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Flotilla for Raspberry Pi – Making for Everyone

8 points by benn_88 12y ago

whiskers 12y ago
Hey Ben, thanks for submitting this! This is Jon from Pimoroni - we just launched Flotilla today. We've been working on Flotilla for just over a year - the vision is to provide an electronics experimentation system that scales with ability and has as few restrictions as possible. The hardware in the video is a little out of date but pretty representative of our final design. The main change is we've swapped to round/thinner cabling to make it easier to route them around in your projects. The Dock maintains the state of the system receiving updates from sensors and issuing commands to connected devices. It then sanitises the data and discards duplicates before passing it via USB serial to the host Raspberry Pi. If anyone has any questions I'll hang around to answer them best I can!
gadgetoid 12y ago
Arr! Phil from Pimoroni checking in! Ask me about Cookbook and Rockpool, or anything else really!
radcom123 12y ago
Hi I love the flotilla overall but I'm concerned about your choice of connector for connecting the dock to the sensors for 2 reasons: 1. The module rope appears to go against the USB 2.0 spec as the spec forbids the use of micro-usb to micro-usb cables. Now I know you aren't using USB for the data transfer but the cables could be used by someone who doesn't know that the cables can't be used that way to connect say two smartphones together. 2. By using the micro-usb connectors on the dock to connect to the sensors someone could connect the sensors to something say a smartphone (with the module rope) or to a computer (using the micro-usb to usb-A) which risks damaging both the sensor and the device been connected to, or worse plugging either the sensors or the sensor side of the dock into a phone charger again with the use of a micro-usb to usb-A. as I'm sure you are aware people will try to connect things together in ways the designer never thought of as long as they can fit together. Its fine if you have already thought of this and accounted for it by designing protection in or if the usb connectors are just been used while its in development, but if you intend for it to be used in places like schools this could be a major issue as it could quite easily damage equipment its not my place to tell you your job or anything but these are my concerns anyway that is just my two cents.
- whiskers 12y ago
  Hey! 1. The cables have a "twist" internally so they electrically match if you if you attempt to "loopback". They'll also have custom branding on the ends to make it clear they are not USB cables. 2. The modules/dock/cables are electrically compatible with USB (5V power, 3V3 data) and won't cause any damage to a USB device. The reason we selected those connectors is because they are rated for many insertions, relatively cheap and easy to get assembled as proper moulded cables, SMT placeable, and strong. We did evaluate many options but nothing came close to the quality at a reasonable price. Hope that answers your question!
  - radcom123 12y ago
    Ah that is good to hear as I have seen in the past a number of things which use USB connectors, (for the same reasons you mention) but don't follow the spec at all. Which causes all kinds of fun problems. Keep up the great work.
    - whiskers 12y ago
      Thanks! :-)

8 points by benn_88 12y ago

Hey Ben, thanks for submitting this! This is Jon from Pimoroni - we just launched Flotilla today. We've been working on Flotilla for just over a year - the vision is to provide an electronics experimentation system that scales with ability and has as few restrictions as possible. The hardware in the video is a little out of date but pretty representative of our final design. The main change is we've swapped to round/thinner cabling to make it easier to route them around in your projects. The Dock maintains the state of the system receiving updates from sensors and issuing commands to connected devices. It then sanitises the data and discards duplicates before passing it via USB serial to the host Raspberry Pi. If anyone has any questions I'll hang around to answer them best I can!

gadgetoid 12y ago

Arr! Phil from Pimoroni checking in! Ask me about Cookbook and Rockpool, or anything else really!

radcom123 12y ago

Hi I love the flotilla overall but I'm concerned about your choice of connector for connecting the dock to the sensors for 2 reasons: 1. The module rope appears to go against the USB 2.0 spec as the spec forbids the use of micro-usb to micro-usb cables. Now I know you aren't using USB for the data transfer but the cables could be used by someone who doesn't know that the cables can't be used that way to connect say two smartphones together. 2. By using the micro-usb connectors on the dock to connect to the sensors someone could connect the sensors to something say a smartphone (with the module rope) or to a computer (using the micro-usb to usb-A) which risks damaging both the sensor and the device been connected to, or worse plugging either the sensors or the sensor side of the dock into a phone charger again with the use of a micro-usb to usb-A. as I'm sure you are aware people will try to connect things together in ways the designer never thought of as long as they can fit together. Its fine if you have already thought of this and accounted for it by designing protection in or if the usb connectors are just been used while its in development, but if you intend for it to be used in places like schools this could be a major issue as it could quite easily damage equipment its not my place to tell you your job or anything but these are my concerns anyway that is just my two cents.

whiskers 12y ago
Hey! 1. The cables have a "twist" internally so they electrically match if you if you attempt to "loopback". They'll also have custom branding on the ends to make it clear they are not USB cables. 2. The modules/dock/cables are electrically compatible with USB (5V power, 3V3 data) and won't cause any damage to a USB device. The reason we selected those connectors is because they are rated for many insertions, relatively cheap and easy to get assembled as proper moulded cables, SMT placeable, and strong. We did evaluate many options but nothing came close to the quality at a reasonable price. Hope that answers your question!
- radcom123 12y ago
  Ah that is good to hear as I have seen in the past a number of things which use USB connectors, (for the same reasons you mention) but don't follow the spec at all. Which causes all kinds of fun problems. Keep up the great work.
  - whiskers 12y ago
    Thanks! :-)