For those interested, here is a update on the controller I am working on.

http://www.nzreefs.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=37#37

It has changed a lot since the beginning of the year. But i've finally settled on what components I will use.

Layton

Boards have arrived, got a photo up:

http://www.nzreefs.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=15

Layton

Want another beta tester?

What i'll probably end up doing is putting together a couple of complete systems, and send them round NZ, and people can try/test it.

Layton

Let's see...2500 pins to solder, let's say 2 pins per minute on average that's 1250 minutes. Call that 21 hours including breaks...$30/hr for labor, you going to charge $630+ for them? hehe.

Let's see...2500 pins to solder, let's say 2 pins per minute on average that's 1250 minutes. Call that 21 hours including breaks...$30/hr for labor, you going to charge $630+ for them? hehe.

Sorry Ira, i wouldn't get out of bed for less than double that hourly rate.

Prototypes are expensive. The boards themselves cost $800 (for min 4) so that pic is a $200 piece of laminated fibreglass and copper, then there are the components on top of that. A single protoype with all the other components will probably cost me a couple thousand, in raw materials.

But once the proto is finished and working. I can send them to some chinese sweat shop and have them manufactured for next to nothing. :lol:

Layton

$30/hr? Hahaaa, that would almost be an insult! :lol:

yes an insult

You wouln't get out of bed for less than $60hr? Damn I am in the wrong business. I would kill people for $60hr.

$30 is an insult?

Damn any of you guys got any work going?

Pie

Consultancy Pies. If I wasn't at Uni, i'd be charging $90/hr +, and still be one of the least expensive in town.

Layton

Shit guys are in the wrong game, pet shops make $100 hr

hahaaaa, funny coz it's (probably) true :lol:

I dunno if i'd kill people for $60 an hour, but I'd definitely hit them with a makeshift blunt object for $60 an hour.

It looks like you're pretty much building a computer. Why didn't you just buy a small form factor PC and build a simple I/O module?

Several reasons.

1 Size. This will be much smaller than even the smallest form factor PC

2. Cost - By the time you design the IO required and interface it to a PC, you might as well put you're own cpu in their.

3. Power - this will consume about 3 watts. PC you are talking orders of magnitude more power.

4. It will hopefully form the basis of an entirely separate commercial product.

5. I had to think of an idea for my final project for university.

Layton

Another update http://www.nzreefs.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=56#56

Layton

Looks good, cant wait for the full version,

Could be a good seller in the states if the price is competitive.

Why not use a handheld device like a PDA or similar? Certainly would look swanky and they have nice screens these days and are cheap as chips.

Pie

Cost, and specialised hardware.

If you use something like a palm, you still have to design additional interface hardware like analogue inputs etc. It's expensive.

I haven't received the LCD yet it's still on backorder. There are many options for this including color PDA type displays. The one I have on order is a small 128 x 64 graphic module with a white backlight.

The board will obviously be packaged in a professional looking case etc, and like i said before, it is also going to form the basis of another commercial product i'm looking at developing. It's still very much a prototype.

Layton

A little bit of progress. SDRAM is working now, and it's successfully running linux 2.4.27 kernel.

Ethernet is not working yet. Need to write a driver for it. I've been able to get version 2.6.12 of the kernel built and running yet. But that is the version i'm hoping to use.

So things are moving a little slower than i was hoping, but still chugging along.

Layton

Major progress.

Got version 2.6.12-rc1 of the linux kernel built, ethernet drivers written, and the board is now live on the internet!

Got to http://lduncan.dyndns.org and the page which loads is being served by the board.

Layton

nice work, when can i test it

when it's finished

Around Christmas I should hopefully have a couple of fully assembled units.

Next week... a live video feed from ChCh, all going to plan.

Layton

As promised. A live video feed from ChCh, served by the controller.

It's probably a bit dark, and it's just a cheap webcam so the image isn't that flash. It is better with more light.

The "streaming" is not how it will be done. At the moment it's just a meta refresh ("client pull") which only allows a max frame rate of 1fps. I should be able to get 10 to 15 fps without to much trouble, using a "server push" approach. I just need to get php compiled for this to work.

Resolution is set at 352 x 288, cause my upstream BW is limited.

Here's the link again http://lduncan.dyndns.org

Layton

playground??