Australian engineer Ali Slim is again with a brand new tackle the remoted multi-protocol serial dongle, Ollie — launching a crowdfunding marketing campaign for the Ollie v2, with USB Kind-C connectivity and a extra compact design.

“Ollie v2 is an remoted, multi-function interface module and USB-to-isolated-UARTx2/CAN/RS485/RS232 converter,” Slim writes of his newest creation, delivered to our consideration by CNX Software program. “This versatile gadget combines our mostly used interface modules into one secure, dependable, compact, and inexpensive package deal. Ollie v2 prioritizes security via isolation, which can save your laptop from harm if issues go improper if you’re interfacing with excessive voltage units.”

Slims’ authentic Ollie board launched in mid-2020, promising a multi-functional remoted interface to speak UART, CAN, RS485, or RS232 from any laptop’s USB port. The Ollie v2 is, unsurprisingly, an evolution of this — transferring from a micro-USB connector to the newer USB Kind-C customary, providing the flexibility to set the voltage degree of the UART connection primarily based on the goal’s wants, a extra compact design, an RGB exercise LED for serial exercise, and a few part modifications providing a extra “resilient provide chain.”

There are, nevertheless, just a few losses within the transfer from the unique model to v2. The brand new Ollie lacks help for USB Full Pace downstream targets, with Slim claiming that “most trendy debuggers reminiscent of STLINK-V3 solely help USB Excessive Pace” connectivity. The extra compact design additionally lacks an remoted energy output, and the utmost knowledge price from the UART buses has been halved from 12Mb/s to 6Mb/s.

The gadget’s full characteristic checklist contains two remoted UART ports with a 6Mb/s knowledge price and 1.8V, 3.3V, 5V, or “goal voltage” operation, CAN 2.0A/B as much as 1Mb/s with SocketCAN help and bus monitoring, RS485 at as much as 500kb/s, and RS232 at as much as 235kb/s. For many who want it, there’s additionally an elective DB9 connector board for the CAN, RS485, and RS232 interfaces.

The crowdfunding marketing campaign for the Ollie v2 is now stay on Crowd Provide, with {hardware} priced at $60 plus $10 for the elective DB9 board; all {hardware} is predicted to ship in mid-December.