I like the SM areas... I'm sure those will be very useful... any idea on when they will be for sale? I'll have to get a few after I get the Parallax CMU4 camera.
Now there is officially a dizzying array of Propeller boards in all shapes & sizes. That's good in many ways but bad in a few... no standardization or modularization like Arduino offers.
Here's the math... 100 / (19.8 - (0.1 * 19.8))=5.61... so, if you order 5.62 boards, at $17.82 per board, you get free shipping.
Possibly the best value of any board sold at anytime anywhere by anyone...assuming a non-parallel universe, with non-linear expansion and ordered gravitational and photonic decay rates, which do not preclude orderly exchanges or
unreasonable taxes.
Impressive. I was a bit taken aback the other day when I noticed that the protoboard USB had been discontinued, but now that I see the details this really is a major improvement.
I'll have to get a few after I get the Parallax CMU4 camera.
Unfortunately there isn't going to be a CMUcam4. I asked Kye when he thought they'd be ready and he told me Parallax has decided not to produce them. It looks like we'll need to settle for a SparkFun version.
Kye... sorry to hear this, but when one door closes, a window breaks somewhere else.... or something like that:) I'm not going to buy a camera from Sparkfun... I buy all kinds of other things from Sparkfun, but I really liked the design changes for the Prop Version.
Sounds like you weren't listening to Ken. Not to worry. PM Jeff Ledger... explain what you want, be reasonable, be willing to wait... and remind him every so often... he has kids and a wife... lots of noise:)
If money is the problem, I might be able to help cover the costs.
Kye... sorry to hear this, but when one door closes, a window breaks somewhere else.... or something like that:) I'm not going to buy a camera from Sparkfun... I buy all kinds of other things from Sparkfun, but I really liked the design changes for the Prop Version.
I hesitate to speak for Kye, but I don't think this is a big deal to him.
I believe Kye worked with SparkFun on the one they sell which also uses a Propeller chip.
Here's the link to where Kye told me about the CMUcam.
Duane... thanks for the info. I'm not sure what I looked at. The current board does have the pinouts for the data lines. That was a big issue for me... and somehow, I came to believe they weren't on the Sparkfun board and never looked again.
Parallax really wanted to make a version of CMUCam4 for our customers but there were two significant problems as we got onto the planning. First, the OVT camera modules are continually obsoleted and improved by the very nature of the or target market. This would require a lifetime buy to do a production run and having plans for adapting the firmware to a replacement module. We aren't holding months (or years) of inventory considering our cash must be used for many P2 efforts. The second concern is that CMUCam5 is apparently based on an ARM, forcing obsolescence of V4.
SparkFun likely made plans for the future of the product, but I would need to verify.
Kwabena or others in Parallax could provide real details as I'm sitting at the end of a "telephone game" line of communication and may have missed specific details.
That's why I made the offer. At best it is a niche market. But if the board is made right, then down the road you could control it with a P2 and still use the P1 for other things. Hook it up to a P2 and the market opens slightly. And the sales of one would imply the market for another. Right now I have a 3D Bloggie ($75) hooked up as a Webcam over AppleTV ready to install on my wheelchair... giving full 3D remote viewing. What I can't do is control the camera.
The CMUcam only being in the Arduino shield form factor doesn’t strike me as that big a deal. Odds are you wouldn't mount it on top of the host processor, so you'll be running cables to it anyway and the form factor isn't relevant. I suppose a Boe-bot user might like to have an appmod socket version and some BS2 sample code, but that's a solvable problem.
@Rich, that's right. There's much we need to consider when we undertake a design, and at present our customers can use the SparkFun version with a bit of wiring. Our preference would be for a more universal upright-mounted (SIP) form factor. It's also best that we don't compete with SparkFun in this way - they're also a customer and we shouldn't compete. We encounter this from time to time with Propeller-based products, and I'd much rather see our engineers support the external applications than to make our own (supporting chip sales).
Ken is exactly right about all of this. The reason why there are so many CMUcams is because the camera module gets EOLed. The camera industry doesn't keep a model on sale for long. 5 years is about the best you can get. Given that it took about 2.5 years to get the CMUcam4 finished, this leaves 2.5 years for sales. But, Parallax would only be able to start selling 1 year away from EOL. So, they would have to do a revision... Which isn't really easy.
But, once the CMUcam4 is done, the CMUcam5 will be out with the next generation of camera module replacing the need for the CMUcam4. Then, years from now, the CMUcam6 will be out and the cycle will continue.
I'll have a complete CMUcam4GUI done by February, and BASIC Stamp sample code coming right after. The GUI makes the color tracking selection process much easier.
I'll have a complete CMUcam4GUI done by February, and BASIC Stamp sample code coming right after. The GUI makes the color tracking selection process much easier.
Thanks,
That sounds great. Does the GUI work with a host computer directly through the CMU cam, or through the host microcontroller?
I build projects with the Arduino as well as the BS2, and would probably leave the Arduino shield headers off and use the six pin serial interface anyway.
The very best part of this new board, for me, is the 1A switching regulator, but I really appreciate several other features, too, like the micro-SD footprint, the 64KB EEPROM, and the inspired uC placement.
It works directly through the host PC to the CMUcam4.
Thanks, Nyamekye. BTW I've been reading through the Arduino samples and library and there's a lot going on here. But overall it looks really well done.
yea like it. Are the SMT-areas with schmartboard technology? I have never done smt-soldering yet. Will it be still easy without the schmartboard technology?
best regards
Stefan
I rather liked the barrel power jack on the original protoboards. It let me use whatever wall-wart I might have laying about my desk. Yeah, I could provide power through the USB port, but it was convenient.
Other than that, however, I really like the new layout.
Wait-- never, mind. I could solder a barrel connector to the board. I should really browse all of the docs, but that just goes against my sense of lazy.
I wonder if it will suffer from the FDI power cycling issue that I had with the PE-labs kit B.B version, ( I had to add pull up resisters to the i2c buss to keep my prop from power cycling once every 6 seconds... ) If not.. Then I could buy a bunch of these and save my self the etching process to wrap up this project...
Kye
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Now there is officially a dizzying array of Propeller boards in all shapes & sizes. That's good in many ways but bad in a few... no standardization or modularization like Arduino offers.
Possibly the best value of any board sold at anytime anywhere by anyone...assuming a non-parallel universe, with non-linear expansion and ordered gravitational and photonic decay rates, which do not preclude orderly exchanges or
unreasonable taxes.
Unfortunately there isn't going to be a CMUcam4. I asked Kye when he thought they'd be ready and he told me Parallax has decided not to produce them. It looks like we'll need to settle for a SparkFun version.
Sounds like you weren't listening to Ken. Not to worry. PM Jeff Ledger... explain what you want, be reasonable, be willing to wait... and remind him every so often... he has kids and a wife... lots of noise:)
If money is the problem, I might be able to help cover the costs.
Rich
I hesitate to speak for Kye, but I don't think this is a big deal to him.
I believe Kye worked with SparkFun on the one they sell which also uses a Propeller chip.
Here's the link to where Kye told me about the CMUcam.
SparkFun likely made plans for the future of the product, but I would need to verify.
Kwabena or others in Parallax could provide real details as I'm sitting at the end of a "telephone game" line of communication and may have missed specific details.
That's why I made the offer. At best it is a niche market. But if the board is made right, then down the road you could control it with a P2 and still use the P1 for other things. Hook it up to a P2 and the market opens slightly. And the sales of one would imply the market for another. Right now I have a 3D Bloggie ($75) hooked up as a Webcam over AppleTV ready to install on my wheelchair... giving full 3D remote viewing. What I can't do is control the camera.
Rich
I originally thought the signal lines were buried. My bad.
Rich
Ken is exactly right about all of this. The reason why there are so many CMUcams is because the camera module gets EOLed. The camera industry doesn't keep a model on sale for long. 5 years is about the best you can get. Given that it took about 2.5 years to get the CMUcam4 finished, this leaves 2.5 years for sales. But, Parallax would only be able to start selling 1 year away from EOL. So, they would have to do a revision... Which isn't really easy.
But, once the CMUcam4 is done, the CMUcam5 will be out with the next generation of camera module replacing the need for the CMUcam4. Then, years from now, the CMUcam6 will be out and the cycle will continue.
Thanks,
I'll have a complete CMUcam4GUI done by February, and BASIC Stamp sample code coming right after. The GUI makes the color tracking selection process much easier.
Thanks,
That sounds great. Does the GUI work with a host computer directly through the CMU cam, or through the host microcontroller?
I build projects with the Arduino as well as the BS2, and would probably leave the Arduino shield headers off and use the six pin serial interface anyway.
Thanks,
Thanks, Nyamekye. BTW I've been reading through the Arduino samples and library and there's a lot going on here. But overall it looks really well done.
best regards
Stefan
Other than that, however, I really like the new layout.
Wait-- never, mind. I could solder a barrel connector to the board. I should really browse all of the docs, but that just goes against my sense of lazy.