Adding On-Board Prototype Area
- Thread starter Efried
- Start date
Efried
Active Member
rossw said:You mean something like this?
(Current WebAmp board, this one is kitted out for operation as 3 x 4-20mA current loop input, and has a 8-28V DC input that will also operate the WebControl8 board with barely any temperature rise at all)
Great yes, but I would see space on the WC8 itself for a prototyping area.
Efried said:
I doubt it's going to happen. That would require CAI completely re-tooling for a new revision board.
I know there's a new board in the works, I very much doubt a prototyping area on-board is on the radar.
(Just out of interest - what would you plan to put there? All the inputs are on a 16-pin header, so you couldn't readily do any input conditioning, you'd have to cut tracks to connect to them anyway, and it strikes me as a fairly non-useful addition)
Efried said:
But again... what are you going to control the SSR from?
To the TTL outputs? OK, fine... but I'm not sure I'd want high voltage and/or decent current on the WC8 board itself.
It's a somewhat moot point however, I'd be interested to hear CAI's views on it, but I really don't see it as being something more than one or two people would ever want, which makes it pretty hard to justify on a board that's (largely) universal.
While I'm not opposed to having a prototype area, all of my projects so far require a significant
amount of space for unique interface components. I just take it as a given I need to allocated space in
the chassis for a kludge board to load whatever special stuff I need. Plus, being an old fart with poor
depth perception all my stuff uses thru hole rather then surface mount. That would complicate what any
proposed prototype area should look like.
Another consideration is soldering custom components to the WC makes replacement more difficult since
if it fails you need to rebuild your modifications. So far I have never had a WC fail but a keep a
couple on hand just in case.
Personality if CAI was going to layout a new PCB for the WC8 the change I'd really like to see is
replace the linear 5V regulator with a switcher (like the WC32) that is able to accept up to at least
12V without creating much heat.
/tom
amount of space for unique interface components. I just take it as a given I need to allocated space in
the chassis for a kludge board to load whatever special stuff I need. Plus, being an old fart with poor
depth perception all my stuff uses thru hole rather then surface mount. That would complicate what any
proposed prototype area should look like.
Another consideration is soldering custom components to the WC makes replacement more difficult since
if it fails you need to rebuild your modifications. So far I have never had a WC fail but a keep a
couple on hand just in case.
Personality if CAI was going to layout a new PCB for the WC8 the change I'd really like to see is
replace the linear 5V regulator with a switcher (like the WC32) that is able to accept up to at least
12V without creating much heat.
/tom
Tschmidt said:
Yes, that'd be a far more useful improvement, and useful to virtually everyone.
As you will have seen in the photos above, my latest version daughterboard includes just such a device - works from 8V to 28V and barely dissipates any power at all while powering the webcontrol8 board fine.
Machineman
Member
100% yes from me as well on the more efficient and flexible switching supply!! I run my WC8 boards at 12V to be common with other devices and the board is hot and draws 0.210ma sitting idle.
Efried
Active Member
sorry no 230 V, only 12 V. I aggree that exchanging the board is less easy if you populate the prototype area. Seems to me that the purpose of the boards has to be discussed. For prototyping and forgetting about the whole thing, may be the WC is to expensive... For productive work, PLC is a nightmare because it is not self documenting and a couple of functions for easy remote board management is lacking.rossw said:
I think CAI should use a better AD and offer a cheap RESTful board at 25 USD, handing over control to high level programmable boards. The introduction of variable names may save the WC32 against competitors. But I would think that running PHP or javascript or python on the board would be the best solution.
Efried said:
Yes, because (largely) the only one who seems to think that the purpose and the design don't fit, is you...
Pretty much everyone else seems to use the boards as they are with few requests for change. Sure, a few enhancements, but not a complete rebuild.
Efried said:
Not much is. Did you LOOK at the code-manager I linked before? It directly addresses SEVERAL of your "critical complaints"
Efried said:
Perhaps there's a market for you to design, prototype, debug, and release something in that category then? I'm sure we'd all love to see something with a gigabyte of onboard flash, 8 cores, switchmode supply, 10A fet outputs, 22-bit ADC, full php support and embedded apache, perhaps even C++ compiler on board, with at least a 4" square prototyping area for $25 USD or less.... I'll give you your first order for 100 pcs!
Efried
Active Member
rossw said:
Hi Ross,
no I did not check out the code manager, since I had not seen the reference to it. I assume it handles the rollout or duplication of ready to use webcontrols.
In between let's summarize our sucess stories influencing the design of the board (reset, comments, more interfaces, non disclosure of code) and lets hope we get some of the capabilities we see with boards like the PCDuino.
I really don't see a hurdle in offering user defined variable and sensor names and a more high level indendation style, that would improve usability a lot.
Regarding targets, I think the ARM Cortex M7 will allow a lot more than you think and may be the board will be cheaper than a PCDuino if the usability is such that the Raspberry Pi adepts flock to the Webcontrol, becaus serious engineers don't see input variables as file objects, as it is with the RPi ;-)
cheers
Efried said:
It was http://webcontrol.rossw.net/program/?sample-code
My intention, assuming it's considered useful by others, is to allow people to save their code (optionally with a password to access and/or to change it), and let it run as a service. Perhaps to add things like #includes for libraries of code or re-usable blocks, I don't really know where it might go.
The point is that something that does at least PART of what you're requesting is easily achieved, even if the boards themselves don't have the resources to do it natively.
Efried
Active Member
rossw said:
Faboulous, you are a great help. I think we may have some points on the board however without problem using identation.
Especially on the WC32 this is possible without doubt- the syntax we chose allows conversion to WC8 code easily, which you could include in your service offer. May be you will feature your boards on the conversion page ;-)
But my complaints were referring to the rollout of new WCs, using a smart interface writing all the config at once. I know that there could be an existing tool, but had not the chance and would prefer a user interface as you offer.
