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Ethernet controler — Parallax Forums

Ethernet controler

Jan DvorakJan Dvorak Posts: 44
edited 2006-09-02 15:49 in BASIC Stamp
I have one Ethernet Controler ENC28J60 (from Microchip - datasheet: http://www.microchip.com/stellent/groups/picmicro_sg/documents/devicedoc/en023091.pdf). It is very diffiult circuit, so I would like to ask you whether you have tried it with Basic Stamp. I found this: http://www.cmap.polytechnique.fr/~sylvain/domotique/enc28j60.html but it is not with Basic Stamp. Any experience? I think it shout be able to use it - it includes SPI interface, so it should be manageable with SHIFTOUT and SHIFTIN command.
Thank you

Comments

  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2006-08-31 17:23
    This looks like a very nice controller, but the Stamp series neither has enough memory to really use it nor are any of them fast enough to use it in a general purpose way. If you had a special situation with an isolated network (so the traffic is very very limited), you could probably manipulate the data in the controller's buffer rather than try to move it into the Stamp and the other end of the connection would not need a response quickly.

    The Propeller would be an excellent fit for this controller. It has the speed and memory to do the higher level protocols. Parallax's PINK is actually an excellent "fit" to the capabilities of the Stamp. The PINK takes care of the higher level protocols and the Stamp can provide (or read) data fast enough for that purpose.
  • Jan DvorakJan Dvorak Posts: 44
    edited 2006-08-31 17:32
    I only need to read the temperature (from DS1620 connected to Basic Stamp) from several PC through Ethernet. Slow speed doesn't matter. Is it possible? I have BS2p24.
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2006-08-31 17:57
    It looks like it might be possible, but it would be a lot of work to do the coding with no guarantee of success (because of the limited processing power of the Stamp to do the packet processing). If you're not extremely familiar with the Ethernet protocols, I strongly suggest using something like PINK.
  • Jan DvorakJan Dvorak Posts: 44
    edited 2006-08-31 18:01
    PINK is very very expensive for me and also not available in Czech Republic. I have no experiences with Ethernet control, I am high school student. It is why I added my question here.
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2006-08-31 18:19
    This might be a good project to learn about the Ethernet and the different layers (UDP,TCP/IP,Telnet) of protocols. Think of it in those terms. You might not be able to get this to work the way you want, but you'll learn a whole lot about the Ethernet. See if you can get some books from a library about the Ethernet or download application notes for this controller and others from the Internet. Get a copy of the TCP/IP "stack" that Microchip provides for their microcontroller and start to analyze it. Once you understand what someone else has done successfully, you can begin to see how you might do it. There are also Ethernet drivers for Linux that are public domain that you can study although they're probably much more complex than you would need. You may be able to find old back issues of magazines (like Circuit Cellar) that describe how to do something similar for other microprocessors and learn from them.

    I'm assuming that you would also be writing a program for the PC end that would work at a low level, possibly using the UDP protocol (which is the simplest).
  • Jan DvorakJan Dvorak Posts: 44
    edited 2006-08-31 18:27
    One man from Czech Republic makes TCP/IP library for Delphi (http://synapse.ararat.cz/). I think I could use it.

    Meanwhile, I have no documents about Ethernet, do you know any web-address, where I could download it?
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2006-08-31 19:05
    No, I have no web addresses. I would start with a few web searches, perhaps look at the Wikipedia.
  • Jan DvorakJan Dvorak Posts: 44
    edited 2006-09-01 20:38
    on this web address:
    http://www.cmap.polytechnique.fr/~sylvain/domotique/enc28j60.html

    is used microcontroler with crystall 20MHz, just like in my Basic Stamp 2p24. Do you really think that BS2p24 will be slow?
    I just fount some information about Ethernet controlling, not much for now, but I think I will find something in library.
  • CPUMANCPUMAN Posts: 55
    edited 2006-09-02 06:53
    While it is true the BS2 runs at 20MHz it doesn't mean it's as fast as the other controller being used on that web site.· The reason is the stamp is running an interpreter in its firmware instead of native code like the controller being used on that web site's example.· This makes the stamp significantly slower (but much easier to program).· As Mike said there is a lot to implementing an Ethernet stack and the stamp simply doesn’t have the resources or horse power to do it.· The SX (not the BS2SX) could probably handle this but only just, it's more then fast enough but it doesn't have a lot of memory so you wouldn’t have a lot of room for anything else beside the Ethernet stuff.
  • Jan DvorakJan Dvorak Posts: 44
    edited 2006-09-02 15:49
    So, is there any way how to control it with BS2p24? As I said, I need to read the temperature (from DS1620 connected to Basic Stamp) from several PC through Ethernet - nothink exacting...
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