Just out of curiosity, what features will a "weather" station have? To me personally, using 48 MHz ARM7 processor (with all the features) for temperature measurements seems a bit overkill... I understand benefits of .NET Micro Framework programming, though.

I agree with CW2. I built my weather stations using Arduino clone called JeeNode from http://news.jeelabs.org/. It has a built in low-power radio. It also uses modular design for and specifc "plugs" many sensors and devices are already available in his shop http://shop.jeelabs.com/. There is also lot of discussion about low-power requirements on his blog and forums.

My nodes last for more than a month on 3xAA batteries. Each uses a Room Board (http://shop.jeelabs....ucts/room-board) with temperature, humidity, motion and light sensor. I put them inside Airwick Freshmatic Mini enclosures: http://cid-4c7ec0c21...tal electronics

I think it might be worth using such devices for the sensor nodes but use Netduino with Ethernet shield as a central interface. It could be plug into a PC via USB or report data directly to a cloud service such as http://www.pachube.com/ via the Ethernet shield.

I change the jumper for Vref to the 5 V source. This did a find job of centering the signal, but the max values were very unstable. I guess I was over driving the A/D. So I cut the trace from 5 V to the joystick and added a wire from 3.3 to the joystick and Vref. Now every thing works just fine. See the attachment.

Thanks for sharing your findings.

Looks like the fact that Vref is not connected on Netduino causes troubles with some shields, and also is bit confusing for people comming from arduino. Maybe Chris could explain why it was done this way and if there is any technical difficulty to make it connected by default to 3V3 in future revisions.

Hi Eric, Maybe this example will help you get started: http://geekswithblog...nking_leds.aspx It shows how to use a shift register to talk with two 7 segment LED modules.

Are there any others I should look into? I'm on the Windows platform, BTW.

Did you look at Fritzing? It's what I use to document schematics for my projects.
And CW2 already created Fritzing part for Netduino.

Hi Xander, welcome to the forums!

We will have resellers in Europe (and probably Asia and Australia as well) in the coming months. Today, MakerSHED should be able to serve you well. But we know that Europe is a priority (for cost reasons) and we're on it...

Chris

Hi Chris,
I live in Poland so I'm also very interested in Europe based resseler. The closest distributor is in Czech Republic http://informatix.mi...microframework/

They carry many different .NET MF boards so I hope yours will be available shortly too :-)

Best Regards,
Szymon Kobalczyk (MVP)

PS: Thanks for this great project!

That's a fantastic idea.

Do you think it would make sense to use the USB port on the regular Netduino to make a RepRap type of device which could be printed via USB as well?

Yes, I think this might work too. But I think Ethernet+SC card combo would make it more interesting. I will try to digg why people are looking to use ARM boards for RepRap in general. Maybe Arduino has other limitations they want to solve this way.

Moving this discussion from the main forum. I think the bigest benefit for RepRap would be to use Netduino Plus. With network connection it could work just like a regular printer. And the SD card would be used as a print buffer, so one could send the whole print job, and turn off the computer (3D printers are still quite slow). Indeed this sounds as a very exciting thing to do. Hopefuly some people in Japan are already working on this (the shield was designed by Kenzo Yoshida).

I'm pretty new at this, but am wondering whether this board could be used to run the Mendel REPRAP machine? I mean, would it simply be a case of recompiling the Java code they provide, or would it need to be re-written from scratch?

I just found that there is a new RepRap G5 Mini Shield posted on http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3863
It is specially designed to work with ARM boards, such like Netduino, FEZ domino, Maple Leaf and etc.
So I think that would take care of the hardware side.

On the software front I also found that the RepRap firmware is written so that it can be compiled by GNU GCC compiler:
http://reprap.org/wiki/General_FAQ

So I think instead of rewriting it in .NET Micro Framework, the easiest route would be to compile it natively and reflash the board. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of RepRap.NET too, but .NET MF is not designed for real-time devices so I'm afraid it wouldn't work in this scenario. But I still hope someone else will shortly prove I was wrong.

Since .NET MF allows interop with native code, this is definitely possible using a mix of native C++ and managed C# code. Maybe managed C# code alone.

100% Native C++ code on the Netduino is definitely possible as well.

Chris,
It sounds very tempting to give it a try, and besides I wanted a MakerBot for some time alredy... but maybe I should finish some other projects first :-)

bah those look boring I'll make my own out of Plexiglas

Here is another enclosure from Adafruit
http://www.adafruit....products_id=271

I just ordered one so I can tell you shortly how netduino fits inside.

OZ, it sounds like you'll have a very nice looking case whatever you do!

Szymon, Chris Seto--thanks for the links to the cases. Maybe we should ask one of the manufacturers to make a Netduino-specific case?

Chris

I think that in general you would choose the case that fits best for your project, considering all additional components that you might be using.

That said I think adafruit's case looks quite robust and can fit quite a lot. For larger or more ruged projects Chameleon case might work better http://www.esawdust....cl-cham1-basic/

For both enclosures we just need a proper faceplate to expose the netduino ports (or just a template to cut them ourselves from blank faceplate).

Here are few more examples:
http://blog.makezine..._enclosure.html
http://blog.makezine...duino_case.html
http://blog.makezine...duino_case.html
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1664

Hi, I received the adafruit's arduino enclosure today. Netduino fits nicely inside but of course I will have to make a new hole if I wanted to plug USB from outside. Also because the power plug dosn't stick out as much as on arduino there is a little gap between the bottomplate. Here you can see few photos of it: http://cid-4c7ec0c21...e.aspx/Netduino Overall the board looks good. I will try to connect the LCD and figure out how to add the buttons (probably will use switch buttons on the proto shield).

Please let me know who want's to joint the project. Just send me your CodePlex account name so I can add you to project members.

Hi all, I think we should start from the bottom and get the basic uIP stack modules running first. Applications can come later as I'm sure they will be useful for testing and as learning examples. But first we should look if any of the bottom level modules have any corresponding functions builtin in the .NET MF already. For example the "Memory block management functions" or "Timer library" I think would find replacements.

I would love to think up loud and test stuff when there's something read (I got the ENC28J60 myself). For development I have little time near my own projects, and I still lack knowledge on many grounds so there I can't help you out.

For a network stack, what I would love to see is a very simple implementation of socket listeners and outgoing sockets. When that's done I could write all kinds of daemons and networking clients in C#.

I just clicked the subscribe-button of this topic so I can follow the process closely

Hi Stefan,
Thanks for your feedback. Could you elaborate about "very simple implementation of socket listeners and outgoing sockets"? What would you like this APIs to look like? Should we make it close as possible to existing .NET Socket class or we should take different approach.
http://msdn.microsof...ets.socket.aspx

Any scenario in particular that you think we should address?

Best,
-Szymon

Does anybody from those who downloaded the firmware and possibly tried it have any feedback? How should I interpret the silence, with regard to initial eager requests? Please let me know whether it works or not with your device, so I can fix possible problems and publish the code. Thanks in advance.

Hi CW2,
I finally got to look at this. I uploaded your firmware and tested with one DS18B20 sensor. I'm happy to report that it works fine with your demo app :-)

Did you managed to implement the search function? I think this is the only important thing missing from the native code. I compare it to arduino version http://www.pjrc.com/...bs_OneWire.html

The Skip and Select methods can be implemented in managed code because it only sends a command with WriteByte. We can also compute the Crc.

I can send you my version of Micro DallasTemperature library if you want to test it.


Edit: Oh, and I would definitively move the managed OneWire class to another assembly (at least until it makes to official firmware). Having two versions of the same assembly totally messed my project references.

Wow. There is already a Netduino wiki in japanese: http://www.microsoft...%c8%a4%a4%ca%fd

I just saw this article; a Netduino user in Japan has written preliminary code using an OLED screen with a Netduino.

Very nice.

http://www.microsoft...x-EyED/20100821

Chris

Interesting. I've noticed that there is lot of chat on twitter about netduino in japanese. I wonder what they are up to ;-)

Thank you for visiting my weblog... ;-)

http://ecrafts.g.hat...e.jp/Lynx-EyED/

Hi lynxeyed_atsu,

Very cool that you are here too. It looks like lot of people in Japan are excited about netduino (or maybe with .NET Micro Framework in general?). Due to language barier it's hard for me to keep up with what you are doing. Hope you could give us some updates on cool project you are working on.

And if you really need a much more powerful device maybe you should take a look at http://beagleboard.org/

If you plan to use it as a sensor node maybe it would be worth adding some wireless options directly on the board. I'm thinking something like this guy: http://www.sparkfun....roducts_id=9712

I have update schematics on my blog. It looks great! Thanks for great work. http://geekswithblog...nking_leds.aspx

Does anyone know what font is used for the 'netduino' trademark on the board? I am working on a custom part for Fritzing (preview attached), and that is the only thing I am missing.

Awesome! I'm glad that you took care of this.

I just finished drawing schematics for my tutorial, but I had to use arduino part and would love to replace it.

Hi,
I have published my second project. This time I upgraded the robotic kit from oomlout with Netduino. The robot uses continous rotation servos as differential drive (works great with Chris Seto's Servo class). It also uses Nintendo Wii Nunchuck as contoller (and includes my WiiChuck driver) and adds wireless communication via pair of XBees.

Here is the blog post http://geekswithblog...ervo-robot.aspx

The source code is here: http://cid-4c7ec0c21...b^_20100831.zip

This time no video because its to dark now. Let me know if I should make one tomorrow :-)

Nice project, I was curious what is the board that you are using that is connected to the Netduino?---AJB

It's the Adafruit's prototyping shield http://www.adafruit....&products_id=51