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W5200 discontinued, anyone know why? — Parallax Forums

W5200 discontinued, anyone know why?

oodesoodes Posts: 131
in Accessories
I just found out parallax are no longer producing the W5200 addition for the Quickstart? Anyone know why? The spinneret is still available but I found the W5200 much more reliable and the extra I/O's were very useful. The sales team are saying they have no alternative to this product, which is annoying. Apart from the RTC's on them being rubbish I found the device very easy to work with. Maybe the propellor 2 will have all these Ethernet capabilities on it no? (if it ever gets released)

Comments

  • ErNaErNa Posts: 1,752
    My impression: there is just not enough market response. Spinneret 2 is announced, will use W5500, but no current state is known. I own a few spinnerets and just try to create an application, but have found, there is no sound firmware base. No other solution in sight, I go the IoT5500+P8 way, even if this means to learn Tachyon ;-)
  • Peter JakackiPeter Jakacki Posts: 10,193
    edited 2016-03-08 11:13
    The IoT5500 uses the W5500, a much better chip than the W5100 and W5200 I have used, and I am talking just as much about writing the drivers as I am talking about performance. My modules is the same size as the Magjack and you can plug that into your own Prop board or else use it with the +P8 module which sandwiches onto the bottom of the Magjack and includes the Prop @96MHz, 64kB EEPROM and a microSD in a very small package indeed.

    I do have all the drivers and server software running in Tachyon or you are free to use your own software (if you can get it runnning).

    BTW, WIZnet have a W7500 with integrated ARM M0 now so understandably products such as the W5100 and W5200 are quite obsolete plus the W5500 is actually cheaper!

    @ErNa - just sighted the inbox notification earlier, I will be back to you shortly
  • oodesoodes Posts: 131
    Cheers guys.
    I had came across the W5200 based WIZ820io module and had considered using this , but i see the Iot5500 is an upgrade on this so i will look at using this then so. The P8 is handy as I do require the sd card addition also.
    Anyway seems like all is not lost :D

    Appreciate the information guys, its most helpful

    I wont hold my breath for the Spinneret2 :D
  • oodesoodes Posts: 131
    edited 2016-03-09 08:25
    So the Tachyon kernal gets loaded onto the P8X32A? , so in essence does this become the O/S like a linux shell? And then we are compiling code at run-time like scripting? But only using this FORTH code as the script?
    Alternatively you can also load up a precompiled binary which has the kernel plus extensions

    This can be a binary file from the propeller tool?
    I will have to get back to you with more detail or perhaps if you have a specific example then that would be better.

    An example? Well what I want to do is get the Spin code I have running on my Quickstart + w5200 to run on the Iot5500 in the easiest possible way :D

    Can I have spin code running on the same P8X32A as the TACHYON simultaneously? Or are we looking at connecting another propellor to the Iot5500 to handle my spin code and letting the Iot5500 handle the Ethernet side of things?
  • MJHanaganMJHanagan Posts: 189
    Wow, so no more modules from Parallax for linking the Propeller to the Internet? That's very disappointing. I battled my way through the learning curve getting my weather station on line using a QuickStart W5200 module and was hoping to add another for some additional home automation functions. I just looked on line to discover no more W5200's are on offer. I was hoping the W5200 would become a hit so there would be more documentation and code available for us beginners.

    Parallax did a nice job putting together tutorial support for the XBee RF modules. With these materials my RF system was easily up and running in a couple of days. I now have four XBee RF units doing various things in the house and I'm planing to add a few more. Unfortunately the Parallax support for the XBee WiFi module was not as strong. If it weren't for stumbling onto Chris Savage's video tutorial my XBee WiFi module would still be in a box in the basement.

    Perhaps if Parallax supported the Spinneret and QuickStart W5200 modules with more tutorial materials and demo code the market demand would have been different. In the age of the "Internet of Things" it seems to me Parallax needs to have and to support a module for linking their microprocessors to the Internet. I hope we get one soon.

  • oodesoodes Posts: 131
    Well said MJ.
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    MJHanagan wrote: »
    Wow, so no more modules from Parallax for linking the Propeller to the Internet? That's very disappointing. I battled my way through the learning curve getting my weather station on line using a QuickStart W5200 module and was hoping to add another for some additional home automation functions. I just looked on line to discover no more W5200's are on offer. I was hoping the W5200 would become a hit so there would be more documentation and code available for us beginners.

    Parallax did a nice job putting together tutorial support for the XBee RF modules. With these materials my RF system was easily up and running in a couple of days. I now have four XBee RF units doing various things in the house and I'm planing to add a few more. Unfortunately the Parallax support for the XBee WiFi module was not as strong. If it weren't for stumbling onto Chris Savage's video tutorial my XBee WiFi module would still be in a box in the basement.

    Perhaps if Parallax supported the Spinneret and QuickStart W5200 modules with more tutorial materials and demo code the market demand would have been different. In the age of the "Internet of Things" it seems to me Parallax needs to have and to support a module for linking their microprocessors to the Internet. I hope we get one soon.
    There is a Parallax Wi-Fi module that is coming out soon. It is in the Xbee form factor so it plugs into the ActivityBoard WX and could make a nice platform for wireless internet applications. I'm sure it will be supported with the usual great Parallax tutorial material.
  • Roy ElthamRoy Eltham Posts: 3,000
    Speaking of IoT, I currently have one of my Propeller Activity Boards talking to a blynk server, so I can use the blynk app on my phone to toggle pins and read pin states. The code is still in "early prototype" state right now, but once I finish getting the protocol fully supported and the code cleaned up a bit, I'll throw it up on github or something. It's written in Spin currently.

    I've got "drivers" working for a RN-XV wifly module and an ESP8266 module that has the AT commands firmware in it. I have an Xbee WiFi module also, so I'll make a "driver" for it soon, too.
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,187
    And writing as someone who had his share of issues with the original module, I am impressed.

    IoT applications are why I moved towards the Prop in the very beginning.
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    MJHanagan wrote: »
    Unfortunately the Parallax support for the XBee WiFi module was not as strong. If it weren't for stumbling onto Chris Savage's video tutorial my XBee WiFi module would still be in a box in the basement.

    Sadly resources can limit developing for 3rd party products. I remember when third parties wrote example code for their products we carried to help support them. ;)

    As far as my video on my YouTube channel, there was supposed to be accompanying material on my website, however since the fall of vBulletin 4.x I haven't gotten the site content restored on the new host. I should have it up this month though and will be expanding on the XBee Wi-Fi modules in future projects and videos.

  • MJHanaganMJHanagan Posts: 189
    David Betz wrote: »
    There is a Parallax Wi-Fi module that is coming out soon. It is in the Xbee form factor so it plugs into the ActivityBoard WX and could make a nice platform for wireless internet applications. I'm sure it will be supported with the usual great Parallax tutorial material.

    Does anyone know if there will be a Parallax supported replacement for the W5200 module so the Prop can be connected to the www?
  • MJHanaganMJHanagan Posts: 189
    Chris Savage wrote: »

    As far as my video on my YouTube channel, there was supposed to be accompanying material on my website, however since the fall of vBulletin 4.x I haven't gotten the site content restored on the new host. I should have it up this month though and will be expanding on the XBee Wi-Fi modules in future projects and videos.

    Chris - thank you so much for that video tutorial on the XBee WiFi module! It was a great production and the content was so helpful in getting my unit up and running. The combination of video and text makes for easy learning. I would very much like to see your additional material for the WiFi module. I am primarily communicating with my WiFi module using my iPhone and the techBASIC app. It's a bit of a clunky interface but it's fun turning things in the house on and off using an iPhone!

    It would be nice if Parallax would provide a link to you video and other supporting material!
  • oodesoodes Posts: 131
    edited 2016-04-04 17:54
    http://www.wiznet.co.kr/product-item/wiz820io/

    This module appears to widely available and I don't think there would be any major issues hooking it up to the quickstart (open to corrections on that) , anyway I ordered one and going to try and replicate the W5200 parallax module.
  • Roy ElthamRoy Eltham Posts: 3,000
    edited 2016-04-04 23:08
    One nice thing about the ESP8266 and the RN-XV Wifly modules is that you don't have to write a bunch of code to do DHCP and other support stuff. You just send it a command to connect to your wifi AP, then another command to connect to an internet address/port (in the case of the RN-XV it even has support for doing DNS lookups, wend a command with your URL and it returns the IP numbers to connect to).

    With the W5200, you just get raw TCP/UDP, and you have to do the DHCP/DNS and whatever else in your code, consuming a bunch of precious Prop memory.

    Does a module that does wired ethernet exist that has all the DHCP/DNS/whatever built in, so you can just tell it to connect to your LAN and it will deal?

    Edit: looks like the wiznet 7000 series chips can do it if loaded with appropriate firmware.
  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    Roy,

    Ethernet on ESP8266

    Somebody is trying and having some success with a brutal hack!!
  • oodesoodes Posts: 131
    Good news ....

    NXP Retraction Notification
    Recently you received a product notification e-mail from Digi-Key regarding one or more of the following product(s):
    Description: WIZNET W5200 FOR THE QUICKSTART
    MFG Part Number: 40002
    Digi-Key Part Number: 40002PAR-ND
    Sales Order Number: 43917674
    Manufacturer's Notice: Click here
    The manufacturer has elected to continue producing these products. These products will continue to be available from the manufacturer and sold by Digi-Key. Please see copy of the manufacturer’s notice for more detailed information.

    Thank you for purchasing these products from Digi-Key. We look forward to serving you in the future.

    For additional assistance, please contact our Customer Service at 1-800-344-4539 or customer.service@digikey.com.
    Sincerely,
    Digi-Key Customer Service
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