Netduino home hardware projects downloads community

Jump to content


The Netduino forums have been replaced by new forums at community.wildernesslabs.co. This site has been preserved for archival purposes only and the ability to make new accounts or posts has been turned off.
Photo

Introducing Netduino Go


  • Please log in to reply
153 replies to this topic

#101 Corey Kosak

Corey Kosak

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 276 posts
  • LocationHoboken, NJ

Posted 27 April 2012 - 01:23 AM

I'm having a hard time finding relevant hits on Google for Go!Bus. Is this a new industry standard or is it a proprietary Secret Labs thing? Are there web pages describing Go!Bus?

#102 Chris Walker

Chris Walker

    Secret Labs Staff

  • Moderators
  • 7767 posts
  • LocationNew York, NY

Posted 27 April 2012 - 02:14 AM

Is it a long discussion that is documented anywhere?

Regarding "S" compatibility... If you design a Gadgeteer module which only uses the GPIO pin and SPI pins (but not the UART pins), you can use one of those Gadgeteer modules on every socket...since they won't share pins other than the standard SPI shared pins (SI, SO, SCK). You won't be able to use them on the same channel as go!bus devices necessarily, but when we say "one Gadgeteer module per go!bus channel" we're underpromising a bit...to make sure users have a consistent experience. You're welcome to push things to the max :)

This sounds to me like you have some kind of addressing scheme and a corresponding discovery mechanism as well as I/O queuing to prevent collisions on shared channels - essentially a small network. Is that right?

Yes, every module has a UUID. The go!bus protocol is based on interrupts and polling, to ensure a lack of collisions. It is like a small network, specifically designed and tuned for electronics.

The STM32F2 and 4 both have an onboard RTC. I hope you're surfacing this.In fact the datasheet I'm looking at says it supports ethernet. But I understand why you'd want to offload this to other hardware.

The RTC isn't surfaced because it requires an external battery...and there are some complications to that. We have a plan to enable RTC...more on that later this year.

With Ethernet, the onboard PHY of the STM32F407 is fantastic...but an integrated PHY puts the full burden of network processing on the mainboard. By using an external PHY/MAC chip on a module, the solution can become even more robust (since the external networking chip can be designed to filter traffic, etc. and minimize the processing required on the mainboard).

Chris

#103 Chris Walker

Chris Walker

    Secret Labs Staff

  • Moderators
  • 7767 posts
  • LocationNew York, NY

Posted 27 April 2012 - 02:16 AM

I'm having a hard time finding relevant hits on Google for Go!Bus. Is this a new industry standard or is it a proprietary Secret Labs thing? Are there web pages describing Go!Bus?

Created by Secret Labs with help from the core community tech team and input from the community. We're opening it all up as an open source protocol. The electrical, mechanical and enumeration specs for go!bus 1.0 are already set, and we'll be refining the current draft spec over the coming weeks. We'll make sure we get it all up on the Wiki.

Chris

#104 Arbiter

Arbiter

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 132 posts
  • LocationBrisbane, Australia

Posted 27 April 2012 - 12:01 PM

Yse, every module has a UUID. The go!bus protocol is based on interrupts and polling, to ensure a lack of collisions. It is like a small network, specifically designed and tuned for electronics.


I hope you and the guys at Nwazet put together a practical guide to DIY add-on boards.

The RTC isn't surfaced because it requires an external battery...and there are some complications to that. We have a plan to enable RTC...more on that later this year.


Good. I'll wait for that then. In case you were wondering, the reason I want an RTC when I have a GPS is to identify and reject the rubbish dates you sometimes get while the GPS system is acquiring first lock. I don't need it to be terribly precise - for my purposes even 1% drift would be acceptable - but boy oh boy does it simplify things if I can sanity-check values before logging them.

With Ethernet, the onboard PHY of the STM32F407 is fantastic...but an integrated PHY puts the full burden of network processing on the mainboard. By using an external PHY/MAC chip on a module, the solution can become even more robust (since the external networking chip can be designed to filter traffic, etc. and minimize the processing required on the mainboard).


Yes, that was pretty much my thought when I said I could see why you might not use it. I still remember being shocked by the load cheap NICs put on PCs in the nineties. In the single core systems of the time, trying to read a file off an IDE disk (also CPU intensive) across the network was a performance disaster.

Nevertheless, you could have marketed onboard ethernet as convenient for low performance prototyping, and recommended a separate NIC for high performance. One of the biggest attractions of the N+ is the fact that you don't have to fiddle about or spend extra to get mass storage and comms going. I can't think of a non-trivial application that doesn't use both of those.
One day, all this too shall parse.

#105 emg

emg

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 129 posts

Posted 27 April 2012 - 01:20 PM

One of the biggest attractions of the N+ is the fact that you don't have to fiddle about or spend extra to get mass storage and comms going. I can't think of a non-trivial application that doesn't use both of those.

Yes, this exactly. Or even a dedicated non-volatile 4k of storage for small files or config.

#106 LenR

LenR

    New Member

  • Members
  • Pip
  • 8 posts

Posted 03 May 2012 - 12:33 AM

I have a Panda II and a mess of modules, how much effort would it be to use a Panda II Shield with your Shield Base? Len

#107 Chris Walker

Chris Walker

    Secret Labs Staff

  • Moderators
  • 7767 posts
  • LocationNew York, NY

Posted 03 May 2012 - 06:33 AM

Hi LenR,

I have a Panda II and a mess of modules, how much effort would it be to use a Panda II Shield with your Shield Base?

Possible, but I'm not sure how compatible it would be. Those boards sometimes have unique pinouts which sometimes make them non-Arduino shields.

If you can give me a link to what you're trying to accomplish, we can help dig into it for you.

Chris
  • Arron Chapman likes this

#108 LenR

LenR

    New Member

  • Members
  • Pip
  • 8 posts

Posted 03 May 2012 - 09:01 AM

Hi LenR,

Possible, but I'm not sure how compatible it would be. Those boards sometimes have unique pinouts which sometimes make them non-Arduino shields.

If you can give me a link to what you're trying to accomplish, we can help dig into it for you.

Chris


http://www.ghielectr...log/product/261

Here is a link to the shield. It looks like a standard pinout. I would be interested in picking up as much functionality as possible, I just want to know how much would be involved to determine if it is worth the effort. I would imagine the analog and digital pins would be straightforward, maybe not the Ethernet and battery backup for the real time clock - which could be not compatable all by itself.

I received the GO starter kit and your boards are little jewels.

#109 Chris Walker

Chris Walker

    Secret Labs Staff

  • Moderators
  • 7767 posts
  • LocationNew York, NY

Posted 03 May 2012 - 10:12 AM

Hi LenR,

Here is a link to the shield. It looks like a standard pinout. I would be interested in picking up as much functionality as possible, I just want to know how much would be involved to determine if it is worth the effort.

The Ethernet is a Wiznet chip, so you can probably use the experimental Wiznet networking drivers...although since the Netduino Plus has integrated Ethernet I'm not sure if that's so desirable... The analog/digital connectors should be really close.

I received the GO starter kit and your boards are little jewels.

Glad you like them, thanks for the feedback!

Chris

#110 LenR

LenR

    New Member

  • Members
  • Pip
  • 8 posts

Posted 03 May 2012 - 02:46 PM

Hi LenR,

The Ethernet is a Wiznet chip, so you can probably use the experimental Wiznet networking drivers...although since the Netduino Plus has integrated Ethernet I'm not sure if that's so desirable... The analog/digital connectors should be really close.


Glad you like them, thanks for the feedback!

Chris


I plugged in the FEZ Panda II shield with a temperature sensor and light sensor and the code is reading them fine. At least it gives me some sensors to play with.

The big cap served as a battery backup for the RTC, I don't imagine it does anything for the Shield Base?

#111 Chris Walker

Chris Walker

    Secret Labs Staff

  • Moderators
  • 7767 posts
  • LocationNew York, NY

Posted 03 May 2012 - 02:53 PM

The big cap served as a battery backup for the RTC, I don't imagine it does anything for the Shield Base?

No, that pin is traditionally the "AREF" pin on Arduino-style boards. The Shield Base has an internal AREF, so that pin is disconnected and that cap won't do anything (if indeed it is attached to the AREF pin, as I believe it is).

Chris

#112 Paul Csiki

Paul Csiki

    New Member

  • Members
  • Pip
  • 8 posts
  • LocationDublin, Ireland

Posted 09 May 2012 - 03:47 PM

Will it perform better with networking module? I am currently having a lot of OutOfMemory exceptions with Plus and I am looking for alternatives. Compared to Plus while using networking how better will perform Go?

#113 Chris Walker

Chris Walker

    Secret Labs Staff

  • Moderators
  • 7767 posts
  • LocationNew York, NY

Posted 09 May 2012 - 03:52 PM

Hi Paul,

Will it perform better with networking module? I am currently having a lot of OutOfMemory exceptions with Plus and I am looking for alternatives. Compared to Plus while using networking how better will perform Go?

Netduino Go has twice the available RAM for your application, and it has six times the flash, so you should see some nice improvements.

Initial testing with networking has gone very well.

Chris

#114 dannykyle

dannykyle

    New Member

  • Members
  • Pip
  • 4 posts

Posted 12 May 2012 - 03:40 PM

hello. and thank you for designing what appears to be the best device currently available. i have just purchased the netduinogo from nwazet. there will be a very steep learning curve for me, but your design will help quite a bit with the aspects of my project which i have no desire to learn (electronic engineering drives me insane). i am wondering if the upgraded "128KB-flash MCU to a full-blown 512KB-flash 120MHz Cortex-M3 microcontroller", as per the OP, is still shipping? i need all the processing power i can get. thanks again, danny

#115 Chris Walker

Chris Walker

    Secret Labs Staff

  • Moderators
  • 7767 posts
  • LocationNew York, NY

Posted 12 May 2012 - 07:11 PM

Hi danny,

i am wondering if the upgraded "128KB-flash MCU to a full-blown 512KB-flash 120MHz Cortex-M3 microcontroller", as per the OP, is still shipping? i need all the processing power i can get.

Yes. We will continue populating the Shield Bases with the nicer chip for a while--probably through the summer. We actually just got more of these chips for the next batch.

Chris

#116 Eric Falsken

Eric Falsken

    Member

  • Members
  • PipPip
  • 25 posts
  • LocationSan Francisco, CA, USA

Posted 03 July 2012 - 04:08 AM

OMG awesome! Where can I buy a set with all the current modules? I like what I see in the picture, and especially want the upgraded board and touchscreen!

#117 Stefan

Stefan

    Moderator

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 1965 posts
  • LocationBreda, the Netherlands

Posted 03 July 2012 - 06:22 AM

OMG awesome! Where can I buy a set with all the current modules? I like what I see in the picture, and especially want the upgraded board and touchscreen!

I would say:
http://www.nwazet.com/products
Besides that, a few other modules are currently in development. See also: http://wiki.netduino...GO-Modules.ashx
"Fact that I'm a moderator doesn't make me an expert in things." Stefan, the eternal newb!
My .NETMF projects: .NETMF Toolbox / Gadgeteer Light / Some PCB designs

#118 Arbiter

Arbiter

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 132 posts
  • LocationBrisbane, Australia

Posted 03 July 2012 - 01:25 PM

How goes the ethernet module?
One day, all this too shall parse.

#119 Tombo

Tombo

    New Member

  • Members
  • Pip
  • 5 posts
  • LocationWisconsin

Posted 08 August 2012 - 02:22 PM

How goes the ethernet module?


Yes I would like to order the ethernet module also. Will it be available in August?

Is the Chris Walker on these forums the same guy who started ControlThink. I played with that for a couple years (Zwave)

#120 Chris Walker

Chris Walker

    Secret Labs Staff

  • Moderators
  • 7767 posts
  • LocationNew York, NY

Posted 08 August 2012 - 02:48 PM

Hi Tombo,

Yes I would like to order the ethernet module also. Will it be available in August?

It should go into production this month. Production takes a few weeks, but it should be shipping very very soon. We already hand-built the first samples and are testing them now.

Is the Chris Walker on these forums the same guy who started ControlThink. I played with that for a couple years (Zwave)

Quite possibly :) Hello again Tombo!

Welcome to the Netduino Community,

Chris




0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

home    hardware    projects    downloads    community    where to buy    contact Copyright © 2016 Wilderness Labs Inc.  |  Legal   |   CC BY-SA
This webpage is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.