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!

I've played around with microcontollers here and there, but now I have a project that I must work out. I'm trying to figure out the best way to tackle this new project. What my goal is to control a high powered LED and stepper motor using DMX-512. I'm not sure how to approach this but I could use some help getting pointed in the right direction. Is the netduino a good choice or is there something that would be better.

This sounds similar to one of the projects I want to implement myself. Could you provide more detail on what you are going to build?

-Szymon

I think one of the strengths of Arduino is the Playground area at http://www.arduino.cc/playground/ and especially the pages that collect information (including links to any libraries) about interfacing with various hardware: http://www.arduino.c...ingWithHardware Do you plan to add similar Wiki on this site? There are already some good libraries for .NET MF but its hard to find them on the web. It would be cool to have a single source for such information.

I'm going to try to fit Netduino in Adafruit's Arduino Enclosure http://www.adafruit....products_id=271 I think it would fit nicely and only need to do one more cut out for micro USB. And I plan to add LCD display and buttons for debugging of my device.

Here is one more LCD interface that might work. It runs on 3.3V but uses I2C instead of Serial. http://shop.jeelabs....oducts/lcd-plug

I'm really enjoying the device so far.

The application I'm working on uses the Parallax RFID reader which is talking to the Netduino as a serial device on D0 so, I'd have to look at D2/D3 for getting data out. Having a way to talk over the USB would be huge, since it would keep the whole solution smaller, simpler and cheaper.

I would be happy to share once I get something that's ready to share.

I'm looking to port this WPF PING sensor application over to the Netduino as well.

Hi futileboy,
If all you want is get the RFID data to PC you actually don't need netduino for that. You can simply connect it directly with the FTDI Serial-to-USB cable.
http://www.adafruit....&products_id=70
http://www.sparkfun....roducts_id=9718

Or you can just get the USB version of the same Parallax RFID reader.
http://www.parallax....17/Default.aspx

Then it will show as virtual comport that you can access using System.IO.Ports.SerialPort class (I should have some sample code if you need help).

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.

That's good advice. And I've looked at going straight to the USB version of the RFID reader. My big motivation for using the Netduino though is that I'd like to add more then one sensor and even some other inputs (switches, knobs, etc) and have it do all the physical device handling. That way, I only plug one device into the system and get an array of data out of it.

In this case you could try to turn your netduino into a proper HID USB device. I haven't tried it yet myself but there is a sample in the .NET MF SDK that shows how to make a virtual mouse.

Here is also excellent article written by Michel Verhagen on GuruCE that shows how to communicate with .NET application using WinUSB driver: http://guruce.com/bl...cation-over-usb Looks like bit more work but it might be worth to give it a try.

In both cases you will probably loose ability to debug on the device via USB so you will need serial cable anyway. I surly can't wait until netduino guys figure out how to make this easier.

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'm working on a project that will allow to control RGB LEDs using Netduino. I planned to use the TI TLC5940NT LED driver chip that has 16 channels with 12-bit PWM, and is quite popular with Arduino. Here are some resources for anyone interested:
Arduino library
Demystifying the TLC5940 ebook

I started writing the .NET MF driver for this chip with a reference implementation as described in the above ebook. However the pure managed code is too slow to drive chip's clock signals. So the next step is to use the hardware functions.

This chip uses SPI to receive the grayscale values from microcontroler, and moving this to hardware SPI was easy. However this chip also requires a clock signal for PWM outputs. Whats more the new SPI values should be latched preciesly at the end of each PWM cycle, that is every 4096 clock sygnals.

Now the Arduino library uses the hardware timer counter with interrupt to achieve this. Here is the corresponding code to set this (from the "Demystifying the TLC5940" ebook):

// CTC with OCR0A as TOP
TCCR0A = (1 << WGM01);
// clk_io/1024 (From prescaler)
TCCR0B = ((1 << CS02) | (1 << CS00));
// Generate an interrupt every 4096 clock cycles
OCR0A = 3;
// Enable Timer/Counter0 Compare Match A interrupt
TIMSK0 |= (1 << OCIE0A);

Would something similar be possible on Netduino? I admit I got stuck on this so all suggestions how to best convert this to .NET MF would be welcome :-)

This should really be a firmware extension. If you have the knowledge to write the registers correctly then you can extend the firmware.

This is much simpler then the port of the CLR since all it really needs is a managed class for the .NET side with the stubs produced for the native functions.

All the nasty driver work and HAL/PAL work just isn't needed here. That just gets compiled in as a black box. As a reference point, how many people actually know how the c-runtime gets started up when they run a program they wrote in C?

The rest of the firmware just gets treated the same way, as kind of a c-runtime, for most people.

So perhaps what we really need is a simple sample that shows how to do this.

I'm afraid writing a native driver is still way out of my reach. I don't know that much about microcontrollers and was hoping that .NET MF will shield me from this ;-)

Sample showing where to begin with would be great!

PS: all about timers I learned here http://www.avrfreaks...ewtopic&t=50106

I have to agree with CW2 that exposing all registers my lead to unexpected errors. I was also thinking that it will be better to expose the wrapper for the timer/counter function alone. Very similar as we have managed wrappers for PWM and analog ports now. Maybe it should be Microsoft team responsibility to implement this in next release of .NET Micro Framework.

I have added both as product change proposals on community site: http://www.netmf.com...02-a0462ba8340c http://www.netmf.com...4e-7cf309a9f296

I am thinking down the road as far as projects are concerned, but I was wondering if the Netduino can be programmed to transfer data to and from the Netduino running in a standalone mode to a PC. For Example, a button is pressed on the Netduino or an analog value is registered and it sends useable results to a program running on a PC - outside of the Visual.net framework.

Hi Greg,
Please see here for discussion of this topic http://forums.netdui...talking-to-wpf/

I received my frist Netduino that I ordered on August 4 from Proto Advantage and it was shiped next day via Air Mail from Canada. Arrived today so it took 2 weeks to get it to Poland. Thanks god we have European resellers now :-) Small box looks cool and I got the USB cable inside the envelope. Anyone can tell me what was the motivation to use micro USB instead of more common mini USB ? The board itself loosk little empty when you compare it to regular Arduino - I guess if you'd trim all the empty space you could put it on a board half that size (Netduino Nano parhaps?). But overall it looks great. Nice work guys!

On arduino I used these two temperature sensors:
DS18S20 One Wire Digital Temperature Sensor
SHT15 Humidity and Temperature Sensor

Both are very easy to use and produce good results. Last year I've built several wireless units that were measuring temperature, humidity and light level around the house. I put them in the repurposed AirWick Mini automatic refreshners (so I also got a motion sensor as bounus). Here are some photos: http://cid-4c7ec0c21...tal electronics

Anyway, if anyone here is interested I can look into converting the drivers for these sensors to .NET MF.

I for one would definitely be interested!

Chris,
First I want to finish a little tutorial on using shift registers (74HC595) to extend number of outputs of netduino. I'm using 7 segment LEDs as example (this is actually one of basic tutorials for arduino too). I have all code working so hopefully it will be ready this week. Then I can add the temperature sensor so together it could make a digital termometer with LED display.

Elze Kool has published Sensirion SHT11 classes (SHT1x series sensors differ only in precision).

Oh, thats right. I've seen it before but forgot about it. So I will just check how it works with netduino.

Oh, thats right. I've seen it before but forgot about it. So I will just check how it works with netduino.

I tested Elze Kool's SHT11 class and it works great on netduino. It compiled and run without any modifications (besides pin assignments in initialization). So this clearly demonstrates the power of .NET MF code portability (he was using Embedded Master in his demo).

Btw. Elze uses interesting convention to separate input providers from the driver code. I assume he did it in case the sensor would be attached on a different type of bus. For example via an I2C extender chip. I'm curious if you use similar pattern in your code? Are there any other best practices for .NET Micro Framework programming?

Alright so I run a little home server that I can set-up a website in and My radio station so on...
Could I set it up as a 'middle man' [middle computer in this case ] so one Netduino can talk to the other using ethernet shields? I would love to set up a thing where you get a account # and password and it allows you to send info back and forth! FREE of course.

OMG 'Netduino IM' LOL how funny would that be!?!?!

I think what you are talking about is called Machine-to-Machine communication (M2M) http://en.wikipedia....hine-to-Machine

Incidently recently I came across an OS platform that can handle this called Mango M2M http://mango.serotoninsoftware.com/

Slightly different angle would be the notion of Sensor Web. One example would be the OGC Sensor Web Eneblement initiative http://www.opengeosp...echnologies/swe and example implementation is here http://52north.org/S...oxf/index.html. Another popular example is http://www.pachube.com/

I'm interested in these topics myself so please let us know if you make any progress with this.

@segu & @dichotomousgal I'm working on my little tutorial right now, and it should be ready before weekend. I let you know here when it's published. Hope you like it :-)

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.

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.

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 ;-)

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