All points well made but lets not forget a few benefits for NETMF:
No OS to crash. Need I say more??
GHI’s claim to fame is FEZ (EASY). The reason why we are with GHI and NETMF is the ease at which we can integrate CAN into our projects using their SDK. I’ve seen nothing (and would happily look at any suggestions) in the Win IoT or MONO world that would offer similar capabilities for the same price and w/o a requirement for further development. Care to help GHI, keep FEZ alive??
I would love to have the full .NET framework at my disposal, but at the same time, I don’t exactly need it for this task. If I can process lots of CAN messages to and from engineering units and log, I’m happy. (We do more than that but that story is for another day.) The G120 is barely able to meet this need. Hopefully the G400 will be better suited. Also keep in mind that we are a very small development team working on a very small collection of devices. We don’t have time to do a C++ super driver for the activity. We like NETMF/FEZ because it makes our job easy without more work (dev)!
I’m open to any advice the community has on this matter.
My advice is don’t look at this offering. At this stage, there’s no indication this has anything to do with netmf, nor ever will. Just keep on truckin’ with what you’re doing today.
@ Anyone, Do you suppose that this device could emulate a PCI Express 1 link using those PRUs? If so then couldn’t we connect PCI Wifi Modules to it? Interesting.
@ Gus - Yea, but, I need to budget for next month. So far I’m getting a beaglebone black, this module, some stepper motors and some 608 bearings. I know what everything else costs. I just need to know if I can still afford the steppers?
I hope its not a case of “Shipping Tomorrow”, and everyday you come by the sign still reads “Shipping Tomorrow”. You guys should update the sticker with an actual shipping date. Price would be useful too :whistle:
@ Mr. John Smith - You seem to be very interested in this board. Would you take a minute and spell out the reasons and what you plan on using it for so I can get onboard (so to speak)? I am asking out of ignorance and am interested in your opinion.
The processors that run boards like the Raspberry PI are not designed for Automation; they are designed for computation. This board’s processor is designed for Automation. This is the first and main reason.
This module integrates the processor and external ram into a single package. This makes it harder for my competitors to reverse engineer my software by analyzing the signals between the cpu and the external memory. It was for this reason why I loved the single chip deigns of the STM32F4 class of devices.
The processor on this chip has 2 helper co-processors called Programmable Real Time Units (again because it’s an Automation processor). When life and limb are on the line, you need to have a good level of determinism in your software. This is accomplished by executing that mission critical code on it’s own 200mhz co-processor, that have direct access to the I/Os. This allows for pin toggling to take place in 1 cycle. They also have Direct Memory Access (DMA) to the system memory, so… there is that too.
The board itself is made by GHI, which has a strong tightly knit community behind it. Not like Raspberry PI which is big and spread out. Also, it uses castellated pins (and is flat on the bottom) as opposed to a SODIMM module. My application is subject to vibration. I can’t risk using a system that could end up having intermittent connections
Cost: if he ever posts it. In order to turn the Raspberry PI into a system that would suit my needs, I would have to add stuff to it to make it do so. Depending on what GHI sets the price at, this module could have a lower total cost of ownership.
@ Mr. John Smith - the SoM has ram and flash memories … and it looks sexy :o
Using RPI?! :o
$35 RPI
$20 SD card
$10 for analog and pwm circuit
$5 for couple real time micros
$$$ for making it super small
$$$ for making it work without SD (unlimited benefits)
$$$ for GHI electronics’ amazing support.
Oh yes, and it doesn’t need an SD card. It uses emmc. So it should last longer and be faster than an SD card. Then there is the security aspect. Your code can’t be easily copied off the device. The Ethernet on the RPI is a usb device shared with the rest of the USB devices, vs the Ethernet on this module is a native device.
The RPI also has an onboard usb 5 port hub… and everything required to get it running. Arguably that’s worth about 10 bucks. Total $60 USD. Things are generally worth more than the sum of their parts. The chip on digikey @ 100 units is $41 USD. Assuming there is some profit in there and GHI is getting it straight from Octavo, then I have to assume that GHI is getting the profit that digikey would have gotten. I think GHI is profiting at least $10 USD on the chip alone. You guys do your own board stuffing but you buy the boards from a US supplier. Which means this is not a cheap PCB. It’s prob between 6 and 8 layers. When I gut it I’ll know for sure. Lastly, given the historical costs of GHI’s previous modules:
