The tiny g3 routers are worth looking at. They have WiFi, Ethernet and USB,
cost very little and will usually run wrt54g Linux. Can be rather short on
memory though.

On 30 Nov 2016 8:43 p.m., "jimlux" jimlux@earthlink.net wrote:

Raspberry Pi compute module? Maybe even a Pi Zero?

On 30 Nov 2016 21:47, "Adrian Godwin" artgodwin@gmail.com wrote:

The BeagleBone Green is a BeagleBone Black with the HDMI and video chip
removed.

Mouser Part number *Mouser Part #: *713-102010027, $39, In stock.

Makes a great little headless server.

--- Graham

==

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 3:51 PM, Clint Jay cjaysharp@gmail.com wrote:

Fits very nicely into a 5370 in fact. :)

On Wed, 30 Nov 2016 12:42:51 -0800
jimlux jimlux@earthlink.net wrote:

If you can acommodate SO-DIMM connectors, then I probably would go for
modules by Toradex[1] or aries[2]. I know that both companies do a good
job of getting complete support for their SoCs and the modules upstream
(very important if you want it to just work) and I also know people I can
kick if something doesn't. A friend also pointed me at [3], but I don't
know how good they are.

Generally speaking, if you google for "ARM SOM" you will get lots of
results, some of them specially made for industrial environments.
The connectors vary a lot and are too often high density connectors.
Though usually not going below 1mm pitch. SO-DIMM has kind of become
a standard formfactor for a lot of those modules (but all with
different pin-outs!). Outside the ARM sphere, there is very little else.
MIPS processors are mostly networking and video coding SoC's, so probably
overpowered for your application. There are the Intel based Minnowboards,
but they are bascially full fledged PCs with low power consumption.
(I have a Minnow Turbot here, I really like it, tiny as it is, but it's
a heavy handed beast compared to the ARM boards)

HTH

		Attila Kinali

[1] https://www.toradex.com/
[2] http://www.aries-embedded.de/
[3] http://www.variscite.com/products/system-on-module-som/cortex-a8/var-som-am33-cpu-ti-am335x-am3354-am3352

--
Malek's Law:
Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.

Hi

There are a nearly infinite number of ARM based modules and boards. They all are very much
a “same / same” sort of thing. They are far more alike than they are different. That’s not to say
that they are interchangeable, far from it. The issue for low volume is often more the toolchain
(and it’s cost(s)) rather than the hardware.

Bob

There do seem to be a lot of small SBCs out there.  I have used boards from
Technologic Systems, http://www.embeddedarm.com
and EMAC, Inc, http://www.emacinc.com

They have numerous models for you to look though.  Some various features:

• SBC or SoM/CoM on baseboard
• Various form factors including PC/104
• Usually with RS-232, USB, GPIO, Ethernet.
• Many without video.
• ARM processor
• Many with industrial temperature range
• Linux and development environment provided (may not be latest)
• Lower power then BBB.  One model runs at 0.5 watts.  Many around 1.

Prices generally 2 or 3 x BBB prices.

Gary
On 11/30/2016 03:42 PM, jimlux wrote:

If you are going to go battery powered, I would also recommend staying away
from Linux, go with something like a 32 bit PIC32MX or PIC32MZ.  Full
Ethernet stack, RTOS if you need it, can do deep sleep down into the
microamp range when not active.

--- Graham.

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 8:35 PM, Gary Chatters gcarlistaa@garychatters.com
wrote:

Having a full blown os is nice when all the processor is responsible for is
house keeping and storage. You also get plenty of RAM for buffering prior
to writing to persistent storage, like an SD card. That said I have found
SD cards to be fusy, at least the microchip FAT libraries. And write cycle
times are random sometimes being 0.5 seconds, which means you need to be
able to allocate memory the equivalent of a few seconds worth of data for
buffering (not an issue on linux systems).

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 10:05 PM, Graham / KE9H ke9h.graham@gmail.com
wrote:

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 12:42 PM, jimlux jimlux@earthlink.net wrote:

Does it really need to run Linux?  If you can give up Linux then there are
MANY ARM Cortex M SBCs that are tiny and run on literally micro amps and
sell for under $5.  You can run a very small-footprint RTOS on the Cortex
M that can do "hard" real-time as well is some multitasking and even
network.

If you really need Linux and it needs to be small and low cost and low
power, then look at the "Pi Zero".  It is a very small Pi that sells for
only $5.  It has video but just don't plug in the cable.

--

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

On 11/30/16 11:08 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:

Yes.. Theres a bunch of software to run on it that already exists, and
needs Linux.

The Pizero and Pi A are about the same power: 400 mW with Wifi off, idle;

I'm measuring 0.350A with max cpu usage on all cores and the following
settings:

power off the display
/opt/vc/bin/tvservice -o

switch off the ethernet blinkenlights
llctl f0 l0 d0

Apart from that I read somewhere that the beaglebones have terrible EM
characteristics. But I can't find my source so take it with a grain of
salt :-)

Folkert van Heusden

--

Phone: +31-6-41278122, PGP-key: 1F28D8AE, www.vanheusden.com

Check out the Beaglbone Green, it has the HDMI chip removed,
The HDMI Chip on the black i can confirm causes gps antenna issues with the small patch antennas on the PCB, yet having the antenna on a patch lead works fine

Ive made a GPS cape for these using a Ubox Max Series GPS photos of this are on Hewball.com.au

Cheers Hewball

On 12/2/16 5:31 AM, folkert wrote:

@ 5V, right, so 1.75W going full out.  That's a useful number to know.

Could be. In this application, it will be in a box, periodically
grinding numbers (ADC samples) supplied to it then storing them, so
EMI/EMC isn't a huge issue.

I must say, there are more of these things available in almost too wide
a variety.. You could spend days going through all the datasheets and
websites - I suspect that they ALL have about the same power consumption
for a given amount of processing horsepower - same feature size on the
die, after all - so it's more about peripherals and ease of use

I started looking at RPi and BBB because there are a LOT of them out
there, they're cheap, so there's lots of practical experience (not
always useful -  one needs to spend days going through blogs, forums,
websites)

And, it's more likely that idiosyncracies in the distros have been
identified and it's more likely that the software will run on them after
its built.

On Fri, 2 Dec 2016 08:05:17 -0800
jimlux jimlux@earthlink.net wrote:

I once did an board with an i.m233 (arm9 at 400MHz) and it did less
than 0.5W IIRC. But I think this is about the lower you can do without
tweaking the OS.

Yes. The BBB is badly designed in this regard... The RPI is better there.

There are way too many, IMHO. And a lot of them are not usefull for
a lot of stuff or have very bad support. The Odroid are a prime example
of this. There is a "community" around them, yet getting them to do
anything usefull is a major pain. There is a handfull of companies
I know of, who do provide good support and those are the ones I am
usually sticking to (unless I have special needs).

It's actually better to go with a company who is invested in giving
you a working board than using something popular. Especially one that
cares to push all its patches upstream.

Beside the mentioned Toradex, and Aries Embedded, there is also Olimex
which is known for it's wide variety of boards with good support.
Depending on your exact requirements, I would probably go for one of
the i.mx233 boards (the imx233 nano is quite neat) or A10 or A33 board.
Especially the i.mx233 is nice as it has an on-chip Li-poly charger/controller.
All you need to do is to supply it with 5V and it does the rest.

A note of warning: a lot of the boards from Olimex have not enough ground
pins for the high speed singals they provide. If you are transfering data
with high-speed (several 10MHz) over the headerpin connectors, you will need
to add some additional ground connections.

What are the exact requirements you have? How much computational power
do you need? How do you interface the sensors? How many boards will
you need? Is it out of question to build your own processor board using
one of the ARM9's in QFP? What is your budget?

The reason why I'm asking the last two questions is, it is often more efficient
to do your own CPU board if you have to design a PCB anyways for the sensors,
need more than 10-20 boards and you can live with one of the "small" ARM9's
that come in QFP packages (like the i.mx233 or AM1705).

		Attila Kinali

--
It is upon moral qualities that a society is ultimately founded. All
the prosperity and technological sophistication in the world is of no
use without that foundation.
-- Miss Matheson, The Diamond Age, Neil Stephenson

On 12/2/16 8:51 AM, Attila Kinali wrote:

We're processing several thousand samples, received over a serial port
or USB in a few seconds.  The algorithm (in Matlab, hence the need for
Linux) grinds for around 30 seconds to produce the output.

we're not sensitive on the "board cost" - labor to design a board is
expensive, so a board that has low power, and the right connectors, so
it's <1 day to make cables, etc. is a better deal than several weeks to
design a board and spin it, etc.

That would come later, and be "someone else's problem" - We do the proof
of concept, "demonstrate that it works in a relevant environment", and
then it goes from there.

As much as it pains me to recommend them some of the iot modules sound like
a good fit, like the Intel atom one.

On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 12:13 PM jimlux jimlux@earthlink.net wrote:

On 12/2/16 10:08 AM, David J Taylor wrote:

yes, but

"Note that you cannot install MATLAB as a standalone application or
execute MATLAB code locally on a Raspberry Pi. To develop applications
for the Raspberry Pi to be used in standalone operation, please see the
Raspberry Pi Support from Simulink®."

and of course, we're not using Simulink