[BrianBSL]

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

In my quest for an interesting and challenging senior project, I have begun to look into building a small remotely/autonomously operated rc car. The idea is this: run a slave Ethernet controller(connected to rc car's motors, perhaps a sensor or two) and webcam through a wireless router and voila!- poor man's robot controller, only inverse. A computer with wireless takes all the data from the webcam and Ethernet device and sends back instructions.

So you say: Andrew, why not just cruise Ebay and pick up a $20 computer that already has Ethernet capability? Problem is, I then have to build a serial/USB/parallel motor/sensor controller, all just to relay the data back to another computer. Plus, I have to build a larger robot to haul that heavy piece of silicon antiquity around. So weight/size is at a premium.

Bottom line- If I decide to pursue this, I need a small, light, and most of all, cheap, ethernet controller to act as a slave. I've looked at Rabbit, NetBurner, Ethernut, and some others, and the best price I've seen is $150 from Rabbit. Maybe Mini-ITX would work. Any ideas?

Microchip and others make SPI to Ethernet controllers (such as the ENC28J60), which when paired with a microcontroller should suit your needs - and for far less than $150. It will require some engineering work, as you get just the chip, have to add magnetics for the physical interface, and write all the code for it (although I'd imagine some example code is available online).