TOA als Standalone Gerät ?

    Hallo Ihr Elektronik Experten, HW und SW Entwickler.
    Leider bin ich "nur" ein Zusammenlöter und Tester, habe aber manchmal Ideen, die ich selbst nicht umsetzen kann.
    Habt Ihr schon einmal drüber nachgedacht, TOA, GPS und ein LAN Modul mit Tracker Funktion als Paket zu schnüren? Ich bin immer noch am überlegen, hier in der SO Schweiz ein oder zwei zusätztliche Stationen zu installieren. Problem ist aber, man braucht zu den Modulen immer noch einen PC und eine SW die darauf laufen muss und darf. Wenn man jetzt nur noch 2 Module hätte (Antenne und Auswerte/GPS/LAN), die einfach zusammen stecken müsste, ein paar Daten per WEB IF programmieren, fertig, könnte man so ein Modul einfach mal irgendwo mit Internetanschluss installieren. Ich spinne den Gedanken nun noch etwas weiter, man könnte das alles etwas weiter weg vom "Manmade Noise" aufbauen (Solar Powered) und per WLAN ins Internet gehen.

    Grüsse aus der Schweiz

    Jochen

    Hallo Sascha

    Nee, eigentlich dachte ich eher an so etwas.
    Wie weit so etwas flexibel programmierbar ist, weiss ich natürlich nicht aber deswegen habe ich ja die Frage an die SW/HW Experten gestellt. Das mit dem Linksys ist natürlich für zu Hause interessant, ich brauche aber nicht unbedingt, WLAN, Firewall, Router, ADSL Modem. Toll sind hierbei natürlich die vielen Pakete und Entwicklungen die es bereits für den WRTG gibt. Aber warten wir mal ab, was da in Zukunft noch kommen wird. Irgendwo habe ich ja mal gelesen, dass der Atmel gegen etwas anderes ersetzt werden soll usw.

    LG, Jochen

    Hello, Dear Johen,
    If I understand well, you have an idea, to assemble a small, compact box, functioning as a lightning detector, and this box containing the Blitzotung digital board, and it is extended with a so called LAN modul, as you referenced, for example to the Lantronix Micro board.
    And you developed more this idea now, and you think about it, as an "autonomous" remote sensor, powered with solar energy, and connected to the "world"/internet with a wireless link.
    I can tell you, I change some letters with Mike in Czechland, nr 38 in our community, he realised, or want to realise such, remotely operated, solar powered system.
    The problematic componet in you idea, this LAN module. It seems me, this small board wasnot design as a small "general" computer, but can use as an intelligent lan controller-extension.
    The Blitzortung host or upload programs running on desktop PCs, not working only simple upload machines, but the program, at least in the linux version, serves another jobs, like this:
    - provide the authentication to the data transfer
    -initializing the different GPS devices,
    - provide some time functions,
    - evaluate the data records, come from teh TOA board,
    - and periodically send it to the server.

    If you want a small compact box, you need at least a small board, running on it an ebedded linux system, and you need to compile on it the tracker_toa softare, which provide this functions.
    Some of us use NSLU2, as a cheap, low power consumption device, as a linux machine, originally was designed as a home storage. But if you want a solar powered unit, you can find less power-hungry board. There are such boards, we had talk about this topic with Mike, but we canot aggried in the best solutions.
    One year ago I made some experimets with a small, nice, cheap demo board from ATmel, its name is NGW100, and I made some notes about it. It is a functionig solution, similar as your idea, but it has a small disadvantage, that the Atmel discontinued to produce this small board. We can use it, if we have such board, but to propose to develop new "comact box" based on it, this isnot a good idea.
    You can see my notes on the link on my blitzortung participants record, nr 62, or from here:

    best: Janos

    Dear Janos

    Many thanks for your extensive and very interesting reply. Yes, that is exactly what I thought. It ist not very important to be solar powered, but it would be a nice feature to set it up some meters from the flat, far enough to reduce the man made noise, but close enough to still use my WLAN. Probably the Alix Boards would be also a good solution? . I use this board for my Askozia Voip Server, they are still produced, also shematics are available and they have support here in Europe (Switzerland). They consume abt. 5 watts, this is not so fine for Solar powering, but for the first step I would apreciate a standalone module which could also be set up by my wife ;) Plug power in, plug lan in, configure via web browser, that's it. Your pigtail gps module is looking great, very small and also the price? ;)
    This project is for guys like me who don't make sport, have enough time and like to do some electronic and testing in the evening or weekend hours. I enjoy this very much, but I thought, if we could find a, or "the" standard in components which just have to be plugged together, we could spred these boxes wider over europe. For example me, I am using a u-blox GPS evaluation kit, this module is very nice, also galileo ready, but not very cheap. These modules are still produced, I use the series 5, now they already sell series 6 and they are full pin compatible to series 5. I think, that's what we need. To set up on a standard product, which is still developed, like the PCB from Egon.
    So lets see what will come the next month, probably a new Egon PCB, with a new processor?

    Many thanks for the informative discussion and also the link, it is very interesting
    So the best 73's from switzerland
    HB9DRT, joe

    Dear Jochen,

    I look at your referenced Alix board. It is a nice device, but it is not really usefull for small, low-power solution as upload machine for Blitzotung system.
    Some times ago we had plans to collect a list with possible, low power boards, running on linux, and
    we plan to study the possible, most usefull solution. But some month ago I lost the connection with Mike, it seems me, his station is off too. Now I send a private message to him about our discussion, and we can "revitalize" this plans and this topic.
    He found the bifferos board,

    as an accessible, most power-save device, possible to use with solar power supply, he decided to buy one, but I dont know what was his next stepps. If he has some progress in this way, we can talk about it in next time.
    Ofcourse, we can try to collect some other, possible boards, and we can start to study and compare them.
    I know, that Andreas has similar solutions, if I know well, he use the next/new "generation" of the Seevaplug box, the GuruPlug, but I have the impressions, based on some reviews, this isnot the most successfull design from this company...maybe, Andreas will correct this infos.

    About my GPS unit:
    We have, in our city, 3 minute walking from here, my home, a special electronic shop, and I found there this small far-east produced GPS module, which dump the needed 1PPS signals too. It was really the most cheap solution, its price is around 20 eu, but it need an external antenna. I bought an active antenna unit, with 6 m long, very thin coax cable, and this unit is located outside only. It is working since more then 1 year.

    I dont know any informations, about new version of TOA board(s) and about Egon,s plans, but it seems, it is really a good idea, to develop a "power-save" version. The Atmel has the xMega series of 8 bit controllers, this would be good choice. But our board contains at least 2 other components, this are the A/D convereters, and this component not to "power-save" devices.

    best: janos

    Ok, I forget some other points in our discussion:

    To design a new, power save version of TOA board, maby, can use the new, very low power series of Atmel xMega controllers, but this devices dont exist any more in the classic, DIP packages. I know and use the xMega128, it is in 100 pins TQFP package, and exists in VFBGA (Very Thin Fine-Pitch Ball Grid Array) package too. Use this packages, to built devices, are far from the available possibility for majority of hobbyist, included myself too.
    But this series, has some new features, earn more attentions; this is the very low power consumptions, and the built in high speed, 12 bit long A/D converters, and the possible 32 MHz CPU frequency. It means, in the best case, we dont need any, or no too much external components for a board.

    best:
    janos

    Hi Janos

    That biferos is looking nice. I will also keep my eyes open if I find another small device. You are right, VFBGA and other soldering techniques are no longer handable for normal users. I am lucky, just received my new glasses that I see again in short distances like for soldering ;)

    So let's see in which direction i will go with this very nice TOA project.

    best 73's
    Joe

    Hello there,

    I would like to add some information about the Guruplug which was mentioned by Janos above.

    After about ten months of production use I can not recommend using a GuruPlug for this purpose. The device runs extremely unstable - especially when a wireless lan connection is used. I invested a lot of effort to improve the situation by using newer firmware / kernels and by avoiding unnecessary tasks executed on the device. To circumvent the existing heat problems I removed the casing and added a huge passive heat sink. All these measured seemed to improve the situation a little bit, but stll the device hung at least once a week. The situation was much worse when I tried to monitor the device via Nagios (due to the increased network traffic). Web traffic had the same negative impact on the stability of the system.

    One week ago I finally replaced the GuruPlug with a Genesi Efika MX Smarttop. Up to now the operation is very stable and although the device only uses a 800 MHz CPU (compared to the 1.2 GHz of the GuruPlug). The overall system performance is better than with the GuruPlug and the system runs very stable, even under high load.

    As the Efika MX has a simliar price and even offers 8 GB of disk space (compared to the 512 MB of the GuruPlug) I can fully recommend this piece of hardware.

    Future reports on the Efika MX operation will follow ...

    Regards,
    Andreas

    Hello Andreas, Joe, and Others,

    Thank you for your report about the experiences on GuruPlug. It seems, this unit wasnot too successfull design, it become clear from the first reviews too:

    It is sure, here is the time, when we can buy more usefull hw to realize this idea in some usefull versions, what Joe proposed earlier.
    The EFIKA MX Smarttop, proposed by Andreas, is a nice candidate for this.

    But now I deal with this, others, possible hw-s:
    - TP-Link TL-MR3420
    This is a "new generation" of home wireless routers, small, comapct, and it has USB interface, and very cheap.
    With the original firmware you can use the USB interface with a gsm modem, connect immediatly to the internet (maybe not a cheap option, but in special cases it is usefull)
    I changed the firmeware on it with the latest OpenWRT, it seems it works stable. I didnot installed the tracker on it, but I plan to make this.
    - Fujisu-Siemens "Thin Clent" computer. This is not new construction (come out 2005) but it is nice, stable device, it accepts standard PC peripherals, the mass storage is a CF card, it has 2 ethernet interfaces and an USB. For me was free, because I found it in the garbadge at my syster,s company... It has Transmeta 5800 CPU, compatible with the Intel 586 (but not higher) it seems, can install on it an older linux version, maybe with 2.4... series kernel. It was designed permanent run whitout active heating (fan).
    - I deal with the idea, how can use the Android mobile phone, as a "host computer" at our sensors... maybe we can discuss about this topic too...
    best: t.janos

    Some other notes:
    I was in holyday in Milano, and I planed to visit Renato Romero in Torino, but finally I wasnot able to realize this, but I changed some email with him. His new idea to propose to realize so called "On-line VLF Observatory".
    More you can read on his page:
    The main idea, to make a streaming server with one, or two sernsors on a far-away places, where the local noises dont causes problems. But the problems on this concepts, that on this places usually we havenot electric power and internet connections... So: in this case we are in the same boat, as Romero try to follow...

    Hi Janos,

    can you tell me wich Futro has 2 ethernet ports?
    I use the Futro S300 and the same S230 in a other way, but booth only have 1 ethernet port. I think also the Futro S400 has only 1 ethernet port.

    I can recommend this device. You can install a Debian linux on CF card, for instance,. but you can have problems with using also a USB stick.
    This can scamble the boot order.

    Regards,
    Steffen

    Hi Dear Steffen,
    you are right, my Siemens-Fusitsu Foturo S300 device havenot 2 ethernet port in deafult. When I wrote this, I didnot open it. But in the application, where it was used, they put inside another, standard PCI etherenet card, and it worked in two different lans. I have it since some days only, I didnot check too much informations around it, but I found on a forum that the used Transmeta 5800 processor compatible up only the i580 instructions set, so, there was a warning, be carefully to try to install the latest linux distribs... I dont know what is the situation, but I have laying around a CF card, containing an old linux, based on Slackware, and it has 2.4 series kernel, originally it was designed for wireless mesh node use, I put this card into my Futuro, changed the ethernet card with an old Belkin Wifi card, and it is started without any problem.... I am really happy with it.
    The solution was to insert into the box this etherenet card extension, to use a special extension connector on the PCI slot, wchich turn on the direction of the card with 90 degree.
    I put here a low-quality foto about this solution.
    best: t.janos

    Hi Janos,

    thanks for your answer. You are right there is one extension PCI card inside. The bare Futro has only one ethernet port.

    I run my Futros with Debian Lenny (5.0) without any problems. I don't have time to install Debian Squeeze (6.0) on one Futro, but I think the install
    must go right and there are also no problems awaiting.

    For install I've used an standard Debian install disc. The actual kernel on this Futro S300 is 2.6.26-2-486.
    You can boot this machine from an external USB-CDROM/-DVDROM for installing Linux.

    Regards,
    Steffen

    Hi Steffen,
    thank you for the install tipps.
    I have the feeling, this Futro has "old style" boot features, means on the usb port you canot use pendrive or usb hd as boot device, only some "floppy-like" devices, like usb-floppy, or cd-rom. The CF card inside, it is on the IDE interface, and appears as a "big floppy" device. My CF card was made by a special (Windows) software, and use the old DOS-based boot mechanism... But, if you have a boot CF card, you can use it without problem, I think.
    You said, you use the newest debian, it mean, it hasnot cpu-instruction set porblems...
    best regard:
    t.janos

    Hi Janos,

    I think the Futro can boot from externel drives, such ext. CDROM/DVDROM - I've used this for install, and can also boot from an well bootable USB pendrive.
    It can also boot from the inside CF card and also from an inside 2.5-inch HDD.

    I've had problems with boot from CF card and then plug in an USB pendrive. After a restart the Futro-Bios scrambled the boot order and then will boot from the USB pendrive.
    That goes wrong.

    Only with such a USB pendrive I think there are no problems.

    Regards,
    Steffen

    Steffen,
    thanks your report about your experiences...
    I dig up some of my old bootable pen drive, and now try it.
    Here is a pendrive with Slax linux, the Futro boot from it without problem. Finally it sart a small, nice xWindows, but maybe it has config problmes, and the Desktop menu items dont come up, I can use only a terminal windows with limited command set. I will try to configure it more carefully.
    I tryed another pendive with not the last ubuntu, is started to boot, but some minutes later it hang up. It seems me, there have another, low level config problems, maybe with the grub? This ubuntu hide the messages of the boot process, and I dont able to trace the problem in this first look. Maybe the best way it for me to walk and buy a new pendrive, and install on it fress debian...
    Thanks the inspirations, have a nice day:
    best, t.janos