I have this halfway-decent motherboard and an AMD cpu sitting around. Supposing I get the power supply ironed out so that I can run it from a 12volt battery, what if I stuck it on my servo-drive robot test platform.
I could plug the computer into the SSC-32. If I stick a wireless network card in it (or plug in a USB one for that matter) then I could Remote Desktop from another machine on my network and control it. How about using the SSC-32 sequencer program to control the drive servos, and any other stuff like pan/tilt?
Am I nuts?
Mike madmaker.com
(still working on the Hobby Bots section of the site)
They make 12 volt and automotive voltage ATX supplys specifically for running the smaller ATX platforms in embedded applications. I have seen a 200W one somewhere so look around. You need to be careful about what you install for extra cards because those can add load very quickly. Most boards intended for the embedded platform market have things like video and ethernet built in, are very careful about power design, and typically only present 1 memory module socket.
One thing I am curious about in a small mobile platform, would there be enough gyroscopic action from a spinning hard disk to make control asymetrical, i.e left turns are easier than right, forward acceleration is quicker than reverse. There probably isn’t enough mass in the platter…
On the mini-itx, you can get the fanless via eden boards for under $150us, which is like a 600MHz C3 or so (I forget.)
My original plan for my robot was to use something like this, as I can use the RAM and chip from one of my old computers, which would help me reduce the cost. I may end up going the Gumstix route, though (to save power, space, and weight.
If you go with an SBC as I linked above, you can power it using something like this , this, this or something from these guys.
Some of the SBC (this one included, if I recall correctly) do not even need 12v. I think they can run off 5v. I would have to re-read the manual to be sure, but it’s definitely something to look into.
Look around on each of the sites I linked above. There are a lot of things you may be able to use, as far as processing power and power conversion go.
I’ve decided to go with a mini itx board. Had I any idea they were so reasonably priced, I’d have started using them for some of the other hobby stuff I’ve been using crappy old PCs for.
Anyway - this may be starting to drift off-topic, so if we need to move this thread, that’s fine. Here’s the question that replaced “Should I do this?” in bouncing around in my head:
Do I
(1.) Connect the on-board PC directly to the SSC32, and then figure out how to hook up any and all sensors, bumper switches, etc to the PC,
Or do I
(2.) Hook the SSC32 and everything else to my ABB and then hook the ABB to the PC?
If I do (2.), am I negating the need for the PC in the first place?
maybe 2 depends on your goal for using the increased processing power? there should be a value in adding the itx board to the platform directly otherwise, well you could have just fed the command wirelessly from a handheld or a desktop system. The PC onboard gives the potential for adding advanced sensor analysis and control or simple vision based processing for avoidance or recognition without the time lag of doing that processing remotely.
I’m in the process of setting up a gumstix connex 400 xm with a netgear wifi card for the same purpose. They are much smaller than mini-itx and easier to power. gumstix.com
I’ve played around with the Rabbit board with ethernet and a router on one of my test rovers. Pretty much the setup that George Mitsuoka wrote about in the first two issues of Robot.
After spending several years as a developer on a big Internet portal, I just can’t get over the fact that that teeny-tiny controller can be a Web server.
Andy, keep me posted on this. This is very interesting. The gum stix look very nice. I have not read much about them, but can you run Windows CE on them? What program language do you use for them?
SN96: I seem to remember stumbling on something in the gumstix wiki that mentioned someone having successfully run windows CE, but I imagine that aside from the assurance that it has worked, one day, to some extent, you’ll probably be mostly on your own there.
What most everyone working with them is doing is running Linux on them. They’ve got an MMU so they can run the full size kernel instead of an embedded variety.
Most of my work with it so far has been learning Linux. The most straigtforward manner to start programming is in C, though there is a package (I’ve not messed with it yet) that is for a JVM if you’d prefer Java. There are also no end to the scripting languages like PERL and RUBY that will happily cross compile to it.
The platform seems incredibly powerful, though I’d warn that it’s not for the faint of heart. Within an hour of having the thing up and running I managed to cause it to fail to boot forcing me to get friendly with the bootloader. Though I’ve now got it up and running with the wireless card mounting filesystems over the network and I’m just getting ready to start talking with the robostix board.
