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1. 

   Albrektson
   Member

   ... the same goes for robodude666.

   Posted 4 years ago #
2. 

   Uhrheber
   Member

   In my opinion it would make more sense to just use the next bigger
   ARM micro with Ethernet included instead of messing around with the slow and buggy
   ENC28J60.

   Posted 4 years ago #
3. 

   robodude666
   Member

   Looking at the official Ethernet Shield for the Arduino, I realized it won't easily work with the maple without some modifications.

   The Ethernet shield brings the W5100's SPI communication lines to the Arduino's ISP connector. This connector is located where the Maple's large 2x8 connector is located. In order to make the Ethernet shield work, you'd have to solder jumper wires from the SPI pins on the ISP connector (without the connector being populated) over to digital pins 11/12/13 where the Maple's Hardware SPI 1 is located. It'd probably be easier just to get a breakout board for the W5100 that's not the Ethernet shield. Although, the Ethernet Shield version 1 uses digital pins 11-13 instead of the ISP connector. If you own that shield, it aught to work.

   Ethernet is something I'm interested in working with, but I have no immediate plans for it. I have two or three other libraries I need to write & publish, plus I should be finding a job now that I've graduated. Because of all this, I wouldn't feel comfortable taking money from you and promising results as I wouldn't be able to guarantee them.

   If ethernet is crucial for your project, you may be able to get away with using an Arduino + the Ethernet shield, then communicate between the Arduino and Maple via USART or SPI. It's not ideal, as you'd be bottlenecked by the Arduino's limited flash, ram, and cpu, but it aught to be enough to get started.

   -robodude666

   Posted 4 years ago #
4. 

   perry
   Administrator

   Hi guys,

   I wrote an initial implementation of a driver for the Arduino ethernet shield on the
   Maple a while back. There's a tree available here:

   https://github.com/leaflabs/libmaple/tree/ethernet-shield

   It's probably bit-rotted significantly since I last pushed to it, but it at
   least brought up the shield and a super simple webserver.

   Nobody should expect it to work out of the box, but with some work it will definitely
   get somebody started.

   I do not have time to maintain or extend this driver in the near future. I'm happy
   to help, though.

   -perry

   Posted 4 years ago #
5. 

   Uhrheber
   Member

   BTW:
   ST doesn't have M3's with integrated Ethernet PHY, only MAC, so they need
   an external PHY.
   TI also has M3's with integrated PHY (former Luminary Micro parts).
   On the other hand, TI offers only 10bit ADC resolution and no DAC's.

   Posted 4 years ago #
6. 

   Albrektson
   Member

   Decided to go with the new chipKit Max32 instead. Just waiting for the developers to finish up the library for the ethernet PHY shield (any day now).

   Posted 4 years ago #
7. 

   Uhrheber
   Member

   What a weird idea to use an ethernet shield for a micro (PIC32MX795F512)
   that has an integrated 10/100Mbit Ethernet MAC...

   Posted 4 years ago #
8. 

   dirtycookie
   Member

   Hi there,
   I've been on the search for a while for a cute little embedded board that has USB and Ethernet capability.
   I have found 1 or 2 projects that are interesting but are closed source or are commercially driven.
   One of them is bifferboard: http://bifferos.co.uk/
   A very neat thing but when asking for the schematics cause you would develop a different version, you would get dissapointed.
   Then I stumbled to you guys, live and kicking.
   So I thought I could share to you my findings that I gathered concerning ethernet controllers. There are many out there but the ones I would seem fit for the job are these:
   RTL8019AS 10 MBit Ethernet Chip MAC + PHY
   LAN91C111 10/100 MBit Ethernet Chip MAC + PHY
   DM9000E 10/100 MBit Ethernet Chip MAC + PHY

   I have good EagleCAD experience and would help you in making the eagle libraries and schematics for such a shield.

   I'm glad to help and love to get some feedback.

   Posted 4 years ago #
9. 

   mikep
   Member

   @Albrektson
   Was the Ethernet shield for the chipKitMax already released? It seems it is still delayed from what I can tell and no-one knows when it will be available.

   @dirtycookie
   Just out of interest, why did the ENC28J60 not make the cut in your list? Most of the cheaper Arduino Ethernet shields are based on that chip, there are tons of libraries and code out there for that chip, and it's also 10MBit chip. I had gotten the Maple to work with the ENC28J60. And theoretically it seems not that difficult to adapt the existing Ethernet shields to the Maple hardware-wise (e.g. just bypass the 3.3V regulator on the shield and take out/eliminate the level shifter on the MOSI/CS/CLK lines). Or just use a breakout board like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ENC28J60-Network-Module-Schematic-51-STM32-LPC-AVR-/250839819197
   Now there are some different threads about the voltage regulators on the Maple being able to supply the necessary current (in my case I measured 120mA) to the shield, so it's probably better to have a separate regulator for the ENC28J60 or beef up the Maple regulator.

   Posted 4 years ago #
10. 

    dirtycookie
    Member

    Hi mikep,
    you are right. I didn't mean to cut out the ENC28J60 out of the discussion, my intention was to get a hold onto the idea of having 100Mbit ethernet connection. And breakout boards in general are available everywhere but no 100Mbit and I wanted to design one for the community.
    But sure, I can also make a 10Mbit shield for it too.

    Posted 4 years ago #
11. 

    dreamcat4
    Member

    dirtycookie. The Olimex P107 board comes with integrated ethernet. And they will release an improved F2 series board sometime this autumn. Or you could get an EtherTen from freetronics. Otherwise sure - make your own board design.

    As for the ENC28J60. The reason to avoid using that chip is due to how poor it is to program in software. And also the reason (by comparison) why the Wiznet 5100 chip is preferred. Despite being considerably more expensive.

    Posted 4 years ago #
12. 

    dirtycookie
    Member

    hi,
    That board from EtherTen is a nice one. I was not completely convinced from the normal Arduino boards but this one is really great.
    As for the P107 from Olimex, it is implressive but I would go for something cute and compact that would fit into something like this:
    http://cgi.ebay.de/310332139980?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.ebay.de%3A80%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp4712.m570.l1313%26_nkw%3D310332139980%26_sacat%3DSee-All-Categories%26_fvi%3D1&_rdc=1

    I don't mind using a wiznet chip as a shield for a maple board.

    Posted 4 years ago #
13. 

    x893
    Member

    Way, large discussion about nothing.

    Posted 4 years ago #
14. 

    mbolivar
    LeafLabs

    x893,

    Are you saying that discussing the pros and cons of different Ethernet controllers (especially regarding developing a shield for them) is somehow off-topic for this thread? That doesn't make much sense.

    Posted 4 years ago #
15. 

    dirtycookie
    Member

    dreamcat4 refered to the P107 from Olimex, and I noticed that even ST does ehternet controllers. That one could also be a, interesting candidate because the stm32 @ the maple board and @ the P107 are similar so designing the shield would make things easier.
    Also from the software development perspective, would be easy. (Don't know if that is the case)

    Posted 4 years ago #

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