Thansk for your thoughts, Greg. The final choice of processor is probably going to be influnced more by software development (and learning curve) that the hardware costs, given that I doubt I'll make even 50 of the finished NDMM (as it will henceforth be known). I can crash about a bit in Python, but the interpretted nature of that language gives me concerns over speed. The boot-time and seemingly easy ability to "trash the SD card" are worries for me in an embedded product. I know nothing of FPGAs, so the learning curve for me could easily be the most "expensive" part (even if it was the neatest solution). Arduinos are everywhare, and I can probably leverage some of my experience with PIC processors (some C, but mostly assembler) in that direction. Dont actually need that much IO, just 3-4 serial channels and a few spare lines for keyboar scanning. What do the group make of TEENSY processors?
Laurence On Saturday, 8 October 2016 20:17:22 UTC+1, gregebert wrote: > > It's a classic tradeoff regarding RasPi vs Arduino vs FPGA. Everyone has > different pain-points for cost, power, boot-time, features, development > effort, etc. > > Maybe Aduino is a better option; I'm going that route for my next clock > project. If you plan your design, you can add various shields for added > features and still run the DMM and nixies (maybe thru I2C ?). My only > dislike regarding Arduino is the I/O is rather slow, and there aren't a lot > of pins. > > An FPGA will give you the fastest boot-time (milliseconds), tons of I/Os, > and probably lowest power-consumption (below 400mW for me), but it involves > the most work (you better be a good Verilog or VHDL coder). I've done 3 > different clock designs with FPGA's, and it was a bit more work developing > the code. However, it's far, FAR better than hardwired logic such as what I > did on my first nixie clock. > > A RasPi will have everything you want, plus more. But it's going to cost a > bit more and use more power. However, it makes code updates very simple > (connect to internet & download), not to mention you can do bizarre things > like logging into your device even if it's at a customer site far, far > away. > > I do have the option of pulling the FPGA or Arduino aside and using > something else such as a RasPi, if I wish, on most of my designs (OK, not > the wristwatch...). > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/978c3d84-9104-42e8-b5f8-801ca9a50704%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
