From Prototype to Product (FEZ Spider)

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Been playing around with the FEZ spider kit (convinced my boss I need it for prototyping an idea :wink: ). While the starter kit is definitely great for prototyping and experimentation it doesn’t really make for a final product. What I would like to find out if anybody has moved from this to a final product. Any comments/problems found etc? Guidelines?

Thanks :slight_smile:

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This is similar to a question I posted a while back.

http://www.tinyclr.com/forum/21/4666/#/1/

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Welcome to the forums, Tom!

This is a question that I’ve gotten a few times at presentations I’ve given on Gadgeteer, and I think the answer is that .NET Gadgeteer is still a pretty young platform, so there hasn’t really been time for best practices to evolve yet.

I expect that as more of us start using it, these practices will be codified, and likely discussed in these very forums, so stick around! :slight_smile:

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I have sort of looked at it this way:

  1. Start with the Spider for prototype and Proof Of Concept. Basically, showing that the technology exists and can be used to accomplish some form of automation. If is fully reusable, inexpensive and can be quickly modified for design or requirements changes.

  2. Move onto something like the Cobra. This gives you a platform to build the new product in a manner much closer to the final deliverable. You will need to more manually configure and attach components, but you also gain full control over exactly what pins are used, how and where power is supplied, complete configuration.

  3. Taking the results from the Cobra, design a board that uses only those parts of the Cobra that you need in a footprint that fits in with your final desired product. You may even still use something like the EMX module as a base of your product attached to your new board, or you may go all the way back to the chip itself and design the entire thing.

At any rate, that is sort of how I see the process of going from something like the Spider to a finished product, but, thats just me. :slight_smile:

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The question for me is how easy is it to move the software over to your “production” hardware. There are some Gadgeteer classes that would be good to use on my final hardware. Since it’s all open source, this is do-able, but how easy is it in practice? Maybe we should have Gadgeteer libraries for Panda, Mini, etc.

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Spider is an EMX board. So, if you go with EMX as your production hardware then it’s real easy :slight_smile: I suspect we will have other solutions in the near future.