Looking for Microcontroller Recommendations

[Nico Coesel]

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:53:57 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b51dc9b.583037562@news.planet.nl>:

I have Linux on a Broadcom MIPS, cross compiled from the PC.
It will *not* run LTSPice in Wine see?

So, get another spice derivative which does compile/run on MIPS.

Well, there are no better Spice then LTSpice

Except for the crappy user interface.

And you have to re-compile *every* application.

No, you don't have to recompile every application if you have enough
storage space to install a regular Linux distro. Flash drives are very
cheap these days. If you attach a flash or hard drive to your Broadcom
system then you can install a regular Linux distro on it.

You are WRONG.
Executable code that runs on a x86 will NOT run on a MIPS.
That is a very silly mistake you make here, I hope you do not design embedded.

You are even more silly to suspect that I propose to run x86 code on a
MIPS platform. I'd install the MIPS version ofcourse! Or the ARM
version.

What do you think 'install a Linux distro' means anyways?
What code do you think the installer uses?

The code that is used on your platform.

Where does it get the MIPS version of gcc?
Linux distros only install binaries, and the source is available optional.
If you want to run on an other platform then X86 then you need to compile *all* sources for that.

No! You are so terribly wrong here! Look at this page:

http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

Scroll down on this page and you'll see you can choose a Linux
installer for 11 different platforms. Each installer will put Debian
Linux on your system (if you choose the right platform for your
system).

Several years ago I had an SGI Indy (MIPS based). Debian worked fine
out of the box.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Falk Willberg]

RogerN wrote:
....

That would be a nice microcontroller project, use a temperature
sensor and RTCC, if it's freezing out, start the car so many minutes before
the end of shift, the colder it is, the more warm up time is allowed.

Are you really going to waste 50% gas by blowing warm air (and harmful
gases) out of the exhaust, torture the engine by running it cold and
idle for minutes?

Why not use an auxiliary heater and control this with a micro?
That would be a smart approach.

Falk

 

[RogerN]

"krw" <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
news:e524l51tm7q1rb4sk0e6v8dq8sbv8squud@4ax.com...

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:38:42 -0600, "RogerN" <regor@midwest.net
wrote:

Thanks for all the fantastic recommendations! It seems like for many of
the
microcontrollers it doesn't cost much to get going at a hobby level. I
ordered a PIC18 something starter kit that comes with a PICkit2
programmer/debugger and I ordered a PICkit3 Debug Express.
I also have an Atmel STK500 starter kit that I bought around 10 years ago
and have hardly used. I downloaded Arduino software and GNU C compiler
for
the AVRs.
I plan to look into the other stuff that I'm not familiar with but sounds
interesting, such as the Texas Instruments, Silabs, Arm, etc.

At work some of our electricians hacked into alarm clocks to automatically
start their car a few minutes before the end of their shift. They have
the
Bulldog security remote starter and said it has an input you can use to
start your car, where we work is too far from the parking lot to use the
remote. That would be a nice microcontroller project, use a temperature
sensor and RTCC, if it's freezing out, start the car so many minutes
before
the end of shift, the colder it is, the more warm up time is allowed.

Be careful here. It's very easy to burn up a starter, wiring, or at
least kill a battery, when you least want a dead battery (BT). Even
professionally installed car starters cause enough problems to
invalidate car warranties. There is a *lot* to consider here. I
certainly wouldn't play with a car starter. I found it easier to move
to the South. ;-)

They have the Bulldog Security remote car starter installed and working,
hopefully the bugs are worked out of it. If I understand correctly, they
run the starter for a couple of seconds, if the car doesn't start, it will
try again so many seconds later, running the starter for maybe 3 or 4
seconds (or something like that). Also, they said it will only run the car
up to 15 minutes and then shuts off unless the ignition switch is turned on.
One guy took a battery operated alarm clock and wired a transistor to the
alarm, I'm not sure what the others did, but something similar. With a
microcontroller you could sense temperature, if it's above freezing you may
not want the car to start at all.

In my position, I go to work at the same time every morning but I work over
some almost every day, so starting my car based on time wouldn't work for
me, starting by cell phone might though. But I don't want to have another
cell phone just to set in my car to start it a few days a year. Remote
starting would benefit me mostly in the morning but I'm in range to start my
car from inside if I wanted to.

RogerN

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:20:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b520d64.595527000@news.planet.nl>:

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:53:57 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b51dc9b.583037562@news.planet.nl>:

I have Linux on a Broadcom MIPS, cross compiled from the PC.
It will *not* run LTSPice in Wine see?

So, get another spice derivative which does compile/run on MIPS.

Well, there are no better Spice then LTSpice

Except for the crappy user interface.

I have no problems with that user interface.
Have experienced much worse ones
I consider it excellent.

And you have to re-compile *every* application.

No, you don't have to recompile every application if you have enough
storage space to install a regular Linux distro. Flash drives are very
cheap these days. If you attach a flash or hard drive to your Broadcom
system then you can install a regular Linux distro on it.

You are WRONG.
Executable code that runs on a x86 will NOT run on a MIPS.
That is a very silly mistake you make here, I hope you do not design embedded.

You are even more silly to suspect that I propose to run x86 code on a
MIPS platform. I'd install the MIPS version ofcourse! Or the ARM
version.

See my previous comments, the parts that need speed, likely will be compiled from C,
not using the much better inline asm, so the performance will suck, not only because
it is now an ARM without multimedia instructions, but also because it now runs
in some compiled inefficient stuff the C complier came up with.
Try ffmpeg for example, the basis of mplayer and much of the stuff I do.
You need a 4 or 10 x faster processor without that asm stuff, if it runs at all.
The ARM netbooks on the exhibitions recently crashed a lot.
Nowhere near ready for prime time.
And why bother when Atom is better?

What do you think 'install a Linux distro' means anyways?
What code do you think the installer uses?

The code that is used on your platform.

Where does it get the MIPS version of gcc?
Linux distros only install binaries, and the source is available optional.
If you want to run on an other platform then X86 then you need to compile *all* sources for that.

No! You are so terribly wrong here! Look at this page:

http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

OK, so they pre-compiled for a lot of processors.
That still does not solve the native driver problems.
It is *still* binaries, recompiled.

Several years ago I had an SGI Indy (MIPS based). Debian worked fine
out of the box.

I got the sources from the Linksys site, including the cross compiler, and compile everything on the PC.
The target has only 4GB FLASH, so not really space for gcc.
I can just re-flash it,.
I can flash it via JTAG too.
As lot is highly specific related to the hardware I do not think Debian would have a chance running.
For a start there is just enough space to run a busybox.
However it shows a very interesting aspect of embedded design, this example:
You can get a nice Ethernet module for 26 Euro;
http://www.mcselec.com/index.php?option=com_phpshop&page=shop.browse&category_id=22&Itemid=1
Seems cool, no?
But if you are smarter you get this for 55 Euro:
http://norrod.nl/ws_a_index.asp?A_id=12472
Now you have a RJ45 connection, software, can connect to any PC, WiFi on top, runs Linux, has hidden serial port (that I use),
that can be run with my e2s software, so serial to ethernet,... can be extended with an SDcard as I did, DC adaptor,
many more advantages, antennas, comes in a nice housing.
So if I was to design in that ethernet module I would need ++++Euro other stuff....
So, embedded that way becomes more looking for boxes that can be used in a smart way.
If you hang my I/O PIC from it it has all of the sudden:
8 analog input channels with 10 bit resolution.
2 digital input channels.
5 digital output channels.
1 PWM output channel (0 to 100).
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/io_pic/index.html

Why bother with yet an other ARM board running yet an other processor hug?
I/O pic also runs from a netbook with USB to RS232 adaptor.
And now you can develop on the PC, even faster without cross compiling if it is a x86 netbook.
ARM is DOA.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:02:30 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b520c58.595258812@news.planet.nl>:

Spehro Pefhany <speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:35:49 GMT, the renowned nico@puntnl.niks (Nico
Coesel) wrote:

"RogerN" <regor@midwest.net> wrote:

Thanks for all the fantastic recommendations! It seems like for many of the
microcontrollers it doesn't cost much to get going at a hobby level. I
ordered a PIC18 something starter kit that comes with a PICkit2
programmer/debugger and I ordered a PICkit3 Debug Express.

But be advised: as soon as you think 'I need 2 PICs for this project'
it is time to dump the PIC and learn to use a completely different
microcontroller. For more complicated projects using a PIC is like
eating soup with chopsticks. PIC gets you started real fast but it
also runs out of air real fast.

What applications have you had to implement where a 40-80 MHz 32-bit
MIPS processor with 512M of flash is so woefully inadequate?

That is not a PIC. That is a PIC32! A whole different beast. If you
like your sanity, I wouldn't program those in assembly though (google
'MIPS one delay slot').

Sice when is a PIC32 not a PIC,
of course it is.

 

[krw]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:36:41 +0100, Falk Willberg
<Faweglassenlk@falk-willberg.de> wrote:

RogerN wrote:
...
That would be a nice microcontroller project, use a temperature
sensor and RTCC, if it's freezing out, start the car so many minutes before
the end of shift, the colder it is, the more warm up time is allowed.

Are you really going to waste 50% gas by blowing warm air (and harmful
gases) out of the exhaust, torture the engine by running it cold and
idle for minutes?

50%? The car isn't "tortured" by running it at idle. OTOH, it isn't
good running a car at high speed until it's warmed some. The car
needs to be started anyway. It may "waste" a little gas by idling a
*little* longer than normal.

Why not use an auxiliary heater and control this with a micro?
That would be a smart approach.

With what are you going to power this "heater". Electricity (from
where?) rather than waste heat?

 

[Tim Williams]

"Nico Coesel" <nico@puntnl.niks> wrote in message
news:4b520c58.595258812@news.planet.nl...

That is not a PIC. That is a PIC32! A whole different beast. If you
like your sanity, I wouldn't program those in assembly though (google
'MIPS one delay slot').

That's a neat feature. Wikipedia says most assemblers baby you though.

If delay slots are hard for you, you must've never written 8086 assembler.
The inorthogonality is staggering until you get used to it. IA-32 and 64
are better of course.

Tim

--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

 

[krw]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:41:17 -0600, "RogerN" <regor@midwest.net>
wrote:

"krw" <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
news:e524l51tm7q1rb4sk0e6v8dq8sbv8squud@4ax.com...
On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:38:42 -0600, "RogerN" <regor@midwest.net
wrote:

Thanks for all the fantastic recommendations! It seems like for many of
the
microcontrollers it doesn't cost much to get going at a hobby level. I
ordered a PIC18 something starter kit that comes with a PICkit2
programmer/debugger and I ordered a PICkit3 Debug Express.
I also have an Atmel STK500 starter kit that I bought around 10 years ago
and have hardly used. I downloaded Arduino software and GNU C compiler
for
the AVRs.
I plan to look into the other stuff that I'm not familiar with but sounds
interesting, such as the Texas Instruments, Silabs, Arm, etc.

At work some of our electricians hacked into alarm clocks to automatically
start their car a few minutes before the end of their shift. They have
the
Bulldog security remote starter and said it has an input you can use to
start your car, where we work is too far from the parking lot to use the
remote. That would be a nice microcontroller project, use a temperature
sensor and RTCC, if it's freezing out, start the car so many minutes
before
the end of shift, the colder it is, the more warm up time is allowed.

Be careful here. It's very easy to burn up a starter, wiring, or at
least kill a battery, when you least want a dead battery (BT). Even
professionally installed car starters cause enough problems to
invalidate car warranties. There is a *lot* to consider here. I
certainly wouldn't play with a car starter. I found it easier to move
to the South. ;-)


They have the Bulldog Security remote car starter installed and working,
hopefully the bugs are worked out of it.

I thought they were rolling their own starter. A commercial unit is
better but still will do exactly the wrong thing occasionally. DAMHIK
....and may void any warranty.

If I understand correctly, they
run the starter for a couple of seconds, if the car doesn't start, it will
try again so many seconds later, running the starter for maybe 3 or 4
seconds (or something like that).

Car starters also have to monitor RPM to detect the start. Sometimes
this doesn't work out so well. Multiple start attempts will often
kill a battery. A human has a better chance of doing it right than a
generic auto-starter. They work great, when you don't need them.

Also, they said it will only run the car
up to 15 minutes and then shuts off unless the ignition switch is turned on.

Yes, but starting under all conditions is the real problem.

One guy took a battery operated alarm clock and wired a transistor to the
alarm, I'm not sure what the others did, but something similar. With a
microcontroller you could sense temperature, if it's above freezing you may
not want the car to start at all.

In my position, I go to work at the same time every morning but I work over
some almost every day, so starting my car based on time wouldn't work for
me, starting by cell phone might though. But I don't want to have another
cell phone just to set in my car to start it a few days a year. Remote
starting would benefit me mostly in the morning but I'm in range to start my
car from inside if I wanted to.

I had one of these things in my wife's car. Never again, and I only
lost a battery (and had to put up with SWMBO's ire).

 

[krw]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:08:47 -0600, "Tim Williams"
<tmoranwms@charter.net> wrote:

"Nico Coesel" <nico@puntnl.niks> wrote in message
news:4b520c58.595258812@news.planet.nl...
That is not a PIC. That is a PIC32! A whole different beast. If you
like your sanity, I wouldn't program those in assembly though (google
'MIPS one delay slot').

That's a neat feature. Wikipedia says most assemblers baby you though.

If delay slots are hard for you, you must've never written 8086 assembler.
The inorthogonality is staggering until you get used to it. IA-32 and 64
are better of course.

I never had trouble with 8086 assembly. In fact I found it easier
than most because there was only one place to put things so I didn't
have to remember a synthetic register convention. ;-)

 

[Falk Willberg]

krw schrieb:

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:36:41 +0100, Falk Willberg
Faweglassenlk@falk-willberg.de> wrote:

RogerN wrote:
...
That would be a nice microcontroller project, use a temperature
sensor and RTCC, if it's freezing out, start the car so many minutes before
the end of shift, the colder it is, the more warm up time is allowed.
Are you really going to waste 50% gas by blowing warm air (and harmful
gases) out of the exhaust, torture the engine by running it cold and
idle for minutes?

50%?

A rough guess. Hot exhaust gases, heat radiation...

The car isn't "tortured" by running it at idle. OTOH, it isn't
good running a car at high speed until it's warmed some.

Running an engine at low temperatures causes a lot of wear. Starting it
and drive at reasonably low RPM is the best way to reach operating
temperature in short time.

The car
needs to be started anyway. It may "waste" a little gas by idling a
*little* longer than normal.

The amount of waste depends on what you consider a "little longer".

Why not use an auxiliary heater and control this with a micro?
That would be a smart approach.

With what are you going to power this "heater". Electricity (from
where?) rather than waste heat?

Not necessarily electricity. This is common practice in Scandinavia.

Auxiliary heaters can be powered with gas or diesel. Besides that there
are two types. One heat the coolant, thus heating the car's inside and
avoid cold starting the engine.
The other type only heats the inside of the vehicle.

Both have a much better efficiency than an idling engine.

http://www.webasto.us/am/en/am_auto_heaters.html

Falk

 

[RogerN]

"Falk Willberg" <Faweglassenlk@falk-willberg.de> wrote in message
news:hit41r$pvm$1@news2.open-news-network.org...

RogerN wrote:
...
That would be a nice microcontroller project, use a temperature
sensor and RTCC, if it's freezing out, start the car so many minutes
before
the end of shift, the colder it is, the more warm up time is allowed.

Are you really going to waste 50% gas by blowing warm air (and harmful
gases) out of the exhaust, torture the engine by running it cold and
idle for minutes?

When it's iced over, we walk out to our car, start it, and scrape ice from
the windows. After it starts warming up the ice scrapes off easily. Seems
like either way the car needs to warm up to get the windows clean, the only
difference is if it's warming up before we get there or after we get there.

Why not use an auxiliary heater and control this with a micro?
That would be a smart approach.

Falk

Do you have a recommended energy source to warm the car? LP?

RogerN

 

[Falk Willberg]

RogerN schrieb:

"Falk Willberg" <Faweglassenlk@falk-willberg.de> wrote

....

Why not use an auxiliary heater and control this with a micro?
That would be a smart approach.

Do you have a recommended energy source to warm the car? LP?

Gas or diesel: http://www.webasto.us/am/en/am_auto_heaters.html

Falk

 

[Nico Coesel]

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:20:06 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b520d64.595527000@news.planet.nl>:

Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:53:57 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b51dc9b.583037562@news.planet.nl>:

I have Linux on a Broadcom MIPS, cross compiled from the PC.
It will *not* run LTSPice in Wine see?

So, get another spice derivative which does compile/run on MIPS.

Well, there are no better Spice then LTSpice

Except for the crappy user interface.

I have no problems with that user interface.
Have experienced much worse ones
I consider it excellent.



And you have to re-compile *every* application.

No, you don't have to recompile every application if you have enough
storage space to install a regular Linux distro. Flash drives are very
cheap these days. If you attach a flash or hard drive to your Broadcom
system then you can install a regular Linux distro on it.

You are WRONG.
Executable code that runs on a x86 will NOT run on a MIPS.
That is a very silly mistake you make here, I hope you do not design embedded.

You are even more silly to suspect that I propose to run x86 code on a
MIPS platform. I'd install the MIPS version ofcourse! Or the ARM
version.

See my previous comments, the parts that need speed, likely will be compiled from C,
not using the much better inline asm, so the performance will suck, not only because
it is now an ARM without multimedia instructions, but also because it now runs
in some compiled inefficient stuff the C complier came up with.
Try ffmpeg for example, the basis of mplayer and much of the stuff I do.
You need a 4 or 10 x faster processor without that asm stuff, if it runs at all.

More unfounded comments without doing proper research first. Seems
libavcodec (one of the cores of ffmpeg) has assembly routines for
several non x86 platforms including ARM:

http://git.ffmpeg.org/?p=ffmpeg;a=tree;f=libavcodec/arm;h=d350cbda5ac25b76cebe07e21595968281777429;hb=HEAD

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:09:16 -0600, krw <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:41:17 -0600, "RogerN" <regor@midwest.net
wrote:


"krw" <krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
news:e524l51tm7q1rb4sk0e6v8dq8sbv8squud@4ax.com...
On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:38:42 -0600, "RogerN" <regor@midwest.net
wrote:

Thanks for all the fantastic recommendations! It seems like for many of
the
microcontrollers it doesn't cost much to get going at a hobby level. I
ordered a PIC18 something starter kit that comes with a PICkit2
programmer/debugger and I ordered a PICkit3 Debug Express.
I also have an Atmel STK500 starter kit that I bought around 10 years ago
and have hardly used. I downloaded Arduino software and GNU C compiler
for
the AVRs.
I plan to look into the other stuff that I'm not familiar with but sounds
interesting, such as the Texas Instruments, Silabs, Arm, etc.

At work some of our electricians hacked into alarm clocks to automatically
start their car a few minutes before the end of their shift. They have
the
Bulldog security remote starter and said it has an input you can use to
start your car, where we work is too far from the parking lot to use the
remote. That would be a nice microcontroller project, use a temperature
sensor and RTCC, if it's freezing out, start the car so many minutes
before
the end of shift, the colder it is, the more warm up time is allowed.

Be careful here. It's very easy to burn up a starter, wiring, or at
least kill a battery, when you least want a dead battery (BT). Even
professionally installed car starters cause enough problems to
invalidate car warranties. There is a *lot* to consider here. I
certainly wouldn't play with a car starter. I found it easier to move
to the South. ;-)


They have the Bulldog Security remote car starter installed and working,
hopefully the bugs are worked out of it.

I thought they were rolling their own starter. A commercial unit is
better but still will do exactly the wrong thing occasionally. DAMHIK
...and may void any warranty.

If I understand correctly, they
run the starter for a couple of seconds, if the car doesn't start, it will
try again so many seconds later, running the starter for maybe 3 or 4
seconds (or something like that).

Car starters also have to monitor RPM to detect the start. Sometimes
this doesn't work out so well. Multiple start attempts will often
kill a battery. A human has a better chance of doing it right than a
generic auto-starter. They work great, when you don't need them.

Also, they said it will only run the car
up to 15 minutes and then shuts off unless the ignition switch is turned on.

Yes, but starting under all conditions is the real problem.

One guy took a battery operated alarm clock and wired a transistor to the
alarm, I'm not sure what the others did, but something similar. With a
microcontroller you could sense temperature, if it's above freezing you may
not want the car to start at all.

In my position, I go to work at the same time every morning but I work over
some almost every day, so starting my car based on time wouldn't work for
me, starting by cell phone might though. But I don't want to have another
cell phone just to set in my car to start it a few days a year. Remote
starting would benefit me mostly in the morning but I'm in range to start my
car from inside if I wanted to.

I had one of these things in my wife's car. Never again, and I only
lost a battery (and had to put up with SWMBO's ire).

Our Q45 has heated (and cooled) seats ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:07:37 -0600, "RogerN" <regor@midwest.net>
wrote:

"Falk Willberg" <Faweglassenlk@falk-willberg.de> wrote in message
news:hit41r$pvm$1@news2.open-news-network.org...
RogerN wrote:
...
That would be a nice microcontroller project, use a temperature
sensor and RTCC, if it's freezing out, start the car so many minutes
before
the end of shift, the colder it is, the more warm up time is allowed.

Are you really going to waste 50% gas by blowing warm air (and harmful
gases) out of the exhaust, torture the engine by running it cold and
idle for minutes?

When it's iced over, we walk out to our car, start it, and scrape ice from
the windows. After it starts warming up the ice scrapes off easily. Seems
like either way the car needs to warm up to get the windows clean, the only
difference is if it's warming up before we get there or after we get there.

Why not use an auxiliary heater and control this with a micro?
That would be a smart approach.

Falk

Do you have a recommended energy source to warm the car? LP?

RogerN

That would probably work. Early Hudson's had a _gasoline_ fired
heater, rather than the usual hot water system.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[krw]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:54:26 +0100, Falk Willberg
<Faweglassenlk@falk-willberg.de> wrote:

krw schrieb:
On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:36:41 +0100, Falk Willberg
Faweglassenlk@falk-willberg.de> wrote:

RogerN wrote:
...
That would be a nice microcontroller project, use a temperature
sensor and RTCC, if it's freezing out, start the car so many minutes before
the end of shift, the colder it is, the more warm up time is allowed.
Are you really going to waste 50% gas by blowing warm air (and harmful
gases) out of the exhaust, torture the engine by running it cold and
idle for minutes?

50%?

A rough guess. Hot exhaust gases, heat radiation...

It's *all* waste of you aren't going anywhere.

The car isn't "tortured" by running it at idle. OTOH, it isn't
good running a car at high speed until it's warmed some.

Running an engine at low temperatures causes a lot of wear. Starting it
and drive at reasonably low RPM is the best way to reach operating
temperature in short time.

Nonsense. The wear is at least as great by driving it at any speed as
it is by letting it idle. You *should* idle at least as long as it
takes to get off high-idle. Some recommend warming then engine
completely.

The car
needs to be started anyway. It may "waste" a little gas by idling a
*little* longer than normal.

The amount of waste depends on what you consider a "little longer".

Long enough for the engine to come up to temperature.

Why not use an auxiliary heater and control this with a micro?
That would be a smart approach.

With what are you going to power this "heater". Electricity (from
where?) rather than waste heat?

Not necessarily electricity. This is common practice in Scandinavia.

Anything other than waste heat is even more energy wasted.

Auxiliary heaters can be powered with gas or diesel. Besides that there
are two types. One heat the coolant, thus heating the car's inside and
avoid cold starting the engine.

You're going to have a gasoline fire burning to keep the engine warm?

The other type only heats the inside of the vehicle.

....and you bitch about "wasting" a little gas.

Both have a much better efficiency than an idling engine.

Nonsense. Heat from the engine is free.

http://www.webasto.us/am/en/am_auto_heaters.html

Falk

 

[Jon Kirwan]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:02:30 GMT, nico@puntnl.niks (Nico
Coesel) wrote:

snip
If you
like your sanity, I wouldn't program those in assembly though (google
'MIPS one delay slot').

Oh, cripes. I used to exclusively code MIPS R2000 in
assembly code. There was a nice code reorganizer provided to
fill in the branch delay slots. But I had no problem keeping
in mind the fact that there was also no synchronizing
flipflop keeping track of register writes from prior
instructions and register reads in the next one and inserting
delays --- they didn't include the ability, so there was no
delay, so you needed to know that you'd read the old value
and not the new one. So what? Dead easy to remember. I had
no problems coding them in assembly and hardly ever needed
the reorganizer's features.

It's nothing like you suggest as being "hard." You put your
mind in the frame and just flow from there. You have to do
that with anything, anyway.

Jon

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:40:02 GMT) it happened nico@puntnl.niks
(Nico Coesel) wrote in <4b5220fa.600540296@news.planet.nl>:

See my previous comments, the parts that need speed, likely will be compiled from C,
not using the much better inline asm, so the performance will suck, not only because
it is now an ARM without multimedia instructions, but also because it now runs
in some compiled inefficient stuff the C complier came up with.
Try ffmpeg for example, the basis of mplayer and much of the stuff I do.
You need a 4 or 10 x faster processor without that asm stuff, if it runs at all.

More unfounded comments without doing proper research first. Seems
libavcodec (one of the cores of ffmpeg) has assembly routines for
several non x86 platforms including ARM:

http://git.ffmpeg.org/?p=ffmpeg;a=tree;f=libavcodec/arm;h=d350cbda5ac25b76cebe07e21595968281777429;hb=HEAD

So how fast does it run on ARM (with that asm , I just looked at it), compared to
a modern Atom with integrated GPU?
Any benchmarks?
It looks a bit primitive to me, but then again the register shuffle you have to get used to

Probably unstable too.
And it cannot even run LTSPice in wine, or any other of the many apps I have in wine.
It cannot run MS windows 7, and neither any of its zillions of applications.
No advantage, even sucks more power then a modern Atom.
DOA.

 

[Falk Willberg]

krw schrieb:

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:54:26 +0100, Falk Willberg wrote

....

Running an engine at low temperatures causes a lot of wear. Starting it
and drive at reasonably low RPM is the best way to reach operating
temperature in short time.

Nonsense. The wear is at least as great by driving it at any speed as
it is by letting it idle. You *should* idle at least as long as it
takes to get off high-idle. Some recommend warming then engine
completely.

I don't know wether this is true for ancient engine designs. The manual
of my car (Peugeot Diesel, 2000 model) recommends to start the engine
and immediatly drive at low RPM. Even the very simple engine of my
motorcycle[0] does not require any warm up.

The car
needs to be started anyway. It may "waste" a little gas by idling a
*little* longer than normal.
The amount of waste depends on what you consider a "little longer".

Long enough for the engine to come up to temperature.

Warming up idling obviously takes more time.

....

Auxiliary heaters can be powered with gas or diesel. Besides that there
are two types. One heat the coolant, thus heating the car's inside and
avoid cold starting the engine.

You're going to have a gasoline fire burning to keep the engine warm?

Sure, why not? But it is not a simple fire. Thos auxiliary heaters work
similiar to a Coleman lamp but do not have to emit light.

The other type only heats the inside of the vehicle.

...and you bitch about "wasting" a little gas.

Blowing hot "air" through the exhaust without need is waste. Heating
with ~90% efficiency is much less waste.

Both have a much better efficiency than an idling engine.

Nonsense. Heat from the engine is free.

Sorry, I did not know, that in the U.S. gas is free if your vehicle is
not moving ;-)

Falk
[0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bXcgWQc6FY

 

[Nico Coesel]

"Tim Williams" <tmoranwms@charter.net> wrote:

"Nico Coesel" <nico@puntnl.niks> wrote in message
news:4b520c58.595258812@news.planet.nl...
That is not a PIC. That is a PIC32! A whole different beast. If you
like your sanity, I wouldn't program those in assembly though (google
'MIPS one delay slot').

That's a neat feature. Wikipedia says most assemblers baby you though.

If delay slots are hard for you, you must've never written 8086 assembler.

Back in the old days I wrote a lot of 8086 assembly. Actually I wrote
some x86 assembler recently. At least the x86 executes the
instructions in the order you write them.
The problem with the one-delay slot on MIPS is that the program is not
executed in the order you write it. It is something which is easely
overlooked and makes the code hard to read. Especially if you are not
programming MIPS assembly on a daily basis. IOW a software maintenance
nightmare.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
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