I’m relatively new to this topic but find it a great Idea!
I would like to try some things out and do have some questions regarding compatibility.
For instance, I would like to use the G30 TH Module together with some Gadgeteer Modules, such as Camera, Ethernet J11D, USB Client SP, RFID Reader, LED 7C, LED Strip, Display N18 and Character Display Modules. Not all at the same time though.
Those Gadgeteer Sockets translate into so GPIO / VC / GND pins right? Hence I was wondering if some of the Gadgeteer ports were compatible with the G30 TH GPIO pins, if not all.
Thanks very much for your help and answers!
Best Regards
PLBXS
No magic at work in Gadgeteer. To use Gadgeteer with any MCU it is just a matter of getting the right wires to the right places, meaning SPI to SPI, I2C to I2C, A to A, and GPIO to GPIO (with the correct interrupt support if needed).
TH modules aren’t directly compatible with Gadgeteer. There is also a software layer that has to provide mapping between the Gadgeteer driver and the mainboard - that’s not to say you can’t recreate the drivers in NETMF without the Gadgeteer framework, as other have done it.
Onto your modules. G30 and G80 are memory limited devices and have many less on-board peripherals, so several of the ones you list are not going to be supported. And since they’re also pin-limited, you may find combinations you can’t support as well, but I’m not going to list that. The simplest alternative in my opinion is to use the Fez Medusa 2 as your board instead of the TH. And if you do, you can see what is and isn’t compatible based on what sockets it has.
J11D is not supported; there’s no on-board Ethernet support. You need to use ENC28 module instead.
Camera - graphics based so memory constraints here will be your problem. Plus, the USB camera module only works where USB Host is enabled, so for G30/80 you have to use the Serial Camera option (but, memory, so be careful).
USB Client is unnecessary. It gives you nothing extra, since your TH board has USB Client already populated.
RFID Reader should be fine, it’s a serially connected device
LED 7C is just a multi-IO pin device, it’s fine
LED Strip is just a multi-IO pin device, it’s fine
Display N18 will work, but due to limited memory you may need to work hard at it
Character Display Module is fine.
The USB client module is really just so that you can get the usb client interface on a board that doesn’t have it. If you were using the raw IC then it comes in handy. Also, there is such a thing as a Wiznet ethernet device that the .NETMF framework also supports. It allows you to have up to 8 TCP sockets on resource limited devices such as the G30/80 devices. This is how those devices can run a full web server is necessary.
[And here you have an example of a mere king’s answer.]
