Steve: Maybe my philosophy/perspective is a little different in so far as when I do any type of control work for a client, I have to bill for the time, and developing something from scratch takes a long time and would run a huge bill. Obviously, you are not billing for you time so that makes a huge difference.
As much as possible, I try to use of the shelf components for two reasons: One, someone else has done the development work and I can get a working version immediately. Two, if the item need to be replaced, it is a lot easier to get a replacement for a standard component than it is for custom item, particularly if someone else will be doing the maintenance and/or repair. All the custom control work I have done was for one-of-a kind items that were not available off the shelf. If I would be doing this project, I would seriously consider a LCD display monitor that would be used as a second monitor with a computer; there is no interface to speak of and programming would be fairly straight forward. I am sure that there are units that are ruggedized for outdoor use or you could build a box for it. If you look at the jumbo-trons at stadiums, this is basically what they are and you can see them in bright day light. Again, I have not priced large LED lately so I do not have a basis for comparison. In the end, it comes down on how you price your time and how long you think it will take to design and build the unit. In my case, if I were to take 100 hours to design, build and test the prototype, plus a couple of thousand $ for parts, the I would have to charge the client app. $25,000. You can see why getting an off-the-shelf unit would be cheaper. In general, it is very difficult to develop a product for less than you can buy one that is already developed. In this respect it is no different than software; you could spend a dozen years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a very basic spreadsheet, or you could buy MS Office and get a superior spreadsheet for a few hundred dollars. Javier, Javier Valencia 913-915-3137 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wills, Steve Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 10:39 AM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - RE: Beginner Microcontroller Programming - Not Really OT Once I Learn Enough To Interface W/RBase ... So, Javier, it seems that you have some background here ... no, wait, I WILL resist the temptation to exploit you for your knowledge, at least beyond the bounds of common courtesy. Your thinking is solid and some of the possibilities you describe have crossed my mind. However, when you talk about "no programming", for example, I would ask you if you're talking about the various LED and/or flip-clock timer/clock displays I've encountered in my WWW searches, which appear to be available from a number of vendors, or if you're talking about something lower-level, like firmware. I ask for a couple of reasons. Most of the units I've seen in any of the sports/track-and-field/industrial/advertising fields, while often capable, become price-prohibitive and even exorbitantly expensive in some cases, especially as character size increases to 5" or beyond and hardening against weather enter the feature-set. We are just a little middle school league and this is as much a personal pet-project as it is anything else. OTOH, going the DIY route could be interesting and/or fun, as well as cheaper, even if the scope of functionality is more limited. Of course, being such a newbie in this arena, I currently feel as though I'm lost in the woods. When I find a path to "enlightenment" - hopefully via some ultrabright, blue LEDs - I think I will enjoy the learning, tinkering, and building of such a device. It's one of those type of Don Quixote self-education pursuits that keep me off the streets and capable of diverse conversation at social functions. By the time my 2nd-grade daughter gets to 8th grade, whether she runs or not, I hope to have the 2-line display functioning, with the clock allowing a pre-set lag time to synch' it with an "official" timepiece, with one display showing the 'P NNN - HH:MM:SS', triggered by the button push at the finish line, which will also log those 2 data items into an Rbase table (or at least a text file for uploading thereto). Yep', it'll probably take some time and effort on my part, as it did with my 'SAA & SDS 2007 XC' DVD. Then, at some point in the not-too-distant future, maybe I'll invite you over and we can discuss how long it should take to cook burgers and dogs and put away a couple of cold ones, all the while basking in the cool, bright-blue glow of my not-so-official patio timer display! Anyway, if you do have any "embedded" knowledge that you think would be helpful and you're willing to share, please feel free to do so. Thanks, Steve -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Javier Valencia Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 1:13pm 13:13 To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - RE: Beginner Microcontroller Programming - Not Really OT Once I Learn Enough To Interface W/RBase ... Steve: There are available timer/counters available that would do what you want to do with no programming. You can get one that has a "hold" capability that is activated by a switch that will "freeze" the display and resume when the switch is released, there are many companies that make relay board that can be used to easily achieve this. You can also get displays with built-in RS-232C protocol, although most laptops no longer have a serial port; I am sure that there are others that work with USB protocol. Another option would be to get an LCD wide screen TV that you can use as a second monitor and just used it to display your results in big numbers. You can get a 32" LCD screen for about $500 and if you display just big numbers, you can probably see it for very far away...you might look at it as a small jumbo-tron... Javier, Javier Valencia 913-915-3137 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wills, Steve Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 12:09 PM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - Beginner Microcontroller Programming - Not Really OT Once I Learn Enough To Interface W/RBase ... Anybody out there have any experience with microcontroller programming? This might be my "Rube Goldberg" brain at not-so-productive work, but I mentioned a while back that I am interested in building an LED display timer (a big-a$$, numeric stopwatch that even my near-sighted son can see from at least 100m out) for my kids' middle school cross country meets. Ultimately, I would like to interface it with Rbase or other compiled app' to a laptop or PDA-type device, in order to capture finish positions and times, and add a second display to hold the position and time of the most recent finisher. The ultimate benefit is that we could RAPIDLY compile meet/race results and maintain a record of performance data for all teams, kids, coaches, families, Et Al., which I would hope to make available via WWW (RWeb?). NOW, back to my Q, if anyone has experience with any microcontroller programming, I'd love to hear about it. It seems that the 2 languages of choice (at least for learning) are variations/versions of BASIC or C. I'm actually more comfortable w/C, but I don't think which language matters as much as the selection of microcontroller and the learning/educational products and support. I have found several chips/chip families, with apparently sufficient learning materials and 3rd party resources: - Microchip PIC - Parallax Stamp - Arduino - ATMEL - Etc. Any feedback would be appreciated as I'm trying to learn enough to know how to spend my money ... Thanks, Steve J. Stephen Wills Program Manager, Research Informatics Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research University of Tennessee Health Science Center 62 S. Dunlap, Suite 400 Memphis, TN 38163 Office: 901-448-2389 FAX : 901-448-7133
