Guru
Joined: 07/09/2016
Location: United KingdomPosts: 2135
| Posted: 04:38pm 23 Mar 2025 |
OK, I had a big session on this friday. The gerbers are currently with JLC where I am getting a small run of ten boards done - you may want to wait until I get them back and build one up but if you can't wait or just want to see, I attach the ZIP here (the schematic is in there too)
SILMk2b.zip
Remember I have not played with this other than what I see in Eagle. I am sure some of my routings will make other whince.
The board is the next generation of my "compute module" which is a SIL board about 2.5" x 1.25". It takes up a tiny amount of space, exposes 19 bits of contiguous IO, the reset and an on-board generated 3.3V.
Options are not have the regulator in which case you'd be expected to provide 3.3V to the relevant pin or to the VIN pin (and link SJ2)
I tried to get this to be as useful as possible and the Tx output from the console (which is the Rx input to a PC/master has provision for a small diode so that many of these devices can be linked together with a pull up on one of them (R1). This provides very simple multi-drop so if you wanted to create a cluster/star network, it becomes laughably easy. Obviously there is no built in protocol for making sure the right module talks at the right time etc, but that is the fun of the journey - I have a published protocol of FotS that would adapt very easily. In theory, there is practically no limit to how many of these modules you could link and the prospect of making a distributed system is realistic. It wouldn't be hard to convert this to wireless (e.g. 433MHz) or CAN but I have to draw the line somewhere.
The board has provision for an AMS1117 3.3v SOT223 regulator and DS3231 RTC + Battery so would be very happy as a standalone board. If you want to bolt a few together you probably wouldn't want this on all of them, in which case you'd omit IC2 & IC3.
There is room for a Winbond flash (type) memory chip which means you got up to 16MB on this if you want.
I think I am going to knock together a little beowulf cluster (seems a popular buzz word) and write some distributed computing software just for s&g... I have no reason to other than to play and keep the brain ticking along... imagine a row of these all paralleled-up, each with their own address being given chunks of a problem to work-on and a central supervisor dishing out the work and collating the results - don't come at me with any "what's the point?" arguments... the point is it's do-able with my own stuff, my way and not an OS or 3rd party library in sight. For the journey!
Edited 2025-03-24 02:51 by CaptainBoing