What’s the next step?

ChristianG

The javelin starter kit is great!
I’ve made a weatherstation, reading windspeed, direction, temperature, and sending data to the internet through a gprs-modem.
What should I do if I want to make a product of it? The starter-kit has everything I need, except that the beadboard is aimed for prototyping circuits. Witch board should I use to make a product? I had a look at the “Super Carrier Board” witch is quiet similar, but it is missing some components from the starter-kit. In example the Com port level shifter (from +-12v to 0-5 v) is missing. My question is: should I use the “Super Carrier Board” and make my own comport level shifter? Should I use another board? Or could I use the demo-kit, detach the breadboard and solder my circuits on it?···
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Regards Christian

Post Edited (ChristianG) : 9/6/2004 7:37:10 PM GMT

Jon Williams

If you're going to make a product, you might consider a custom board so that you get exactly what the product needs, organized in a manner that is best for the target product.

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Jon Williams
Applications Engineer, Parallax
Dallas Office

ChristianG

Jon,

Thank you, at least I have a schema of how it should be, and I could always draw it in AutoCAD. I just need to improve my knowledge in making custom boards. Unless someone knows a company specialised in making boards from drawings?

Thanks,

ChristianG

KenM

Christian,

Making a custom board is not difficult. It takes a little pratice to layout the components, traces etc.

I strongly recomend www.expresspcb.com

You download free software, layout your board and order over the net via a few EASY mouse clicks. But you MUST be sure the layout is correct.

Ken

Jon Williams

I'm with Ken -- use ExpressPCB to get going if you're new to building custom PCBs. Their software is simple, and their service very good.

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Jon Williams
Applications Engineer, Parallax
Dallas Office

ChristianG

Thanks!

basicstampede

Christian,

When you say that the Javelin Starter kit is great, what particular aspect of the kit are you referring to?

I've been plodding through the Javelin Manual (1.0) and I feel I need more help in getting started with Javelin.

I've purchased a book on Java by Schildt and it helps.·

Is there something I've missed that you've got?· Were you an experienced Java programmer when you started using the Javelin?· (I'm a complete novice at Java as you can gather).

Thanks.

ChristianG

My situation is the opposite of yours; I know almost nothing about electronics, and a lot of java. My aim was to make a weather station linked to the internet. I started first using a gprs modem from siemens controlling a weather station from 1-wire instruments (Dallas). The Siemens module has a java-VM and can run an application that communicates with peripherals through rs232. But it was not working well. I could only control the sensors through a java-api provided by Dallas. I could not make my own circuits, and I could not control the analog signals. I had trouble with the power supply of the weather station too.

With javelin I got many new possibilities:
- The analog to digital conversion is great; it gives a close control of my sensors.
- The possibility to compose my own circuits with different sensors.
- Communication with peripherals is solved, good control of the com-port and level shifter.
- Using java to write applications is alto great.

Understanding java of course helps, but it’s really easy to learn, and I guess that it makes things simpler when you want to make a complex application.
Of course you could always use the BASIC stamp 2 and program things in PBASIC, but I really think java is more comprehensive.
You can make you own classes and hide complex functionality in them (I don’t know PBASIC, but I guess that it’s more complicated). There are things missing with javelin, likelthreads and exception handling, but you still can make great things.

Regards

Post Edited (ChristianG) : 9/14/2004 2:30:11 PM GMT