with I2C and SPI devices when either evaluating a component, or bringing up new hardware. Acutally in circuit programming of SPI flash is a good use for the Aardvark.
When I first got my kit I was surprised by how small everything is. Yes, I’d seen one before, but I’d not see the accessory boards. It’s all nice and compact, and the carry case holds everything easily.
There is some assembly required for the accessories, but I hear that’s going to change soon. I know the expectation is that if you are buying this adapter you are probably a EE wanting to tickle your hardware, to make sure it’s good. If you are a FW engineer, then you are probably no stranger to soldering either. However, my home soldering iron is from Radio Shack of the 80s and has a large clunky tip, great for the through hole, but not the surface mount jumpers.
Under windows 10 the plug and play drivers immediately saw the product. I’ve got TeraTerm as my terminal, so I quickly fired that up, and pointed at the new com port, typed a couple of character and hit enter to get an NG response, so I knew it was working.
Next thing is to try out the GUI. This is a very lightweight app, that takes care of your basic needs. It covers the GPIO, I2C and SPI use cases, as well as giving you device ID and version information, control of the LEDs and access to the bootloader for reflashing firmware.
Reflashing is done in a really neat way, when you enter bootloader the unit boots up and connects as a USB disk drive, and you just drag and drop the image in.
I look forward to playing with this device when I get a bit of breathing space, it looks like it could be a great alternative to the Aardvark, weighing in at half the cost and providing the same if not more functionality.
Glorified Plumbing 