Empathy List Archives

time-nuts@lists.febo.com

Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement

Re: timing lab, remote control

Hal Murray

Fri, Jan 12, 2024 12:21 PM

Tom Van Baak said:

So the question is, does anyone make a black box that acts as a transparent
latch or GPIO? I'd like 8 or 16 bits at my bench that when changed turn into
bits in the remote lab. Ideally no setup, no protocol, no commands, no
software, no operating system, no bugs; just two boxes with N pins on each
end and changes are reflected from one to the other over LAN. TTL/CMOS level
is fine. Some latency is ok.

I'm not looking for yet another WiFi, Arduino/LAN, or R-Pi project, but
rather a turn-key solution that just works. I spent a significant amount of
time on the web, thinking this would be a trivial search, but I came up
empty.

Please let is know if/what you end up with.

Don't overlook the approach of just running real wires.

I think your "no setup, no protocol, no commands, no software, no operating
system" is going to be hard to find. If nothing else, you will have to run
wires to/from the devices you want to control and/or monitor.

The other interesting part of setup is assigning IP Addresses or discovering
what the box gets get via DHCP.

If you put a device on the net, somebody is responsible for making sure that
it doesn't generate abusive traffic. That's probably not a problem if your
device is behind a NAT box and doesn't talk to the outside world. But the
world is full of devices with buggy software that get borrowed by bad guys to
send spam or DDoS traffic or steal your passwords or ...

If I was doing something like this, I would start with a pair of Raspberry
Pi-s. That's because I'm familiar with them and know how to keep the OS up to
date and enjoy writing software like this. I can often find something else
for the Pi to do and/or already have a Pi where I could add something like
this.

A Pi has lots of GPIO pins that come out on a 40 pin connector. Most cases
have a slot for the cable. A quick tour on eBay shows various setups for
connecting up to GPIO pins on a Pi. If you find something that looks
wonderful, I'll be glad to write the software for you.

There are also USB to GPIO gizmos. I only glanced at those.

--
These are my opinions. I hate spam.

Tom Van Baak said: > So the question is, does anyone make a black box that acts as a transparent > latch or GPIO? I'd like 8 or 16 bits at my bench that when changed turn into > bits in the remote lab. Ideally no setup, no protocol, no commands, no > software, no operating system, no bugs; just two boxes with N pins on each > end and changes are reflected from one to the other over LAN. TTL/CMOS level > is fine. Some latency is ok. > I'm not looking for yet another WiFi, Arduino/LAN, or R-Pi project, but > rather a turn-key solution that just works. I spent a significant amount of > time on the web, thinking this would be a trivial search, but I came up > empty. Please let is know if/what you end up with. Don't overlook the approach of just running real wires. I think your "no setup, no protocol, no commands, no software, no operating system" is going to be hard to find. If nothing else, you will have to run wires to/from the devices you want to control and/or monitor. The other interesting part of setup is assigning IP Addresses or discovering what the box gets get via DHCP. If you put a device on the net, somebody is responsible for making sure that it doesn't generate abusive traffic. That's probably not a problem if your device is behind a NAT box and doesn't talk to the outside world. But the world is full of devices with buggy software that get borrowed by bad guys to send spam or DDoS traffic or steal your passwords or ... If I was doing something like this, I would start with a pair of Raspberry Pi-s. That's because I'm familiar with them and know how to keep the OS up to date and enjoy writing software like this. I can often find something else for the Pi to do and/or already have a Pi where I could add something like this. A Pi has lots of GPIO pins that come out on a 40 pin connector. Most cases have a slot for the cable. A quick tour on eBay shows various setups for connecting up to GPIO pins on a Pi. If you find something that looks wonderful, I'll be glad to write the software for you. There are also USB to GPIO gizmos. I only glanced at those. -- These are my opinions. I hate spam.