Try gumstix.com. You might have to add an expansion board or two, but from the looks of your post, you appear capable of doing that...
--- Mark Allyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hello: > > I need some help trying to select a single board computer > for a project that I am engaged in. > > The single board computer will be driving an array of > approximatley > 400 to 500 tri-color LED's that will be sewn into a piece of > clothing. > Each tri color LED has emitters for red, blue, and green. > These three > colors are combined to form any other color. > > This means that I will have about 1200 to 1500 individual > light > levels to control in real time. > > Further, as this is a piece of clothing, it needs to run on a > 12 > volt battery. I will not have access to the mains. > > I plan to use a serial packet transmission to get the > brightness > information to each LED. I am currently designing the receive > (using > verilog and most likely a Xilinx CPLD for the packet receive > and > pulse width modulation to perform the dimming (LED brightness > control > is said to be the best then done by pulse width modulation). > That > part of the project I see no problem. There is already a > lighting > control protocol, called DMX, for which I have already created > verilog HDL for implementation. > > The areas that I need help in is finding and assembling a > suitable > main processor. First of all, I need some serial bus > (something like > RS485) that can have one transmitter driving about 100 > receivers. I > know that RS485 is limited to 32 receivers. Can this be > expanded? Is > there another serial interface that can have a single > transmitter drive > up to 100 receivers? I am only concerned about one way; there > is > no feedback required from the receivers (lamps) back to the > main processor. From the looks of things; I will need three or > four such serial drivers on my main processor unit. > > Also, I am looking for a main processor unit (most likely as > SMB) that > can do the following things: > > Be able to drive up to 1500 individual light levels (0-255 > steps of > brightness for each one) at a rate so that each one can be > refreshed > once every 60 seconds. > > Would have either a wireless or wired network port so that I > can > access it to program it and make changes to the software. > > It must run Linux; use open source tools and software; I don't > want > to have to to $X,000's for commerical software. Preferably, I > would > like to see it run/be programmed from Debian/Ubunto/Mepis or > some > other Debian derivitive. > > Either have, or can accomodate a module with an FPGA; at some > point, > I want to incorporate an Audio A/D and audio signal analysis. > I would > like to drive my display on music; both on amplitude and > frequency > spectral images. > > I have done some looking through Linuxdevices.com. I do see a > wide > variety of devices there, but I cant seem to find anything > with > multiple RS485 interfaces. Perhaps this is asking for a bit > much > and I will have to design a suitable I/O driver (again, using > CPLD's > or FPGA's. > > What I don't want are disk drives, fancy graphcis controlers, > fancy > audio drivers (I am doing a/d; not d/a and driving sound); CD > drives; > SATA / IDE ports; whatever. Many of the devices seem to come > with these > as a default. All I need would be something to drive a small > (perhaps > something like a 4" by 4" inch) touch screen. > > It seems to me that PC/104 is a standard for these SBC's. Is > this the > case? I also see something called EBX. > > Have any of you have undergone a project similar to this? Have > any > one of you been particularly happy/unhappy with any paticular > vendor > or device for a project similar in scope as this one? > > I am willing to spend up to $1000 for the main processor, if > that > is what it takes. I am a bit confused at the diversity of > pricing. > I see stuff from GAO Engineering, for example, that is priced > around > $1500 for something that does not look that much better than > others > I see for around $100 to $200. > > I am willing to do all of the programming myself (or look for > other > open source programming to use). If I need to come up with a > daughtor > board, I am willing to do the design myself provided I get > open enough > documentation on interfacing with the SBC. > > If this is not the currect forum for this kind of question, > perhaps > can someone please refer me to where I can go with these types > of > questions? > > Thank you all for your help. > > Respectfuly, > > Mark Allyn > Portland, Oregon > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
