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Unpacking the Kit
The i.MX 8M NAVQ Plus kit arrives packaged into a box. Please notice the printed label on the top of the box. Please store or photograph the label, it may be needed if you need to contact the support team with questions or support issues.
Open the box, remove the cables and boards. The following picture illustrates the kit at the final stage of unpacking:
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Understanding Kit Contents
As shipped, the kit is assembled as a miniature 2-layers "Cube". This "Cube", when assembled together, presents an i.MX 8M Plus-based embedded computer, composed of the following stacked hardware modules:
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USB Type C to USB Type A cable;
Ethernet cable;
microHDMI to HDMI cable.
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Setting Up Serial Console
The serial console UART interface is used to get access to the i.MX 8M Plus U-Boot and Linux serial console. This is the primary user interface the kit provides to software developers. You won't be able to do much unless you have access to the serial console.
Both U-Boot and Linux are configured to use the i.MX 8M Plus UART2 port for the serial console. The kit provides UART2 as a 3.3V interface on the 6-pin J10 connector residing on the NavQ Plus board. In order to connect the serial console to a PC, you must convert the 3.3V UART interface to a USB serial interface. This requires connecting an external device ("USB-to-UART converter dongle") to the kit. The kit comes cabled to such a dongle, so all you have to do to plug the USB end of the dongle to your PC. Just in case, the following table provides pin-out of the "J10" port on the HGI board:
UART2 Connector Pin# | Signal Name | Description |
1 |
| +5V |
2 |
| UART TX |
3 |
| UART RX |
4 |
| UART CTS |
5 |
| UART RTS |
6 |
| Ground |
To complete connection of the serial console to your PC, plug the USB end of the USB--UART dongle into a free USB port on your PC. The LED On the USB-to-UART dongle should lit up at this point:
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| Code Block |
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$ picocom –l /dev/ttyUSB0 –b 115200 |
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Powering Up
To power the kit up, plug the USB Type C to USB Type A cable between the USB Type C port labeled USB2 on the NavQ Plus board and a free USB port on your PC host. The kit will power up as soon as power is applied via the USB cable:
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Note: Power consumption of the kit, comprised of the 3 stacked hardware modules with the add-on boards and depending on software configuration, may exceed 8-10W or be even higher in some I/O intensive configurations. We recommend connecting the kit to the following USB power supplies:
Laptops, notebooks or PCs with 5V@2A USB ports or USB Power Delivery capability
RPI-style USB power supply, such as: https://www.newark.com/raspberry-pi/sc0217/rpi-power-supply-usb-c-5-1v-3a/dp/21AH4479
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Running First Linux Session
The i.MX 8M Plus SOM arrives with default Linux images pre-installed to the eMMC Flash disk. As soon as the kit is powered up, Linux will boot up, with the following messages showing up in your serial terminal window:
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To login enter the user user, with the password user. At this point, you are running the Linux shell on the i.MX 8M Plus. To have the superuser access to all Linux controls and capabilities, run sudo su, with the same password.
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Using Other I/O Interfaces
Use of the advanced I/O interfaces provided by the kit, such as 1GB Ethernet, MIPI-DSI, MIPI-CSI, HDMI and others, is discussed in the follow-up application notes available on the web site.
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Troubleshooting
In case you are unable to get a Linux session on your kit, step through the following troubleshooting steps, in the descending order:
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