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Dixon's Content

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#17486 Pragma #IF Netduino

Posted by Dixon on 03 September 2011 - 02:49 PM in General Discussion

Is there any pragma instruction we can use to conditionally compile modules including the right definitions for each type of hardware? For instance: using System; using System.IO; using System.IO.Ports; using System.Threading; using Microsoft.SPOT; using Microsoft.SPOT.Hardware; using SecretLabs.NETMF.Hardware; #if NetduinoMini using SecretLabs.NETMF.Hardware.NetduinoMini; #end #if NetduinoPlus using SecretLabs.NETMF.Hardware.NetduinoPlus; #end so we can create generic modules?


#17912 Netduino Mini -using same COMPORT for deployment and debugging

Posted by Dixon on 13 September 2011 - 08:58 AM in General Discussion

Hi Nissim, I'm afraid you can't. You will need to delete the application before you can deploy again. Check http://forums.netdui...-netduino-mini/ Regards, Carlos.


#17569 SimpleStorage

Posted by Dixon on 05 September 2011 - 11:39 AM in Beta Firmware and Drivers

Hi Chris, Thanks for the tip, this was what I was doing when I saw the window in MFDeploy that allowed me to select the areas to erase, including SimpleStorage. So if I understand it right, there is no way to access it right now even thought it is already build in 4.2. May I ask you a for a rough estimation on when post-RTM will be published? Carlos.


#17530 SimpleStorage

Posted by Dixon on 04 September 2011 - 03:37 PM in Beta Firmware and Drivers

When I were erasing my Netduino Mini because I made the mistake of opening COM1 in my code (which turned out to conflict with the debugging as I use TTL channel for it) I spot in the MFDeploy options on erase that there is already a 4k SimpleStorage area. I think I read it under test somewhere. Can we use it already? How? If not, when will we be able? In a Mini without SD card it's a very important feature to store user configuration!


#18797 Socket.Connect without timeout

Posted by Dixon on 04 October 2011 - 07:33 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

4.2 RC1 has a known issue with Socket.Connect().

The issue was discovered by Christopher Gilmore and discussed here

Carlos


#13984 .NET Micro Framework Distribution Fee

Posted by Dixon on 06 June 2011 - 06:14 AM in General Discussion

It turns out that the white paper I was reading is from 2007. Thanks for your clarification. Now call me ingenuous, but why Microsoft did it so? What they earn with this, as the tool chain is also free (express ed). Why they freed such a marvelous platform? And why is Secret Labs maintaining it?


#13930 .NET Micro Framework Distribution Fee

Posted by Dixon on 03 June 2011 - 08:00 AM in General Discussion

I read that .NET Micro Framework requires a distribution agreement and per-device licensing fee, which varies by exptected volume. Do you know roughly how much is this fee? If we use netduino mini boards for a comertial project, is this fee already paid by Secret Labs? or are we supposed to contact Microsoft to arrange for a distribution agreement?


#17519 Netduino Mini Firmware v4.2.0 RC1

Posted by Dixon on 04 September 2011 - 11:57 AM in Beta Firmware and Drivers

Thanks Chris. By the way, is there any known issue with the debounce filter for InterruptPort on Netduino mini? I'm trying 4.2 RC1 and I get lots of interrupts when input pin changes, as if debounce filter were not working


#20684 Read SW1 status and check serial for data at same time

Posted by Dixon on 16 November 2011 - 07:43 AM in Visual Basic Support

Hi Netduinerd, You have to declare the switch as InterruptPort, so you will receive an event whenever it changes (as you receive interrupts with serial communication): Private WithEvents SW1 As new InterruptPort(Pins.GPIO_PIN_6, true, Port.ResistorMode.Disabled, Port.InterruptMode.InterruptEdgeHigh)


#17432 Netduino Mini Firmware v4.2.0 RC1

Posted by Dixon on 02 September 2011 - 08:28 AM in Beta Firmware and Drivers

Notes on new SD card support
This firmware includes support for SD cards and System.IO filesystem support.

It includes two functions in the new SecretLabs.NETMF.IO namespace:
StorageDevice.MountSD(...);
StorageDevice.Unmount(...);

Both the MountSD(...) and Unmount(...) features are fully implemented.

You will need to manually add the SecretLabs.NETMF.IO assembly as a reference in your project to use the SD feature. You will also need to add the System.IO assembly.


Hi Chris, what is this new feature for? the previous firmware did not need to mount or unmount the SD in order to be able to use it. What's new now?

By the way, I always wanted to ask if all the writes to the SD are committed immediately or are buffered and lazily wrote in some way.


#17943 Socket errors after time

Posted by Dixon on 13 September 2011 - 07:38 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Hi guys, I'm having similar problem than ColinR but only just listening. When I have my N+ connected to the campus network (heavily loaded network, mainly because broadcast packets) IP stack hangs after no more than 30 minutes. The rest of the code is working well as switch interrupts are executed toggling the led status, and a record is write to the event log within a text file on the SD card every 5 minutes, but network connectivity is completely dead until I reset the board. Same test on my home network works fine for days or weeks. Eventlog shows that the free memory is always 24K and CPU is under 1% load, but still get the same results in both 4.1 and 4.2 RC1 firmwares. If there is no easy explanation on this bug, at least it would be nice to be able to reset the network interface by software, so I can do it if detect there is a problem.


#18627 Socket errors after time

Posted by Dixon on 30 September 2011 - 08:48 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

No one else have this network reliability issues? Is it al least posible to reset the network interface by code? Carlos.


#17003 My N+ is dead

Posted by Dixon on 24 August 2011 - 06:34 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

One month ago


#13786 .NET Micro Framework minimun requirements

Posted by Dixon on 30 May 2011 - 09:12 PM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Hi, Netduino specs says it has: Code Storage: 128 KB ● RAM: 60 KB but the minimun specs for .net micro framework are Minimum of 256KB RAM and 512K Flash/ROM (http://msdn.microsof...mework/bb278106). How is it possible it to work?


#13815 .NET Micro Framework minimun requirements

Posted by Dixon on 31 May 2011 - 11:47 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

WPF is available on .NET MF? Wow!!! I'm impressed. I don't find too much documentation on .NET MF but seems to be very interesting. I did a HelloWorld for Netduino in just 10 mins, able to comunicate trough the serial port, responding to interrupts, and using multiple threads. It's very very easy! I'm curious how do you configure/know what parts of .NET MF are included in the build for Netduino and what doesn't. Where can I find more documentation/info?


#13802 .NET Micro Framework minimun requirements

Posted by Dixon on 31 May 2011 - 06:25 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Hi Chris, Thank you, I'm very excited with the Netduino, even though I'm looking forward to have a Netduino Plus ;) Yesterday I was looking for more documentation on the .NET MF arquitecture and Netduino SDK, and found the page I posted the link that says the minimun specs for .NET MF is 256KB of RAM, where it seems the Netduino is only requiring 68KB of RAM for operating. Is it because it only load a part of the .NET MF? or am I missing something? Regards, Dixon


#16957 My N+ is dead

Posted by Dixon on 22 August 2011 - 08:54 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Hi, I have been using my N+ connected to the network for a couple of weeks without problems, but suddenly the three LAN LEDs are not brighting anymore, and the DM9161 IC gets warm very quickly after the power is applied to the board. I tried erasing the micro by connecting the testpoint close to D0 to 3V3 but still the same problem. It was working and suddenly it stopped doing so. What can be wrong? Regards, Carlos.


#16990 My N+ is dead

Posted by Dixon on 23 August 2011 - 07:55 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Hi Dan T, Cat 5 connector has the pins perfectly, but checking the pins with a multimeter shows that all the 8 pins are short-circuited!!! Chris: Actually there is nothing at all connected to the board, and both less brights. Yesterday when I connected the board to the PC it showed "Netduino" for a second, and then disappeared, but as I erased the micro, now it doesn't show anything I'm guessing the ethernet part is burned somehow, but the micro might be ok. I don't know if I should contact Sparkfun for warranty (as I was not doing anything with the board when it failed, it was just connected to the LAN cable and it stopped working) or maybe it would be a good idea to replace the "HS1198" transformer and try...


#13847 Netduino size. Where do I find this in Visual Studio?

Posted by Dixon on 01 June 2011 - 06:30 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Hi Chris

Removing USB is pretty easy (and in fact, you can just copy most of the changes from the Netduino Mini BSP to the Netduino BSP and recompile).


But how? how do you control what parts of .NET MF are included and what parts not, and how do you know how big is the .NET MF being loaded (i.e. total size - fre size - our app size)

In theory .NET Framework requires 256MB of RAM, what is much more than the actual Netduino RAM size. It seems it's because the loaded .NET MF is stripped down, removing WPF support among other things. How can we know what it is included and what not?


#13931 Netduino size. Where do I find this in Visual Studio?

Posted by Dixon on 03 June 2011 - 08:13 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

There is SolutionWizard application in the .NET Micro Framework Porting Kit to select modules/features you want to be included in the firmware. Regarding the firmware size and memory organization, please refer to "Laying Out Memory on .NET Micro Framework Devices" topic in the Porting Kit documentation, which describes it in great detail.


Hi CW2,

Thanks a lot for your answer, everything is clearer now.


#20492 Ethernet stop working after around 20-60 minutes running

Posted by Dixon on 11 November 2011 - 07:58 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

I can confirm this bug.

Netduino will stay up for days on a quiet, local LAN. If I take it and plug it into our university's LAN, it freezes within minutes. The board remains responsive to input pin events, but the network connectivity no longer works until you press the reset button.

It seems the Netduino's stack can't handle tons of broadcast traffic created by management services on large lans. (Cisco proprietary, or STP, etc.)


Exact same behavior in my university, after few seconds of our typical 30-45KB/s background broadcast noise, while it worked fine for weeks at home with low traffic.

A potentials work around would be to put a cheap nat router between the netduino and lan, and port forward 80 on the wan side ip to the netduino. That should block all of the broadcast noise, but let in the http requests.


But this kill the beauty of a tiny electronic to connect something to internet. If an additional router was requited, then is better and far cheaper to buy an OpenWRT compliant router such as Linksys 54G for 60€ and program it in C

I would be just happy if it would be a way to reset the eth interface when N+ detect lose of network connectivity


#14271 Netduino send ICMP Ping ?

Posted by Dixon on 13 June 2011 - 08:07 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Did you ever work this out?

I'm thinking to ping my gateway to determine if my network on the netduino has died, or if the internet is down. If the network on the Netduino is to blame, I have to request a reboot. But I can't have the Netduino rebooting every minute while the internet is down.


How do you reboot the netduino by code?


#20683 Automatic Recovery

Posted by Dixon on 16 November 2011 - 07:34 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

We could also add a Reset feature to a future firmware release. The function is already built into the firmware...we'd just have to create a wrapper for it. You could also create one and build it into your own custom firmware.

The firmware could also be tweaked to activate the hardware reset function in case an exception occurred. Lots of options.


Hi Chris,

Did you manage to include the Reset function within the firmware? if not, how can we tweak it to activate the reset without need to use a GPIO?
Can the firmware be tweaked to just reset the TCP/IP stack?


#17149 Sprinkler System Controller on Engadget!

Posted by Dixon on 27 August 2011 - 10:35 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Really nice project! I'm guessing how much hours did you expend on it, I'm sure that a lot of them! It's a pity to need a man on the middle PC, but it's true that Internet is a rude environment for a N+. One idea would be to use a N+ as front end, acting as a gateway; external phone would access to it through the firewall and this N+ forwards the query to the servicing N+ (the actual one). Gateway N+ can also be the one contacting the weather forecast servers. At the same time service N+ would ping&query the gateway N+ every short time and will power cycle it if it do not response (gateway N+ is powered through a relee controlled by service N+) It seems complex, but not requiring a PC worth the pain..


#15360 Netduino Plus update: 50% more RAM

Posted by Dixon on 12 July 2011 - 10:30 AM in Beta Firmware and Drivers

Hi Chris, Is this 50% more ram modification already included within the 4.2 beta that is actually available?



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