STM does sell some subsidized boards. These are dirt cheap because they want you to develop a product using the parts. My favorite is the Nucleo series This one sells for about $13. st.com/en/evaluation-tools/nucleo-f411re.html <https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/nucleo-f411re.html> It makes every good motion controller. It can handle several channels of steps and encoder pulses at the "few MHz" level. I think the reason for the low prices is that the "f411" part was very wide application, so they want to market it. The market for Ethercat chips is tiny, so they don't want to spend much to market it so they sell the board at full cost with no subsidy.
That said, Ethernet has been made to work on the Raspberry Pi "Pico", How long until Ethercat runs on this $4 part? The Pico is made by a non-profit foundation, so the price will remain low On Sun, Jul 11, 2021 at 9:34 AM John Dammeyer <[email protected]> wrote: > At $294 (out of stock too) that eval board is way more expensive than a > STMBL kit which also can drive a motor with a much higher power supply > voltage. > > I'm surprised that ST charges so much for something like that. You'd > think with their size they could produce demo boards for really cheap, > people would use them as is and others would then develop products based on > it. But at that cost, one has to have a budget and a marketing plan to > even consider starting. > > John > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Roland Jollivet [mailto:[email protected]] > > Sent: July-11-21 9:00 AM > > To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) > > Subject: [Emc-users] Ethercat returning message disappear > > > > No I don't but you might find this interesting. It was in an email I got > > two days ago. > > The software is downloadable; > > > > https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/steval- > > > eth001v1.html?ecmp=tt21493_gl_enews_jun2021&cid=stmDM44500&bid=438016236&uid=mrX5prLpL0WLPr+vcjBGHEiEOnoACPS > > G9a4XfANkxEI= > > > > > > > > On Sun, 11 Jul 2021 at 16:37, Nicklas SB Karlsson <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Experimenting with Ethercat. > > > > > > Connecting three devices it work perfect. But with more there are cases > > > then only some messages arrive back to master and some cases there no > > > messages arrive back to master. Even though message do not arrive back > > > as expected checking with broadcast write message arrive at last device > > > and probing with oscilloscope I could see data is sent on Ethernet > cable > > > back towards computer. No sign of other communication problems except > > > what I am pretty sure is ordinary Ethernet messages destroyed on > purpose > > > by nodes. > > > > > > Anyone else here have any experience with Ethercat? > > > > > > > > > Nicklas Karlsson > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Emc-users mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Emc-users mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > > > > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > -- Chris Albertson Redondo Beach, California _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
