|
Possible Configuration to keep things cheap
Posted by Thomas A. Frank, Engineer on team #121, The Islanders/Rhode Warrior, from Middletown (RI) High School and Naval Undersea Warfare Center.
Posted on 5/23/99 11:11 AM MST
Hello All;
Maybe the way to do this is with a PC104 card stack. That way, FIRST can get
a processor card, a combined A/D and D/A card, and a power supply card, stick them together,
and they have a complete controller.
The only card they need to make is the serial to PWM card, and that would be very cheap,
not to mention highly saleable to the outside world.
All commercial off the shelf, no development time at all, and the hardware is cheap
enough that there's a good chance the manufacturers could be pursuaded to donate the
equipment - especially if the manufacturer gets the rights to the PWM output card.
This way, we get a 386/486 class computer, 16 A/D channels, interrupts, real time clocks,
and all the rest of the goodies we want.
In one off quantities, this would be about a $400-600 setup depending on processor. In
production quantities, it would be cheaper.
That's probably less than the controllers cost now.
Tom Frank
__________________
This message was archived from an earlier forum system. Some information may have been left out. Start new discussion in the current forums, and refer back to these threads when necessary.
|