8 replies to this topic

[Elezium]

Hello to everyone,

 

I've been slowly learning C# over the past 6 months and doing some progress so I decided to buy a Raspberry Pi and start to hack on it using Mono.  Of course, C# is not best language out there for the Pi so finding C# libraries is a bit hard, and I'm not good enough to write my own.  But still having fun blinking some LED and reading some input.

 

So yesterday, I decided to buy an Arduino Starter Kit to see the differences between the Pi, knowing that the Arduino is mostly C/C++.  But looking at some code, I think I can handle it.

 

After doing some lecture, I find THIS: the Netduino, which seems to be the perfect fit for me!  Good news, my local electronic store have some. 

 

So here I am, after reading about the different model of Netduino, I think the Plus 2 would fit better, mainly because of the integrated ethernet port.  But of course, a few questions arises:

 

1) Since I bought the Arduino Starter Kit yesterday (I will probably receive it tomorrow),I was wondering if there is a way to "integrate" the Arduino with the Netduino is some ways?  The kits comes with a bunch of components (sensors, resistors, leds, buttons, and so on) which I believe are compatible and could be useful with the Netduino.  If so, I'll keep the Arduino starter kit as well.

 

2) What is the status on the NetMF?  It's the first time I see it and I've been following MS technologies for a while.  Is there any active development?  I don't want to invest time and money in a dead platform.

 

3) Is the Netduino Plus 2 compatible with the "Gagdeteer" ?  It seems interesting to have "plug and plug" hardware to keep it more simple, but the price tag seems a bit higher.

 

Thanks so much.

Best Regards,

Elezium

[iced98lx]

Welcome (again):

 

 

1) Since I bought the Arduino Starter Kit yesterday (I will probably receive it tomorrow),I was wondering if there is a way to "integrate" the Arduino with the Netduino is some ways?  The kits comes with a bunch of components (sensors, resistors, leds, buttons, and so on) which I believe are compatible and could be useful with the Netduino.  If so, I'll keep the Arduino starter kit as well.

 

Many (most) components will work with Netduino.

 

2) What is the status on the NetMF?  It's the first time I see it and I've been following MS technologies for a while.  Is there any active development?  I don't want to invest time and money in a dead platform.

 

Active development, the team just returned from China to America and got some team members back. Remember it is an Open Source project but MS does have people on it.

 

3) Is the Netduino Plus 2 compatible with the "Gagdeteer" ?  It seems interesting to have "plug and plug" hardware to keep it more simple, but the price tag seems a bit higher.

 

No, though I think at some point someone talked about a gagdeteer shield.

 

Thanks so much.

Best Regards,

Elezium

[Nevyn]

3) Is the Netduino Plus 2 compatible with the "Gagdeteer" ?  It seems interesting to have "plug and plug" hardware to keep it more simple, but the price tag seems a bit higher.

 

No, though I think at some point someone talked about a gagdeteer shield.

 

I think there is a Gadgeteer module for the Go! in the pipeline but it's not here yet.

 

Regards,

Mark

[Spiked]

The Plus does have the advantage of ethernet, but it is not a full working stack, and has some long outstanding bugs. Many have been able to get quite a bit working with it though e.g. web servers. I use it all the time for MQTT to a host PC, but I am starting to look into moving away from that. I will stick with MQTT, but find a way to do it over serial (and no not MQTT-SN, that is geared for wireless as far as I can tell).

 

To be honest, I remain very disappointed in MF as a long term strategy.  I waited years for anything, then what I heard was "big announcements are coming", then what I got was an announcement for 'we are going open source' - which to me is very bad thing. And still no significant updates (like ethernet bug fixes). Now that it is open source, what I expect to finally get is a NON QA'd product, with a ton of bugs. And no end user usable toolchain to be able to even fix them myself. I'm looking elsewhere (and probably going back to Arduino).

 

As far as sensors, It all boils down to electricity - any and all sensors could work, if there is not some physical restriction. However you may not be able to get the timing resolution on a managed framework (.Net) that you would get from raw code on an Arduino. In most cases you can get close enough, but there are a few (e.g.frequency measurement) where you will not, but this is rare case.

[Elezium]

Thanks all for your answers!

 

The Netduino is ordered.  For the price, I'll have a look at it.

 

That being said,  Spiked's answer raises some concerns, probably the same he does have.  Like I said, If I'm to invest time, energy and money into a something, I hope for some long term support, but time will tell I believe.  I've seen some Microsoft information regarding their strategy, but it is indeed not very clear:
http://www.microsoft...MediaWithCopy_2

http://dev.windows.c...Program-for-IoT

 

The later article states about some Intel Galileo support with a specific Windows version, but using the Arduino Sketch.  No sure if I understand correctly.

 

Is it possible to retrieve info / send command with the serial port?  Something like code your method on the Netduino (get temperature for example) and retrieve the results via Serial port?  That way, I would maybe use the Netduino with the Pi to share information with the Cloud (Mono / C# on the Pi).  Just an idea... not sure if doable.

 

Thanks so much guys.

[Mario Vernari]

Here is my (modest) contribution...

 

I believe that iced98lx answered mostly fine, although I never liked Go! nor Gadgeteer.

Netduino Plus 2 is a very nice board, which *never* leave you disappointed, except when...you'll enjoy so much, that you wanna have more, and...there's NO more than a Netduino.

This is the biggest fault, IMHO.

 

Please, don't mind my signature comment, because derived from the huge blackout in NYC some year ago...keep it likely as a "too deep dependency of the humans from the energy"

 

BTW, I really endorse Spiked. Maybe he's very "direct", but...it's just what I've written above: the real problem is "behind" the Net MF project, and MS in general. Many, many, many announces, but nothing concrete. We use to say "lot of smoke and no roast".

I wouldn't bet a single cent on what will be the future, but it's also evident the dramatic change that MS shown after the Nadella leading.

 

Technically speaking, the Arduino board is not "much" different from the Netduino: they both have a microcontroller (MCU), they both have I/O ports, they both have their own features, limitations, etc.

What's *really* different is the firmware inside, or "what the programmer sees". Arduino offers a minimal 8-bits MCU, with few resources (RAM, flash, speed), thus there's *NO* alternative other than "the programmer must help the machine" (C language or so). Netduino leverages its super-powerful 32-bit ARM core to simplify *A LOT* the development, the debugging and many other things.

 

A frequent surprise is about the "port toggling frequency": whereas an Arduino can toggle an output in the MHz-order, the Netduino barely performs 100 times lower...and it's a 180MHz CPU!

The most straightful answer should be: write a complete HTTP app (for instance), then let's remake the "comparison".

 

They DO NOT compare: they're two different approaches, which also may interact.

The Go! idea was nice: use the C#+.NetMF power for the higher level "app", then leave the lowest "physical" level task to a small, inexpensive chip. That's the right way. What I don't like is the "plug-and-play" way of doing that: the hardware is maybe the hardest thing to standardize, and most of the times, as soon you do it, it's already legacy.

However, many users like this way of "glueing" hardware: don't follow my words much, I love hacking hardware.

 

I don't know much about R-Pi or Galileo, but I think they're different beasts.

 

Have a look at my blog, there are many examples of Netduino exchanging data with serial, TCP, and to the Azure cloud.

http://highfieldtales.wordpress.com/

 

Good luck.

[Elezium]

Thanks Mario for you input.

 

True that since Nadella took over at Microsoft, things changed a lot, for the better I believe.  Only the future will  tell I believe.

 

For the price, I'll give it a shot.  It will probably fulfill all the exception I have for now.  It's a learning in progress and I don't believe I'll reach the limitation soon.  The Go / Gadgeteer concept is interesting for fast prototyping, but one of my goal is to actually learn more about electronics so it's not the right choice for me right now.

 

Hopefully MS will put some work on NetMF real hard and see some nice progress in the coming time.  I really believe the IoT / Azure combo is a killer.  For me, it just makes perfect sense.

 

Thanks again for taking the time.

 

Best regards.

[Chris Walker]

Hi Elezium,

Welcome to the community and congratulations on picking up your first Netduino. Please share your experiences and projects with us; we love seeing what developers are building and using that feedback to push the tools and technology forward.

P.S. Per one of the posts in the thread, there are some big networking bugfixes shipping soon. Big things have been in the works (in collaboration with the team at Microsoft) and there will be more NETMF and Netduino goodness coming with the Windows 10 wave. NETMF is an important part of Microsoft's IoT and devices strategy.

Chris

[Spiked]

Don't forget to remind everyone they have been shipping soon for 4 years now. Sorry, but reality has to sink in at some point.

 

Sorry Chris, I hate to go negative. I personally have had pretty good luck with the Netduino, as I have said, But watching others experience, and Microsofts ridiculous pace, I have got to move on.  The netduino/gadgeteer/MF remain a great prototyping platform as far as I am concerned. As a hobbyist maker tool, not so much.

 

And frankly nothing unique about your situation, this is what happens to most open source projects, and why I avoid them when I can. That was what I was trying to do when I went with MF over Arduino in the first place. Now that they are both open source, all advantages are lost.