Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teensy 4.1 Development Board

pjrc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 211 posts

Re: Teensy 4.1 Development Board

#91

Post by closeparen »

ohazi wrote: post #82

PSA: Networking on microcontrollers is a giant pain in the ass. Don't get me wrong, boards like this (and ESP/Realtek boards with WiFi) are great for hacky prototypes. But if you're building an embedded device that will be deployed in any sort of volume, a small application processor running Linux will make your life dramatically easier. You can keep it asleep most of the time if your power budget is tight. The hard…

>Are you really prepared to roll out updates on a system like this when the next Heartbleed comes along?

Implying that embedded systems get updated...

Re: Teensy 4.1 Development Board

#92

Post by realharo »

adammunich wrote: post #86
realharo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are things on the commonly used RTOSes? I'm not really into hardware much, only fairly recently learned basic electronics as a hobby, but I've seen ARM push their "mbed" ( https://os.mbed.com/ ) thing in many places recently (most recently saw their logo printed on a nRF52 BLE dev kit). I've also seen Amazon get more involved with (in charge of?) FreeRTOS ( https://aws.amazon.com/freertos/ ) quite some time ago.…

The RTOS world is much less of an 'operating system' and more so a bare-bones task scheduler. It's not like a POSIX environment at all.

Right, but doesn't it also provide some very basic level of abstraction that things like network stack implementations can target? And then many projects also come with their "standard" (not bundled, just designed for) set of basic libraries? That's the impression I'm getting from skimming through the docs. (https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/guides/networking/net-..., https://www.mbed.com/en/technologies/security/mbed-tls/, https://docs.aws.amazon.com/freertos/latest/userguide/freert..., etc.)

Re: Teensy 4.1 Development Board

#93

Post by subhobroto »

ohazi wrote: post #82

PSA: Networking on microcontrollers is a giant pain in the ass. Don't get me wrong, boards like this (and ESP/Realtek boards with WiFi) are great for hacky prototypes. But if you're building an embedded device that will be deployed in any sort of volume, a small application processor running Linux will make your life dramatically easier. You can keep it asleep most of the time if your power budget is tight. The hard…

> The hard part is not cramming in an Ethernet PHY or a 2.4 GHz radio, it's the mountain of software that you need to run on top of it to get the kind of reliable, secure communications channels that we've come to expect

Have you looked into PJON?

Re: Teensy 4.1 Development Board

#94

Post by tyingq »

ATsch wrote: post #83
tyingq wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $5 boards aren't 600MHz M7's with loads of SRAM and Flash.

Maybe, but what scenarios are there where you'd want that, be willing to spend 30 dollars on your microcontroller solution and not benefit from a more capable linux SOC? (With an optional $3 M0/M3 for realtime if required)

Yes, it's not needed for every use case. There are some obvious places where 600MHz helps, either for input sample rate or output waveform. The Teensy 4.0 is $20, with the same processor as the 4.1.

Also, 100 mA current draw with the CPU at full speed. For some use cases, that is helpful...versus the RPi.

Re: Teensy 4.1 Development Board

#96

Post by comboy »

realharo wrote: post #84
ohazi wrote: post #82

PSA: Networking on microcontrollers is a giant pain in the ass. Don't get me wrong, boards like this (and ESP/Realtek boards with WiFi) are great for hacky prototypes. But if you're building an embedded device that will be deployed in any sort of volume, a small application processor running Linux will make your life dramatically easier. You can keep it asleep most of the time if your power budget is tight. The hard…

How are things on the commonly used RTOSes? I'm not really into hardware much, only fairly recently learned basic electronics as a hobby, but I've seen ARM push their "mbed" ( https://os.mbed.com/ ) thing in many places recently (most recently saw their logo printed on a nRF52 BLE dev kit). I've also seen Amazon get more involved with (in charge of?) FreeRTOS ( https://aws.amazon.com/freertos/ ) quite some time ago.…

I wonder what's your use case for RTOS? I don't really know any problems that couldn't be solved with micros communicating with linux. Seems like even SpaceX gets away with it.

I mean there seem to be the market so clearly there are some people who need it, I just would like to learn more about where is it really needed.

Re: Teensy 4.1 Development Board

#97

Post by im_down_w_otp »

ohazi wrote: post #82

PSA: Networking on microcontrollers is a giant pain in the ass. Don't get me wrong, boards like this (and ESP/Realtek boards with WiFi) are great for hacky prototypes. But if you're building an embedded device that will be deployed in any sort of volume, a small application processor running Linux will make your life dramatically easier. You can keep it asleep most of the time if your power budget is tight. The hard…

The power budget isn't the only reason you go for an MCU. Often you're doing it for the real-time guarantees or the hardware qualification (e.g. for applications where you need something with a safety rating). That said, yes... TCP/IP based networking in the traditional embedded world isn't comparatively pleasant.

Re: Teensy 4.1 Development Board

#98

Post by non-entity »

zargon wrote: post #80
non-entity wrote: post #76

I've been playing around embedded stuff and hardware design recently and mostly started with arduino's and esp8266/32's, but have wanted to play around with both FPGA's and ARM boards for designing more complex things. I'm kinda lost on what ARM board to get though. This thing seems pretty cool, and others have recommended an STM32 board, but theres dozens of those in various form factors and chip features and I'm ju…

"The Amazing $1 Microcontroller" is a great place to start. It covers the main ARM micro families. Essentially you're looking for differences in peripherals, since the CPU is the same for any given Cortex M0, M3, etc. https://jaycarlson.net/microcontrollers/ Edit: I guess if you're looking to move to "more complex" things you may be beyond the $1 chips that this site reviews.

> I guess if you're looking to move to "more complex" things you may be beyond the $1 chips that this site reviews.

That's the end goal yeah, but ofc I need to learn the platforms first.

Re: Teensy 4.1 Development Board

#99

Post by wiremine »

non-entity wrote: post #76

I've been playing around embedded stuff and hardware design recently and mostly started with arduino's and esp8266/32's, but have wanted to play around with both FPGA's and ARM boards for designing more complex things. I'm kinda lost on what ARM board to get though. This thing seems pretty cool, and others have recommended an STM32 board, but theres dozens of those in various form factors and chip features and I'm ju…

The thing with microcontrollers in general is that they tend to come in MANY variations to support all the various use cases out there. So, it really comes down to your use case. Once you have that figured out, it's much easier to pick an ARM platform.

Most of the time people are taking about the M-series, so you want an M0, M3 or an M4. I'd recommend an M4 if you don't have something specific in mind.

The STM discovery series is an easy place to start:

https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/stm32-discovery-kits....

I'd also recommend checking PlatformIO: It's a great project that streamlines development and abstracts a lot of the details:

https://platformio.org/

To answer your question directly, here's a good start:

https://developer.arm.com/ip-products/processors

And here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-M

Re: Teensy 4.1 Development Board

#100

Post by realharo »

comboy wrote: post #96
realharo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are things on the commonly used RTOSes? I'm not really into hardware much, only fairly recently learned basic electronics as a hobby, but I've seen ARM push their "mbed" ( https://os.mbed.com/ ) thing in many places recently (most recently saw their logo printed on a nRF52 BLE dev kit). I've also seen Amazon get more involved with (in charge of?) FreeRTOS ( https://aws.amazon.com/freertos/ ) quite some time ago.…

I wonder what's your use case for RTOS? I don't really know any problems that couldn't be solved with micros communicating with linux. Seems like even SpaceX gets away with it. I mean there seem to be the market so clearly there are some people who need it, I just would like to learn more about where is it really needed.

Stuff powered from a coin cell battery?
Post reply on HN