bbsux, my current setup is a simple one running an timer based light, and garage door opener. I did purchased LM2902 because one of the posting mentioned about it. I run a 16 pin header with ribbon cable to a prototype board. It is nicer to make a board like you suggested. One thing I wanted to do is to measure A/C current by measuring the voltage drop on a piece of copper wire, similar like Kill-A-Watt box do. In that way, I can measure the power usage for different circuits in the house. However, doing that the LM2902 will be running on hot wire, unless I measure the ground return voltage drop.
suggestions for enhancements to webcontrol (not 32)
- Thread starter bbsux
- Start date
CAI_Support
Senior Member
Not all the pins support analog functions. But we do appreciate your inputs. It will help us to make decision on future development.
I'd be happy to drop X10 and several other less useful things, even reduce the code space ... if it would give us OTW updates!
For that matter, if it were possible to completely sacrifice ALL running code in order to be able to remotely update would not be an unreasonable ask.
For those of us who live on the other side of the world, and for whom the cost of returning boards to you for upgrade is MORE THAN THE COST OF THE BOARD, this is the biggest single downside of your product. You have shipped so many versions of the code with critical flaws, yet the cost to us to have the problems "fixed" is honestly, more than the boards cost!
Rossw, no offense, but I am using the X10 feature and don't want to see that going away. I have timer turn on X10 outlet through PLC logic. Maybe you can propose some other feature to get rid of. I have one older gen board running older PLC code for about two years fine. I also have a newer gen board. I want to see if I can get operation amplifier to work down to 20mv level on my new board.
CAI_Support
Senior Member
J3 is a programmer header, but J7 is not. Unless you like to write your own code, it is not recommend to program it.
bbsux
Active Member
I was just wondering so if you decided to let people do their own updates if that was how they would do it. Is j3 like a that or something? Or do firmware updates get uploaded some other way?
so j7 must be those extra pins you spoke of? I started wondering when I saw they went right to the processor.
so j7 must be those extra pins you spoke of? I started wondering when I saw they went right to the processor.
bbsux
Active Member
exactly how accurate is timing on the webcontrol8 without a real time clock added? (as far as when you load it up with things to do and plus polling 1 wire, and timing in plc coding)
is it actually a big concern? Like if my instruction is supposed to measure a input for a number of seconds - do I need to worry about the timing being off?
is it actually a big concern? Like if my instruction is supposed to measure a input for a number of seconds - do I need to worry about the timing being off?
CAI_Support
Senior Member
In the very early days, there were couple people asked us for firmware and said they can make boards cheaper than us, if we can provide them the firmware, they will use that to mass produce WebControl and sell them. Well, that was not exactly what we wanted.
CAI_Support
Senior Member
Realtime clock chip on the 1-wire bus provided less than 1 second per day accuracy. In our test, it actually can be 3 to 4 days drifting for one second. Of course, how good the crystal do you use will also make difference.
bbsux
Active Member
I can understand that, but the time and cost to send a board too you is cost prohibitive.I don't even know if this possible but can you make the firmware like tivo did and require it to check a checksum on the board? And you could encrypt that in the image. Maybe the the flash program could do this and the hardware would run anything else?I hate to suggest locking us out more but if it saves money and hassel of having to send you my board to reprogram...
Absolutely agree. The hardware to do it should be "almost" trivial. The more complexity you put in it to check a board is yours, call home to check the upgrade is valid etc etc, the more hassles you will make for yourself with support (in the long term).
A firmware upgrade path that we can do without having to take the boards out of service for weeks or more and at major cost (postage) would be a *SUBSTANTIAL* selling point for your product.
I have 30 or 40 of your boards in service at the moment, sending them in for upgrade to fix KNOWN BUGS isn't practical - I've just had to code around the limitations. I could buy 30 new boards, program each up and swap out old boards, then send old ones back to you for upgrade - but it is cost prohibitive.
Upgrading in-situ is the only real, workable way. I already offered to sign binding NDA, but you kept finding other excuses not to.
CAI_Support
Senior Member
In WebControl32, the firmware is user upgradable, because it has more space to implement the code. We maybe use subscription method to provide customer firmware that way. On the 8 bit board, it just don't have that much space. The bootloader will have to have TCP/UDP stack in it, that is like take 40% of the code space away. We don't have much space left to work with, if we take out 40% away, neither PLC or BRE can run at all.
CAI_Support
Senior Member
Ross, we had discussed this off line before. WebControl is selling cheaper than some board only products out there. If you don't like the firmware, you can write your own still cost less than others. For keeping our enginering staff, we charge a small fee for firmware update. However, we offerned you with free firmware update and free return shipping before, because you ordered x number of boards. I hope you understand we try our best to help our customers. There are certain things we can not do for our survival. I hope you understand.
