Expansion board ideas
Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 2:07 pm
Hi, I'd like to propose some ideas for future further layers to sit below the soon to be existing two main boards and get your suggestions on other ideas.
Firstly a multiplexed digital output board. There are many chips like this one that take a serial signal and turn it into a parallel one. This is ideal for non time critical stuff such as shift lights, fuel pumps, etc. If the this part is used instead then that I/O expander can do PWM duty too! This would be extremely handy for many applications.
This paper describes how to do data acquisition using an 68HC912 which is very similar to what we are using from the inside. The chips mentioned can do ADC duties (which we are short of for serious data logging duties) and DAC duties (which we don't have on board at all).
Using some of these chips carefully would increase the amount of pins available to us under our direct control (without another MCU involved).
So in summary, we can have (at least) more PWM, ADC, DAC, and digital IO pins on board using these methods. This would be ideal for addition as an extra third layer of board.
Thoughts on this? Other ideas for expansion boards in the same or other form factors?
Admin.
Firstly a multiplexed digital output board. There are many chips like this one that take a serial signal and turn it into a parallel one. This is ideal for non time critical stuff such as shift lights, fuel pumps, etc. If the this part is used instead then that I/O expander can do PWM duty too! This would be extremely handy for many applications.
This paper describes how to do data acquisition using an 68HC912 which is very similar to what we are using from the inside. The chips mentioned can do ADC duties (which we are short of for serious data logging duties) and DAC duties (which we don't have on board at all).
Using some of these chips carefully would increase the amount of pins available to us under our direct control (without another MCU involved).
So in summary, we can have (at least) more PWM, ADC, DAC, and digital IO pins on board using these methods. This would be ideal for addition as an extra third layer of board.
Thoughts on this? Other ideas for expansion boards in the same or other form factors?
Admin.