4 ms·

What problem are they solving for with the hybrid approach?

by Havoc 1y ago

oytis 1y ago
The problem of showing "synergy" between Arduino and Qualcomm.
- phoronixrly 1y ago
  Thank you for pointing this out. RIP Arduino.
0xEF 1y ago
It's not exactly a big problem, but my company makes a three-axis desktop CNC machine powered by an ATMega328P that is dependent on having a Windows PC connected to it in order to run the proprietary software. Uno Q has me thinking we can eliminate the PC along with our custom PCB, making a more compact and convenient stand-alone system that would also come with a lower price tag. I may order a few to experiment with this idea, but again, it's not a huge problem and something only specific customers would care about. I'm curious what the Maker community comes up with, provided it sticks around and remains supported, unlike the Edison.
- bonzini 1y ago
  > Uno Q has me thinking we can eliminate the PC along with our custom PCB If you know how to eliminate the PC, why not replace it already with a Pi?
  - 0xEF 1y ago
    Because then I have two seperate boards to power, house and protect. Combining those into one would make for a smaller design footprint, in our case. With this particular product, portability and compactness is ideal, since it is intended to be used on job sites to mark steel banding or tags. Often times, these guys are working out of a very dirty trailer that's already crammed with equipment, so space is at a premium for them. The machine does nothing special, so size tends to be where the competative edge is in that admittedly niche market.
    - raphman 1y ago
      FWIW, Seeed Studios offers a range of Intel SBCs with an embedded microcontroller that is explicitly meant to be used like an Arduino board [1]. [1] https://www.seeedstudio.com/ODYSSEY-X86-v2-board-p-5075.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ODYSSEY-X86-v2-board-p-5075.html
      - 0xEF 1y ago
        I was not aware of those, thanks. Certainly up for consideration but I can't imagine that price point being attractive to the decision-makers in my company.
    - mschuster91 1y ago
      > Because then I have two seperate boards to power, house and protect. Well at the moment you have to power, house and protect an entire Windows PC... Assuming a Raspberry Pi 5 is powerful enough to run the control software, I'd go designing a carrier board for a Compute Module.
      - 0xEF 1y ago
        > Well at the moment you have to power, house and protect an entire Windows PC... In the case of this specific product, the customer supplies their own PC and we supply the software for it. No matter how you cut the mustard, it's not an ideal setup in my eyes. It's rare to see them us an existing PC that serves more than one purpose on these machines. What I usually see them do is buy a cheap Windows laptop and have that running next to the machine. So, as I mentioned, if I can eliminate the need for a separate PC at all, that's a step forward. I'm currently exploring the Pi 5 idea, too. I've only been with the company for a few years, but this design was made about 15 years ago? The speed of getting them to change anything, especially when what they've been doing has been working, is glacial, at best, even though they're a small company with the potential to be pretty agile. I have a Pi 5 in-house right now with Windows 10 on it (courtesy of https://github.com/Botspot/bvm https://github.com/Botspot/bvm) as a sort of proof-of-concept that we would not even have to port our software to work on a different platform, but it's in the corner of my workroom collecting dust due to their lack of interest. Some days, I'm not sure why I try. I see another commenter pointed out some Seeed boards that was not aware of, so I guess it's not that the options never existed, but more so the higher-ups aren't all that interested in changing something for the sake of future-proofing or being more efficient and cost-effective. This is, unfortunately, an extremely common problem in industrial automation. That and, as much as I try to keep up, I'm also admittedly not fully cognizant of all the SBC/microcontroller options out there, so I appreciate discussions like this.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
  Take a look at the MKS-DLC32 board. It's a (documented, but poorly!) ESP32-based 3-axis 3D printer controller board. It runs grbl on one core so it can understand g-code, and it has a local UI with web and BLE connectivity on another core. The source code is on github, although it takes a bit of digging to find it (that poorly documented part!). I don't know how complex your Windows code is, but it's an interesting architecture to study. I bought one of the boards (they're all over Amazon) since it had everything I needed for a motion-control project, but I ended up with a simpler solution.

What problem are they solving for with the hybrid approach?

by Havoc 1y ago

What problem are they solving for with the hybrid approach?

oytis 1y ago

The problem of showing "synergy" between Arduino and Qualcomm.

phoronixrly 1y ago
Thank you for pointing this out. RIP Arduino.

0xEF 1y ago

It's not exactly a big problem, but my company makes a three-axis desktop CNC machine powered by an ATMega328P that is dependent on having a Windows PC connected to it in order to run the proprietary software. Uno Q has me thinking we can eliminate the PC along with our custom PCB, making a more compact and convenient stand-alone system that would also come with a lower price tag. I may order a few to experiment with this idea, but again, it's not a huge problem and something only specific customers would care about. I'm curious what the Maker community comes up with, provided it sticks around and remains supported, unlike the Edison.

bonzini 1y ago
> Uno Q has me thinking we can eliminate the PC along with our custom PCB If you know how to eliminate the PC, why not replace it already with a Pi?
- 0xEF 1y ago
  Because then I have two seperate boards to power, house and protect. Combining those into one would make for a smaller design footprint, in our case. With this particular product, portability and compactness is ideal, since it is intended to be used on job sites to mark steel banding or tags. Often times, these guys are working out of a very dirty trailer that's already crammed with equipment, so space is at a premium for them. The machine does nothing special, so size tends to be where the competative edge is in that admittedly niche market.
  - raphman 1y ago
    FWIW, Seeed Studios offers a range of Intel SBCs with an embedded microcontroller that is explicitly meant to be used like an Arduino board [1]. [1] https://www.seeedstudio.com/ODYSSEY-X86-v2-board-p-5075.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ODYSSEY-X86-v2-board-p-5075.html
    - 0xEF 1y ago
      I was not aware of those, thanks. Certainly up for consideration but I can't imagine that price point being attractive to the decision-makers in my company.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    > Because then I have two seperate boards to power, house and protect. Well at the moment you have to power, house and protect an entire Windows PC... Assuming a Raspberry Pi 5 is powerful enough to run the control software, I'd go designing a carrier board for a Compute Module.
    - 0xEF 1y ago
      > Well at the moment you have to power, house and protect an entire Windows PC... In the case of this specific product, the customer supplies their own PC and we supply the software for it. No matter how you cut the mustard, it's not an ideal setup in my eyes. It's rare to see them us an existing PC that serves more than one purpose on these machines. What I usually see them do is buy a cheap Windows laptop and have that running next to the machine. So, as I mentioned, if I can eliminate the need for a separate PC at all, that's a step forward. I'm currently exploring the Pi 5 idea, too. I've only been with the company for a few years, but this design was made about 15 years ago? The speed of getting them to change anything, especially when what they've been doing has been working, is glacial, at best, even though they're a small company with the potential to be pretty agile. I have a Pi 5 in-house right now with Windows 10 on it (courtesy of https://github.com/Botspot/bvm https://github.com/Botspot/bvm) as a sort of proof-of-concept that we would not even have to port our software to work on a different platform, but it's in the corner of my workroom collecting dust due to their lack of interest. Some days, I'm not sure why I try. I see another commenter pointed out some Seeed boards that was not aware of, so I guess it's not that the options never existed, but more so the higher-ups aren't all that interested in changing something for the sake of future-proofing or being more efficient and cost-effective. This is, unfortunately, an extremely common problem in industrial automation. That and, as much as I try to keep up, I'm also admittedly not fully cognizant of all the SBC/microcontroller options out there, so I appreciate discussions like this.
HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago
Take a look at the MKS-DLC32 board. It's a (documented, but poorly!) ESP32-based 3-axis 3D printer controller board. It runs grbl on one core so it can understand g-code, and it has a local UI with web and BLE connectivity on another core. The source code is on github, although it takes a bit of digging to find it (that poorly documented part!). I don't know how complex your Windows code is, but it's an interesting architecture to study. I bought one of the boards (they're all over Amazon) since it had everything I needed for a motion-control project, but I ended up with a simpler solution.