Puma board for FreeEMS

[jharvey]

I think the next spin is quite a ways along and I can't help but notice the miniUSB is freeing up some room, so why not think about feature creap...

I see several Ethernet to serial converters. Perhaps we can add some via's, such that one of these could be used instead of the FTDI usb to serial converter. Here's a quick list from my very brief search.

802.11 to 232
http://www.netburner.com/products/wireless_options.html
http://www.wiznettechnology.com/Sub_Mod ... 0&pid=1020
http://www.gridconnect.com/wiflygsx.html

eth to 232
http://www.netburner.com/products/seria ... sbl2e.html
http://www.wiznettechnology.com/Sub_Mod ... 0&pid=1023
http://www.elektor.com/magazines/2010/d ... ynkx?tab=2
http://www.gridconnect.com/xport.html

Seems there are several options, are any of these a good choice?

[Fred]

Interesting, I know in the "comms type wars" there were a lot of ETH advocates! :-)

[Fred]

Mine is running an engine now, BTW :-)

[EssEss]

Interesting, I know in the "comms type wars" there were a lot of ETH advocates!

I know I'm converted .. but don't expect much from those things which blindly convert 232 to enet. Once I designed something with enet from the ground up, I was much happier (so far). Great throughput and minimal latency. 100mbs enet to usb adapters are going for about 20$ish usd.

Much easier to code for than (raw)USB which happens to be implemented in a million different ways on various platforms. With enet, its (typically) just a single bsd socket like abstraction no matter the platform.

[jharvey]

Hey, where's the chatter, videos, ect?

[Fred]

Chatter, iRC, Video, SD Card, Need more code for a GOOD video, so will do that shortly and post a couple up for Marcos :-)

[jharvey]

I see the chatter on IRC, I tend to read your posts and Marcos to help filter the content. Keep it up and we'll be eager to see the video's when you get to post them.

[Fred]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5gZYipJD9k

It's running like a dog for software and engine hardware and tuning reasons, the Puma is performing great as far as I can tell at this point. Needs more tuning time, more logging and more analysis.

Fred.

[KW1252]

Just found out the Mini-USB has been deprecated and Micro-USB should be used in all new designs from 2007 on. Here's the link to the announcement:

http://www.usb.org/developers/Deprecati ... 052507.pdf

It does state that both Mini and Micro are compliant on non-OTG devices, but Micro seems a better option in mechanical viewpoint, offers a smaller footprint and is very likely the common choice in the future.

[jharvey]

Awesome content, thanks for posting.

I'm not crazy about Digikey being a single vendor for a part, but this one appears to be a good choice.

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSea ... -4050-6-ND

It's from FCI part number 10103594-0001LF they offer a model, so I can update the footprint and 3D for KICAD. Any thoughts? If not I can probably get it cranked out tonight.