AVR-Chat

Hi Chuck ---

Alex let me know that you were interested in our stuff.  

The OpenLCB group is developing the Io board with Railstars as a development board that will be part of our OpenLCB / NMRAnet S-9.7 Developers and early adopters development kit, DevKit for short.  

As such, it would be useful to you for development and to try it out as a solution, but it is not meant to be an actual end-user product.  It breaks out one port as inputs, and another as outputs with built-in FETs and LEDs.  The other ports are brought out to 4 2x5 headers which can be used with ribbon cable connectors.  We are concentrating on getting these out as the DevKits, but they would likely be available separately quite soon, if their is interest.  I have included the announcement of the openlcb egroup below.  

You might also be interested in the other RailStar products, the LEDuino which has built-in CAN, and TCH Tecnology's OpenLCB compatible boards, including 32 input, 32 output and a 24/32 input/output boards.  

OPENLCB NMRANET S-9.7 DEVKIT for Developers and Early Adopters

The OpenLCB/NMRAnet DevKit is a develpment kit targeted at both OpenLCB/NMRAnet developers and users.  We want to push forward development, but also to demonstrate its use on MRR layouts.  

The present proposed contents of each DevKit is: 
(1) Three or four Io v1.0 nodes (generated pictures are in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openlcb/photos/album/0/list);
(2) A 8 Button/LED mini-board;  
(3) One USB-CAN adapter; 
(4) Probably one USB-Serial programming cable; 
(5) Two or three CAT5 1' cables; 
(6) Assortment of connectors: two 1x10 screw-terminals, four 2x5 shrouded headers, pin-headers; 
(7) QuickStart manual.  

A more complete manual will be available on-line.  The Io nodes are Arduino compatible, and can use the Arduino IDE to develop Sketches, which can be downloaded to the nodes.  

I would like to thank our sponsors: 

-- The NMRA, through Stephen Priest for monies to buy some DevKits;
-- Railstars / Don  Goodman-Wilson for node schematic and pcb design, software/firmware and documentation; 
-- TCH Technology / Tim Hatch for USB-CAN adapter; 
-- Silicon Railway / David Harris for node schematic and pcb design, mini-board design, procurement, and seed money; 
-- John Plocher for seed money; 
-- Alex Shepherd, Bob Jacobson, John Day and others for ideas and support.   

The total cost has not been determined, but there will be a co-pay portion for the buyer, both to offset costs, and a proof of commitment ;-)   The details of how much and how the DevKIts will be distributed have not been decided as yet.  Some will be distributed directly to users, but others may be distributed through a contest or by auction.  

Finally, 
if you think you would like one of these DevKits, can you please send me an email to openlcbdevkit AT gmail DOT com with a paragraph with what you plan to do with it, and how much you would be willing to pay.  This will help determine how many people are interested and how we should proceed.  


Thanks,
David
 



--- In AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com, "Chuck Hackett" <egroupscdh@...> wrote:
>
> > From: Alex Shepherd
> > ....
> > Would something like the RailStars RS-IO board interest you?
> > 
> > http://www.openlcb.org/trunk/prototypes/hardware/r-io/index.html
> > 
> > It's a OpenLCB development/evaluation board that has a CAN interface and
> > is being developed as part of the OpenLCB project.
> 
> Hi Alex,
> 
> Sorry for the delay, I had to upgrade my copy of Eagle from V5 -> V6 before
> I could open the board ...
> 
> It looks interesting.  What is the actual/expected cost of these boards?
> 
> Some thoughts as it pertains to my application:
> 
> 1) My track inputs (8) are all analog with a filtering and, since this is an
> outdoor application, surge suppressor (i.e.: lightning protection ...
> induced surge, not direct strike).  Likewise I have surge protection on the
> incoming power.
> 
> 2) You have 16 I/O lines, my board incorporates a TLC59116 (16-CHANNEL Fm+
> I2C-BUS CONSTANT-CURRENT LED SINK DRIVER) to drive five 3-lamp LED signal
> heads.
>  
> Cheers,
> 
> Chuck Hackett
> "Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment"
> 7.5" gauge Union Pacific Northern (4-8-4) 844
> http://www.whitetrout.net/Chuck
>