Beaglebone Black

We found a few extra Rev B Beaglebone Blacks in our back stock area! Get them while they last!

The Beaglebone Black is a low-cost credit-card-sized development platform with good support from a fast growing community. The Beaglebone Black differs slightly from the regular version by providing you with an onboard micro HDMI port, 512MB of DDR3L DRAM, 2GB onboard flash memory, an AM3358 processor at 1GHz, and making JTAG optional with a user supplied header. Ultimately, the Beaglebone Black is still perfect for physical computing and smaller embedded applications.

With plenty of I/O and processing power for real-time analysis provided by the TI Sitara™ AM3358 ARM® Cortex™-A8 processor, Beaglebone Black can be complemented with cape plug-in boards which augment Black’s functionality.They're called capes because Underdog is a beagle and he wears a cape. Makes sense, right?

At over 3 million Dhrystone operations per second and vector floating point arithmetic operations, Beaglebone Black is capable of not just interfacing to all of your robotics motor drivers, location or pressure sensors and 2D or 3D cameras, but also running OpenCV, OpenNI and other image collection and analysis software to recognize the objects around your robot and the gestures you might make to control it. Through onboard micro HDMI or VGA and LCD expansion boards, it is capable of decoding and displaying multiple video formats utilizing a completely open source software stack and synchronizing playback over Ethernet or USB with other BeagleBoards to create massive video walls. If what you are into is building 3D printers, then Beaglebone Black has the extensive PWM capabilities, the on-chip Ethernet and the 3D rendering and manipulation capabilities all help you eliminate both your underpowered microcontroller-based controller board as well as that PC from your basement.

Note: We are limiting orders to 1 unit, if you require more you will need to contact customer service.

  • 1x 3ft USB-A to Mini-B USB Cable
  • AM3358 1GHz ARM® Cortex-A8 Processor
  • 2GB 8-bit eMMC Onboard Flash
  • 3D Graphics Accelerator
  • NEON Floating-Point Accelerator
  • 2x PRU 32-bit Microcontroller
  • Connectivity:
    • USB Client for power and communications
    • USB Host
    • Ethernet
    • Micro HDMI
    • 2x 46-pin Headers
  • Software Compatability
    • Angstrom Linux
    • Android
    • Ubuntu
    • Cloud9 IDE on Node.js with BoneScript
    • and More...

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Beaglebone Black Product Help and Resources

Core Skill: Programming

If a board needs code or communicates somehow, you're going to need to know how to program or interface with it. The programming skill is all about communication and code.

3 Programming

Skill Level: Competent - The toolchain for programming is a bit more complex and will examples may not be explicitly provided for you. You will be required to have a fundamental knowledge of programming and be required to provide your own code. You may need to modify existing libraries or code to work with your specific hardware. Sensor and hardware interfaces will be SPI or I2C.
See all skill levels


Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping

If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.

1 Electrical Prototyping

Skill Level: Noob - You don't need to reference a datasheet, but you will need to know basic power requirements.
See all skill levels


Comments

Looking for answers to technical questions?

We welcome your comments and suggestions below. However, if you are looking for solutions to technical questions please see our Technical Assistance page.

  • opensourcerer / about 11 years ago / 4

    thank you times infinity

  • Member #37510 / about 11 years ago / 3

    "We have a purchase for 4000 units. We expect some of these to arrive next on...." Well, it was Feb 19. And then today it became Feb 24. Does this date come with any more confidence that the last date?

    • Cathy2 / about 11 years ago / 1

      they did come in, everyone preordered them and they were all spoken for. mine shipped out today. best to order it now to guarantee you'll have one on the 24th.

      • jbhelfrich / about 11 years ago / 1

        I ordered mine back with the year end sale and am still on backorder. :( Some indication of how far back my order is at least would be nice.

        • Cathy2 / about 11 years ago / 1

          did you go to your account page and update payment on that order? thats what i had to do.

          • jbhelfrich / about 11 years ago / 1

            My order shows a balance of $0 and a status of 'BO Arrived' which I hope is correct, since the CC I used got caught up in the Target mess and has been cancelled. I don't see any way to update payment.

            • You might want to contact customerservice@sparkfun just to make sure everything on your order is good to go!

          • Member #37510 / about 11 years ago / 1

            Ugh...I placed the order on the sixth, but I had no idea that they didn't process the CC. Updated, now have a balance of zero, and I suppose I'll be waiting until april. thanks for the heads up.

            • Rigoberto13 / about 11 years ago * / 1

              Yep....same problem, thought mine would go out automatically because I placed my order but didn't notice it wasn't processed....also waiting with you

              EDIT* Order just shipped. Thank you, SF.

  • Member #458657 / about 11 years ago / 3

    Note that this product goes on back-order. What is going on with it? Too much demand or inability of the company to supply and make enough product? Is there a problem with manufacturing?

    • MicroLAN / about 11 years ago / 1

      On the bbb blog's forum, this has been a constant discussion. Apparently they (as of right now) have 140,000 backorders for the board and claim to be manufacturing 700 per day. They seem a bit "upset" that equipment manufacturers are grabbing them up quicker than they can make them, to incorporate them into commercial products. They have created a hot item. I've been working with it and it's HUGELY useful. They need to ramp up production and maybe raise the price a bit (they're complaining that they aren't making any money on it).

  • the new ones that u are getting are the latest board revision Rev A6?

    • M-Short / about 11 years ago * / 1

      We are getting whatever is the current model, at this point there might be another revision before we get all the backorders filled. Unfortunately the demand is way higher than the manufacture can supply these. We'll get whatever is being shipped at the time.

      Edit: This page is for the RevB only, they are manufacturing enough Rev B boards to fill back orders and then come the Rev C. Rev C has twice as much flash, and is a bit more expensive and so has a separate product page.

    • Cathy2 / about 11 years ago / 1

      someone should answers/confirm this..

  • Cathy2 / about 11 years ago / 2

    mine shipped out today, thank you. now ill have to go spend some more money because i MUST accessorize.

  • Broken Robot / about 10 years ago / 1

    Hello. I Am planning on purchasing the rev c and I was wondering if on the the back, there is an SD card slot. If that is not the case, then please tell me what is can be used for. I plan on using the LCD cape to make a homemade tablet and i was wondering if I could get more memory on it than 4GB. Thanks.

  • Nconcepts Automation / about 11 years ago / 1

    Could someone help me find where to order a Micro-HDMI to HDMI Adapter? Or are we only using USB to PC to access the BBB? Trying to get my BBB to not Lockup on Bootup with the 7" Cape. TIA for ANY help. Vince

  • Member #543152 / about 11 years ago / 1

    Anyone knows when will the REV C which has 4GB onboard flash become available?

  • Member #454903 / about 11 years ago / 1

    I would like to use a Beaglebone Black to control multiple Arduinos via ethernet (basically transferring data back and forth). Can someone give me some pointers or a tutorial on the best way to get started?

  • GraysonR / about 11 years ago / 1

    What is this, a super microcontroller?

    • MicroLAN / about 11 years ago / 1

      Full Linux computer for $45.... Lots more interfacing capability than the Raspberry Pi.

  • Member #481275 / about 11 years ago / 1

    I currently have three BBB.

    • Member #544877 / about 11 years ago / 2

      And That's why there's a shortage. That's just plain greed, son.

      • I Dream of JNE / about 9 years ago / 1

        Living-room superclusters aren't going to build themselves!

  • gtMultirotores / about 11 years ago / 1

    can the beaglebone connect and talk to sensors like a 10dof breakout board like http://www.amazon.com/L3G4200D-ADXL345-HMC5883L-BMP085-Breakout/dp/B008G7T3QQ/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_1 without using an external arduino? ive got this question because ive got a project and im gonna use bbb because i need a much powerful platform than an arduino for the project but i really need this sensor to work.

  • yigiter007 / about 11 years ago / 1

    is there a P9 expansion connector ont e BB black? For connecting a SMD ADS1015 ADC to free up pins while a cape is connected. I want to use a LCD cape and have some PINS available for my project. (https://github.com/modmaker/BeBoPr/wiki/Better-Analog-Inputs) Is there a way to access the unused pins in the BB black?

  • jbhelfrich / about 11 years ago / 1

    Any plans to carry a case or prototyping board to mount these in?

  • jlehmkuh / about 11 years ago / 1

    Do you carry the capes for this product and if so how to locate them ?

  • Member #309494 / about 11 years ago / 1

    Anyone else having USB problems with the BBB? Taking a functioning USB hub and hardware from the Raspberry PI to the BBB results in lots of grumpy USB error messages after a few minutes in dmesg log. Same hardware will run for months on Windows 7 or Raspberry PI. Also, tried several flavors of Linux including Angstrom and Arch up to kernel 3.12.2.

    • Member #403600 / about 11 years ago / 2

      I had many problems as an early-early adopter of the BBB getting the darned thing to live LIVE LIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

      Sorry. I had problems with the USB hub I was using on the Pi and had to swap in another I had on hand before the BBB would acknowledge it has USB connectivity.

      I also had to hack in using PUTTY because the browser-delivered SSH wouldn't connect properly. Once I had one session established and terminated via PUTTY, the browser version started working. But then the workbench wouldn't function correctly and I was advised by the community to download an update to the software, which borked the SSH and the workbench.

      I finally got the SSH working again and the workbench working for the first time by knowing the secret browser gotcha - the list of acceptable browsers was bollocks and the only one that would work properly was Chrome.

      Then I tried bringing up the BBB with a standard video/keyboard/mouse as a console rather than headless via USB. More trouble as the BBB won't play with the HDMI - VGA converter that works perfectly with the Pi. At work we have archaic equipment and I wanted to do a lot of this stuff in lunch breaks. Oh well.

      I have to say that given the number of expensive extras I had to buy just to get the BBB to fire up - mico SD card that was just so big and no bigger or it wouldn't boot, special cables for video hook-up because placement of sockets on board mean that adapters to re-size mini-connectors to the easier to find regular size cannot be used and so forth - coupled with the misinformation on the "help" pages and the unworky SSH (which I am certain is down to a config file problem) , I'd advise anyone not needing the promise of the awesome power of the BBB to use a different platform like a Pi, which is comparatively a doddle to get up and running.

  • Matt Rasband / about 11 years ago / 1

    This is a pretty awesome little guy. I have two of them for HAB stuff. Especially nice with the cape options (including making your own). Will be buying my next one here!

  • Member #435690 / about 11 years ago * / 1

    Now i know what i'm getting as my first single-board computer.

  • Eddi / about 11 years ago / 1

    Hey Sparkfun, your description says that the AM3359 has 800MHz but under "Features" is says 1GHz ...

    Cheers.

  • LightManCA / about 11 years ago / 1

    Deja Vu? Didn't you already carry the Beagle Bone Black?

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 found this helpful:

I love these things

I have several and have done a variety of projects with them. I never cease to get blown away by how much you get for the price. Lots of IO and once you come to grips with using the PRU all kinds of unique applications open up. Can't say enough good about these. Mostly I worry that the SoC chip will get redesigned and the PRU be eliminated or that other future changes will screw up this amazing piece of gear.