http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368 A place to share, learn, and grow... en-US Fri, 22 Jan 2016 00:07:50 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://forums.leaflabs.com/search.php http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-10212 Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:02:19 +0000 gbulmer 10212@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>I saw the PCBs for Pete Harrison's STM32F4-based micromouse robot yesterday at MINOS 2012:<br /> <a href="http://www.micromouseonline.com/2012/03/22/decimus-4-begins" rel="nofollow">http://www.micromouseonline.com/2012/03/22/decimus-4-begins</a></p> <p>They looked extremely good. He got them made at Seeedstudio:<br /> <a href="http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/fusion-pcb-service-p-835.html?cPath=185" rel="nofollow">http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/fusion-pcb-service-p-835.html?cPath=185</a></p> <p>He paid extra for the blue solder mask and gold plating.</p> <p>As you can see, that PCB service will do quite complex profiles, including large slots in the board (for the motors).</p> <p>Base price is $9.90 for ten double sided 5cm x 5cm boards. $24.90 for ten 10cm x 10cm is boards. Plus postage, which is $8.10 to the UK.</p> <p>Unusually, Seeed will let you 'panalize', ie. put several sub-boards on each board, but you have to cut it up yourself. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-10078 Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:01:42 +0000 iainism 10078@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>I may be a little late to this given the last post was a month ago and Olimexino was building prototypes before that!</p> <p>However, one thing I'd like to throw into the mix is CAN support.</p> <p>As mentioned above the STMF4* gives lots of nice things such as on-board floating point and a very high processing speed. This makes it a contender for advanced control and techniques, and useful for high-throughput applications.</p> <p>One of the fields that requires high throughput and advanced control is automotive engineering, which also makes widespread use of CAN.</p> <p>Can you guess which industry I work in yet?</p> <p>In any case, I think an argument could be made for at least facilitating access to the CAN peripherals of the MCU (if not actually putting a CAN transceiver on the board). </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-8484 Sat, 03 Mar 2012 10:03:38 +0000 siy 8484@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Agree, row pitch compatible with standard DIL sockets is the best choice (i.e. 0.3", 0.4", 0.5", 0.6", 1.0", depending on number of pins). </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-8483 Sat, 03 Mar 2012 09:41:25 +0000 gbulmer 8483@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>siy - I believe the two sets of pins are put in the opposite way round. I found pictures of an earlier version several years ago, and that is my recollection from those pictures. That isn't a guarantee, but it made sense then.</p> <p>The pins are not cut, and the asymmetric length of the right-angle pins is used to get the pins (roughly) to the same plane on the breadboard by putting the short end of one set into the board, and the long end of the other set of pins into the other board holes.</p> <p>I do like Noah Vawter's "number six" posted by Okie. That might be easier for inexperienced people to make.<br /> Obviously it would be wider, and more bulky than that ebay breakout, but I think 0.6" pitch or less would be fine for most folks.<br /> It could plug straight into a Micromouse 'chassis'. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-8481 Sat, 03 Mar 2012 09:18:25 +0000 siy 8481@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>My initial impression is the same, but this does mean other ends of pins will not be in the same plane (i.e. one row will be longer than other). Of course it is always possible to cut pins a bit. It is possible that plastic holder for other pin header is moved from short end of pins to long one and then long end of pins is soldered into PCB. Probably this will allow avoid need to cut pins. Need to check this... </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-8480 Sat, 03 Mar 2012 08:47:24 +0000 gbulmer 8480@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>siy -</p> <blockquote><p>Sad that pics don't show other side of the board, I'm very curious how other side is soldered. </p></blockquote> <p>Are you asking about attaching the pins that go into the breadboard?</p> <p>AFAIK, there are two sets of right-angle header pins. These are asymmetric. So one side they go in, say, the lower row of holes, and the other, the higher row of holes.</p> <p>I expect to have some Monday, so I should be able to post some pictures. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-8478 Sat, 03 Mar 2012 07:05:04 +0000 siy 8478@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>@gbulmer, very interesting design. Sad that pics don't show other side of the board, I'm very curious how other side is soldered. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-8456 Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:44:31 +0000 gbulmer 8456@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>That 'number six' looks very nice.<br /> There are other ways to make a small breadboard footprint. For example:<br /> <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microchip-64-QFP-2-DIP-Breadboard-PCB-prototyping-board/250958560409" rel="nofollow">http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microchip-64-QFP-2-DIP-Breadboard-PCB-prototyping-board/250958560409</a><br /> <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microchip-80-QFP-2-DIP-Breadboard-PCB-prototyping-board-/260443966844" rel="nofollow">http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microchip-80-QFP-2-DIP-Breadboard-PCB-prototyping-board-/260443966844</a></p> <p>This might make it pretty straightforward to design a compact breadboard-friendly footprint with lots of other connectors and features. Of course, the volume is big, but it could be on a 0.3" pitch.</p> <p>I should have a couple on Monday at our next Micromouse meeting, and one of the folks may have tried it already. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-8451 Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:02:26 +0000 okie 8451@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Every time I'm trying to rethink "the development board", I'm reminded of this board called "number six" designed by Noah Vawter I think around the time that Arduino was created.</p> <p><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42394/numbersix.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42394/numbersix.jpg</a><br /> <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42394/numbersixbb.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42394/numbersixbb.jpg</a></p> <p>I think it was a pretty unique, neat design. The 40-pin connector worked with the standard IDE 0.1" ribbon cables. The 40 pins map one-to-one with the 40 pins on the atmega chip. You could either plug a ribbon cable or a little breadboard adapter that's shown in the second image.<br /> Anyway </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-8429 Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:03:40 +0000 gbulmer 8429@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>MediumKahuna - the smallest STM32F4 package with Ethernet is 100pins, a Maple mini is 48pins, so the board is going to be quite a lot bigger, with many unused pins, or double rows of pins. Could you prototype your needs with an STM32F4Discovery board? </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368&page=2#post-8394 Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:29:59 +0000 MediumKahuna 8394@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>My needs are best suited by an F4 Mini with on board 100Mb Ethernet and no USB. So, I would say a Mini with Ethernet and an Arduino compatible carrier with USB. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368#post-8392 Sun, 26 Feb 2012 03:44:33 +0000 olimexino 8392@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>@jbaker contact me at <a href="mailto:info@olimex.com">info@olimex.com</a>, I'm in Germany next week and will be able to respond when I'm back next Friday </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368#post-8391 Sun, 26 Feb 2012 03:25:04 +0000 jbaker 8391@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Olimexino,</p> <p>I would be interested in one of the prototypes to work on the software library. Let me know where to send mailing info. Also, I assume you have an existing library in version control somewhere? </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368#post-8330 Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:54:54 +0000 siy 8330@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>@bubulindo, take a look at <a href="https://github.com/gbulmer/" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/gbulmer/</a> , but I think such a library is good candidate for the other repo which is discussed in another thread. </p> http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=1368#post-8312 Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:16:48 +0000 bubulindo 8312@http://forums.leaflabs.com/ <p>Some posts ago I made a similar suggestion. Basically, design a new board with the same pinout as the F4 Discovery board so that people could use the Olimex board or a Discovery to use that. I think that idea was dropped, mainly because some of the peripherals should be in the board and not through connectors that may or may not be good. </p> <p>One other thing is price. The Discovery board price follows the gillete model. Losing money on the hardware to make it on the replaceable parts. In this case, in an increase in sales volume on this chip family by ST. If you look at Olimex website, you'll see that a board with all (or part of) that hardware can go to 100$+. </p> <p>I may do something similar to this with a veroboard, but I have low expectations... basically try to get the SDIO interface working (and who knows, adapt it to the sdFAT library) and get a communication channel to the outside so I can get the RTC working. </p> <p>Who's keeping a repository for new F4 software stuff? I've created a driver for the random number generator so if someone could point me to where I should leave it to be included in a next libmaple delivery, I'd appreciate it. </p>