Madox Board Comparison Spreadsheet & a biased view/rant on Raspberry Pi/Arduino :)

[Madox]

Hi (For Keith/Kris/Alexander?),

I've collated a short comparison spreadsheet of a small number of processor boards/modules into a Google Doc spreadsheet :-

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As8jGju5q-iJdDl4NXMxRjh0VTN6VmZnOW5LZGMtN2c&usp=sharing

The comparison is not meant to be exhaustive, but the selection should be helpful as they should all be readily available and are used by a fair number of R&D members.   For example, if you need a Teensy3/Carambola2/TL-WR703N you probably can buy one or two off some of us.

Of course there are other alternatives out there for you to look at if you're interested, for example with Linux boards we have others like the Wandboard, pcDuino, Gumstix and BeagleBone and for micros we still have Pololu Orangutans (integrated motor controllers!), MSP430 Launchpads and Freescale Freedom boards etc (Microchip PIC variety deliberately omitted!).

The above comparison table should be unbiased, the following is my personal opinion...

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The main annoyance I have with items such as the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino is that they are over-hyped, and that people start saying things like "you can just do that with an Arduino!" or "How is this different than a Raspberry Pi?".  Don't get me wrong, I think the Raspberry Pi initiative is great and could serve as a great educational tool but it is definitely not the solution for any problem you need a processor for.  The same is applies Arduino, it is great to help people get started on electronics and programming but it is not the solution to everything and there are many things it can not do.

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Lets start with the Raspberry Pi :-

In my view, the Raspberry Pi's form factor is poor with connectors on every side.  The Raspberry Pi is optimized for cost and it does that well but it suffers on the design front.  Lets say you want to build a small robot, your connectors and cables will likely need to spill out on every side.  What about a media PC, again you'll need to connect to almost every side and instead of a 90x60mm space you need almost a 19" rack to fit all the stuff to keep it tidy - Isn't one of those Android on a sticks much well better designed for a media PC?  Do you really need to jump on the Raspberry Pi bandwagon?

The "low price" can also be slightly misleading.  There are so many things that the price does not include.  For any decent performance you'll need a good fast SD card, add $10+.  Do you need WiFi or to use any USB peripherals?  Add an USB hub and a decent power supply.  Oh you need to buy a WiFi dongle too if you wanted that WiFi.  The standard line is that you probably have the keyboard and mouse, yes you probably do but probably not an USB WiFi dongle, a decent SD card nor a very good 5V power supply.

For media PCs, media devices designed for the purpose would be better.

For robotics/gadgets, you probably don't need all that processor power and better off with an OpenWRT router with a slave processor.  If you do need processor power, the RPi is underpowered anyway and you probably should get a cheap netbook.

For education, experimenting and introduction to Linux etc - Raspberry Pi is great!  [If you have the desk space to handle the spaghetti monster that forms from the cables].

//No no I won't go into the nitty gritty of the USB power issues/brownouts etc, not a fault of the RPi and not that annoying - every device has quirks.

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Arduino now:-

Actually nothing much on it, again just the form factor of the Mega is what irks me with the non-standard separation between the header pins meaning you can't breadboard it and that it is relatively...huge?. You can't fit it into small RC cars/boats for example.  The newer Mini/Due devices don't have this limitation and I have to admit/confess that the Arduino environment and how it has easy Win/Mac/Linux installs do make it very easy for the beginner to get started on it (You win Gav).

I prefer the Teensy 3.0 in this regard as it gets the benefits of the Arduino environment, but supplemented with good libraries for USB Serial/HID/Joystick etc with a much faster processor and form factor.  You can stick it into a breadboard to prototype and once you are ready then it's small size will be way easier to fit into your project whatever it is.

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Things I like with bullet points:-

TL-WR703N Router

 + Hey you're hacking a commercial product!

 + Built in WiFi means you can make stuff you control with your phone!

 + USB Host lets you connect slave processors on relatively easily to supplement the lack of IO.  Slave processor could mean Teensy 3.0, Arduino, Bus Pirate, IRToy, webcam etc etc!

 - No FCC/CE certification etc so you can't use it in products... Carambola2 hopefully to the rescue.

 - Only 4MB of on-board flash, can be fixed by a mod or using USB memory with Kean Board! (http://www.kean.com.au/oshw/WR703N/)

Teensy 3.0 

 + Small, fast, cheap, awesome

 + Arduino programming environment for novices (and the lazy...me), native programming available for the pros.

For example, a home automation or robotics project would be better served with a TL-WR703N + Teensy 3.0 (cheap and compact), compared to a RPi  (messy) or an Arduino with a WiFi shield (expensive).

 

Because I loved his use of Comic Sans - I'm going to link Tim's laser cut RC car photo here again :)

https://sydney-hackspace.googlegroups.com/attach/d091593f7264f22f/IMAG0085.jpg?gda=cDd3oEYAAAAtSwW3W1d2WfGg1cDvj7kumw0QMGh9lnPu4hzJE8S-9f02QGUhmL0D4mUXiOfceZZx40jamwa1UURqDcgHarKEE-Ea7GxYMt0t6nY0uV5FIQ&view=1&part=4

[Keith Franks]

I'll have a good indepth look at this real soon, but thanks so much for putting this together. As someone who is about to buy one of these, this is awesomely helpful.

Keith

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[Madox]

Which one are you looking to buy and for what reason (curiosity!)?

[Kris]

I can't open the spreadsheet Madox. Not sure if its me or not, can you check? (404 spreadsheet bout found)

You've sold me on the teensy!
Can you recommend a decent xbmc stick/silent box that will do dtv decoding? (I'm missing that with the pi)

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Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Matt Callow]

I can see it OK. Will take a good look at this later. Thanks Madox

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[Keith Franks]

Initially I wanted to buy the RPi, but seeing all the back and forth, I'm looking at the others to see how they compare.

The reasons are:

1) To work out how to use this kind of hardware and programming.

2) To run a media centre on my telly

3) To run a car computer in my car 

4) Other possible projects that I haven't really thought through too much (eg, jogging tracking with pulse/accel/elevation/gps/etc)

[Madox]

On Thursday, April 25, 2013 12:27:20 PM UTC+10, Kris wrote:

I can't open the spreadsheet Madox. Not sure if its me or not, can you check? (404 spreadsheet bout found)

It's you :) Try from a PC, works for me from Firefox privacy mode and Chrome Incognito too

 

You've sold me on the teensy!

Did you need to buy one?  There's one in the laser room on the shelf where the ping pong balls are labelled "For Patrick" :)  You can take that one and paypal me later :)

 

Can you recommend a decent xbmc stick/silent box that will do dtv decoding? (I'm missing that with the pi)

You can't use a USB tuner lilke the guys in the following thread? :

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=25882

[kris]

hmmm, it seems they've made progress since i last looked, i shall have a go again. (before it was stuttering badly or just didn't work at all).

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[Alexander]

I would like to thank Madox for his extremely useful spreadsheet! Since people are having problems, I've grabbed a HTML version of the spreadsheet and placed it on one of my machines.

Backup @ NetStarFish
or
http://netstarfish.com/comparison-dev.html

I can also personally attest to the Teensy's usefulness, as I have a Teensy 2 and 2++. A Teensy 3 would be nice though.

- Alexander.

[Tom Davies]

Thanks Madox. The LPCXpresso also looks quite nice: http://www.adafruit.com/product/1341 :

Four UARTs, CAN 2.0, Three SPI buses, Three I2C buses, and I2S for audio, 12-bit ADC and 10-bit DAC

Four HW timers, including one motor control PWM timer with support for three-phase motor control

Ethernet and USB host mode too -- but no Linux.

[Madox]

A long time ago I used to like https://www.olimex.com/Products/ for their cheap development boards :)  The rich list of peripherals is a trap though, for most hobby projects and the lazy you end up not going ahead due to the learning curve/effort required.  I bought so many LPC2294 boards thinking I'll write a USB to dual CAN converter... was way cheaper and quicker to just buy one ;)

Of course on the Olimex page you'll also find the OlinuXino - I think Kean is using those.

[ada]

On Apr 25, 12:11 pm, Madox <madox....@gmail.com> wrote:
> For media PCs, media devices designed for the purpose would be better.
> For robotics/gadgets, you probably don't need all that processor power and
> better off with an OpenWRT router with a slave processor.  If you do need
> processor power, the RPi is underpowered anyway and you probably should get
> a cheap netbook.

(1) Beaglebone black + Wifi vs
(2) Carambola+MB vs
(3) WR703N+F4Discovery vs
(4) GK802/MK808 + F4Discovery

all of which are better compromises, but which to choose?

(3) has the same CPU power as (2) but has licensing problems if you
want to ship it.
(2) is probably the most compact even if you use their MB; with your
own it can be astoundingly compact. Cost greater than (2). More ram/
flash but not by much.
(1) has the highest price.
(4) has the most CPU power but again licensing problems.

Thoughts?