New VIA Mini-ITX has Built-in 12V DC-DC

Posted 8 Nov 2003 at 20:30 UTC by steve

VIA Technologies has announced a new Mini-ITX form factor motherboard that seems even more suited to mobile robot use than the EPIA M10000 we recently reviewed. The new board is the EPIA TC and includes a built-in 12V DC-DC power converter, allowing the board to be easily used with any 12VDC battery. The board comes in two flavors, one with a 600MHz EDEN ESP CPU for those who want to go totally fanless and one with a 1GHz C3 CPU for those who need more processing power.

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I2C missing, posted 8 Nov 2003 at 22:24 UTC by dafyddwalters » (Master)

This product looks interesting. However, the specification does not list I2C as one of the on-board connectors. Also, it does not specify what input range that the on-board 12V DC-DC converter can tolerate. The PW-70 from mini-box.com, for example, can handle any voltage from 10.5V to 15.5V, making it great for using directly from a lead-acid battery (whose output voltage can vary greatly).

RTFM! :), posted 9 Nov 2003 at 21:56 UTC by Sutekh » (Observer)

On page 2-14 of the manual it shows a i2c header. Appendix C-2 says the DC-DC convertor can handle 11.4 to 12.6 volts on the input.

Here's the link to the manual: http://61.13.35.166/product/3/4/epia-tc_v100.pdf

It does have the I2C connection, posted 10 Nov 2003 at 01:12 UTC by Timster » (Master)

Hi,

Most of our marketing materials are still primarily aimed at PC based applications for these boards so they don't highlight the I2C spec, but as the other poster noted it is there.

Timothy J. Brown VIA Robotics Program Manager

VIA Robotics Initiative http://www.via.com.tw/en/robotics/robotics.jsp

Smaller is better!, posted 11 Nov 2003 at 10:01 UTC by WhoPhlungPoo » (Master)

I cant wait to get my hands on that Nano-ITX platform!!!, keep up the good work VIA!