Ok, I see what you are saying now. I wasn’t familiar with those variants. I found this page on the Intel site that can be used to compare the power usage (TDP) of all the mobile processors: compare.intel.com/pcc/default.aspx?familyID=2
The U2400 looks perfect… dual 65nm cores and 2MB cache with a 9W TDP. That’s sweet. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell the U and L processors are only available inside laptops! I can only find the T processors, which consume way more power. If you know where to buy them separately please share …
I can’t find it anywhere either, but I emailed them about it. I don’t have a brand preference for the board as long as it will work for me.
Yup, in addition to the mini-itx, I plan to run the SSC-32, Sabertooth 2x10 and possibly an ABB as well. It won’t want for functionality. 8)
Yea, I’m lucky as we have a Dell certified repair store here and can special order them, (essentially pretend I have a fried D420 Latitude) again most of my Core Duo work will be with the T (30W) series. Try finding a laptop repair place near you or use eBay (might take awhile before people with L and U series start wanting to upgrade). Note, I did say these guys weren’t cheap. You could always buy a T and start underclocking. The L and U series are the same chip with some multiplier settings hardwired for lower speed use and the chips cherrypicked so that they actually work at those voltages. You can down the wattage a great deal by just adjusting it down in BIOS and using a good heat sink. The Pentium M low voltage chips are a little more accessable if you don’t want to goto the trouble.
As far as the Kontron board, if you can find one, it will be a great board. If you want a Core Duo 2 capable board right away phone or email for the one I picked or try the Cromwell LV-677 logicsupply.com/product_info.php/cPath/78_75/products_id/552. Its pricey, and could be a lot better (I really dislike the miniPCI and CF connector placement), but should be an okay board if you’re not adding a lot of peripherals.
I like the real PCI slot as well as a PCIe 2x. The 3 Gigabit ports are not needed, but shouldn’t be a problem. It only has 2 RS-232s, but you shouldn’t really need more than that anyway plus there’s always USB to RS-232.
My only major concern is the single RAM slot, you may actually need to go bigger. Also seeing an integrated 6W amplifier on the list of components seems a tad odd and might seem like a power hog if it can’t be turned off, or simple doesn’t use power when there are no speakers connected.
The lack of a floppy connector or secondary IDE might be an issue (does your DOM get along with an IDE cable?), though suitable SATA adaptors do exist if you don’t have an SATA CD drive. This is why I found the lack of them on my boards okay, I have SATA CDs and I got a few adapters so I could use all my older drives (hard drives, zip, etc.). Floppy is a bigger issue since this is how BIOS updates and recovery work. Since this board has an Intel chipset it might support their newer minimal USB mass storage driver recovery method (since BIOSes were getting to big to fit on a floppy anyway). Again, this is really minor. You can always use a PLCC32 to DIP adaptor and flash the BIOS with a normal EEPROM programmer. This is why I always make sure my boards have removable BIOSes.
I’d say if you weren’t planning on 4Gb or more RAM, go for it.
I’m giving up on the idea of running an Intel processor, but it was a good road to explore. The stuff that is available is too power hungry, and to do it right would break my initial budget anyway.
It’s just a nice and simple little low-power dead-silent linux server that fits on a single board. The fanless C7 averages 1W, 0.1W idle and 9W max. That meets my low power requirements, and it is well under budget. It will take me a while to outgrow this board, and by that time the Intel Core Duo ULV stuff should be attainable/affordable.
On the sofware side, this is all I’m running:
Debian GNU/Linux 3.1
Bash
Sun JDK 1.5
MySQL
My only remaining question is about the battery. Any recommendations? I was thinking a 4S lithium pack would work well since I’m getting the wide input PSU.
Let me know if you see any issues with this configuration. As always your comments are welcome!
My initial reaction is “Why on earth are you using a PCI WiFi card!” In a bot form factor is key. I’d much rather use a small USB one, especially since the board you have decided on has USB2.0. The network bottleneck is going to be around 7MB/s in a best case scenario, so going PCI has no advantage. I haven’t had much experience with WiFi under Linux (surprisingly) but I know there are more than enough USB devices that work that you should be able to chose one. This is also one area where I think the extra $20 to get a USB card is money well spent.
As far as battery, the PicoPSU can both lower and boost convert (at least the 6-24V versions) so going with a LiPo will work in theory. I was going to do a combined power system, something like a 12000mAh 7.2V LiPo with 10C packs. I figured a real max load would be around 4A for my servos, 4A for my processor. Hopefully the stuff won’t be at max all the time (i.e. robot is just standing) so I’d get at least 2 hours out of that. You might want to talk to evolution about getting a pack, he’s the expert here with batteries and might let you have a good deal on a pack since he makes his own.
I have used the LinkSys WiFi PCI cards with Linux. They work quite well. There is also a linux-wlan project that supports various cards that may not be supported natively in the Linux kernel yet.
On my ROV I am actually using one of the USB WLAN adapters. It seems to work ok sitting still in the basement but I only get about 35-40% signal from my router. The thing I question is the lack of an “external” antenna. Maybe there are some that have a jack though, I don’t know, but “not” having an external antenna means I don’t have the option to put a higher gain one on it like I could with my WiPort. So if range becomes a problem I may wind up going to a PCI wireless card like asv has selected.
I chose that card because, as linuxguy stated, it will work with linux without much hassle. Also, as EddieB said, it should get a pretty strong signal. And it’s not really that huge if you take off the case mounting hardware, but I could see replacing it with something smaller later… it’s only a $20 card.
I’m pretty well versed on battery tech … I just don’t know anything about powering a PSU from batteries. Sounds like lithium will work though, but I’ve not decided between Li-Ion or Li-Po for the big pack yet.
something to consider is if you go with a smart pack like a dr201 or dr202 then you can hook the smbus connections from the motherboard to it and use it’s battery management functions. plus a smart pack will protect itself from over charge/discharge vs. dealing with a homebrew lipo pack.
