On 15 January 2014 15:08, Toby Corkindale <toby@dryft.net> wrote:
On 15 January 2014 09:59, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
A client is looking for a new embedded system. Their current systems have a 500MHz AMD Geode CPU (which provides a lot more power than they need). A randomly selected system has the following output of "free". So any of the bigger embedded systems (which seem to have 256M+) will do, but the small ones with 32M will be out of the question and even 64M probably won't do.
Beaglebone Black? http://au.element14.com/circuitco/bb-bblk-000/beaglebone-black-cortex-a8-dev... $52 ex gst but you can get discounts for bigger orders.
Has plenty of digital IO ports, built-in Ethernet, a few GB of NAND on-board plus a microSD slot. RAM and CPU should be plenty for your project, by the sound of it. Some of the IO pins can be configured to be serial ports - quite a few serial ports in fact, if you need them.
The Beaglebones have had good manufacturer support for Linux, and stable distributions. (Which is something the cheaper Chinese boards tend to be lacking in)
Looks like the rated temperature for the board is only up to 50°C, but someone has reported having it work fine at 70.. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/beagleboard/p_DK-HE1Ds4
I can't speak for its quality or the stability of its Linux distributions, as I don't actually have it in my hands yet, but I've recently ordered one of these quad-core ARM boards and can let you know eventually. http://radxa.com/features/ I'd still go with the Beaglebone for commercial usage, as you know it'll still be around and supported in the future, whereas the various cheap Chinese boards seem to come and go quickly. I'm curious to hear what else people here can recommend. Toby -- Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer Things fall apart; the center cannot hold Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world