I’m keen to get started with some GHI hardware and Visual Studio.
First - I studied electronics before embarking on a career in software so I’m no novice to either field, but I do have questions as a newcomer to .Net Micro Framework and Gadgeteer ( I have over a decade of C# development experience including TCP/IP, WPF, Interop, LINQ and so on).
I’m considering getting a FEZ Raptor Mainboard, it seems pretty well stocked with capabilities. I also need to be able to do solid, serious TCP/IP between my desktop and the board, and it seems from studying the site that I need to also order a WiFi RS21 Module (It seems WiFi is not part of the mainboard).
Also the specs don’t (appear) to state what the mainboard’s power requirements are - i.e. voltage and current demands etc.
I’d like to order this stuff very soon - but need to know if there are any concerns I should have beyond what I list above, and I’d love to know about the PSU too.
@ KorporalKernel - the voltage depends upon the power module you use. You the total current requirements depend upon the modules you attach. there is an option in the graphics designer which shows the total current requirements.
What are you going to make? I always advise to get the appropriate parts for the project. You certainly can’t go wrong with the Raptor but it may also be serious overkill if all you want to build is an IoT blinky.
Yes, if you want to connect with WiFi then you probably will want the RS21 module. Of course, if WiFi isn’t absolutely necessary then the ENC28 is a much cheaper option if you don’t mind a cable.
Every Gadgeteer mainboard requires a power module. I recommend the USB Client DP module as your first since it allows for a much larger range of power supplies. By default, I go with a 9V 2A wall wart. Note that if you’re going to be using the RS21 you really can’t depend on USB power. You’ll need external power, also.
I just ordered the Raptor, a power module, WiFi with antenna and the color display panel.
Ultimately I’d like to be able to build a pretty functional robot device which relies on a base station (a desktop PC) as the primary processing center for computationally intensive work. I developed a very high performance TCP/IP messaging API too which is wholly async and was used to build very responsive data servers in the securities industry, I’m keen to see if I can port the client side of this to the Raptor, the serialization algorithms in this system are around ten times faster than protocol buffers.
I built simple robots back in the early 80s and had some of that published in UK electronics magazines, back then it was almost unimaginable that we’d have the power we to today in microprocessors, operating systems and programming languages.
Personally my opinion is that too build a non-trivial robot machine requires a base station where large and sophisticated systems can run, with the vehicle being managed remotely via wireless. hence my interest in the WiFi card.
I wrote a little about GHI and robots on my blog, but I’ve been too busy the past year to spend much time on that blog - if you care to peruse the blog you’ll see mention of “Shakey” a fascinating robot that was able to achieve set goals by seeing if a plan could be created that worked back from the goal to the start, and then executing the plan once it had done that, we don’t hear much about this kind of research these days.
The immense power of modern desktop PCs with incredible languages (e.g F#) is far beyond what was possible back in those days, so I’m interested in seeing what can be done today.
@ KorporalKernel - when you first mentioned “Shakey” the robot I thought maybe you were referring to this (laughable) robot that was on Hackaday last weekend…
I always advise to get the appropriate parts for the project. You certainly can’t go wrong with the Raptor but it may also be serious overkill if all you want to build is an IoT blinky.
