[barebottoms]

Originally posted by usjaz
Interesting. I did a little reading of referenced HW and SW.

I think the MicroLan interface is definitely very interesting idea!

Glad some one else see's the value in this.

However, battery backup is not included, so power failure must be dealt accordingly.

Over at Linux Hacker, Hardware1 had it running in his car for a few hours. Nothing special just direct 12v from the lighter to the router. He did it several times turning off the car and starting it. He was monitoring the link on his pc and the wireless never stuttered. Another person crank the input up to 30V (I think). Several people have said the on board regulator is pretty good on the belkin. So I think a simple Gel Cell should keep this thing running. Hardware1's notes were that it draws 3.84 watt at 12v.

http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/...age=0&Session=

The 1-wire Reef controller software and 1-wire devices for this project are very generic and can be connected to any Linux supported computing device equipped with serial and USB. I would actually do the majority of the development work on a regular PC, where you have the luxuary of monitor/keyboard/disk space/tools.

Yeah I agree, that's why I think OWFS is such a nice 1 Wire Software package. It is so portable. I already run Digitemp on my and OWFS on my linux box, and really all it takes is writing even shell scripts to interface with OWFS. Plus because of my limited flash, I can always just export the OWFS to my linux box and have the scripts run agains the OWFS on the Router.

When you get it working and tested on the PC, then cross compile for WRT... In another word, support both PC and WRT platform at the same time.

Already there. I have my Belkin console and have tested OWFS on it.

I've Xcomplied Busy Box for the Belkin (I guess it will work for WRT too), to make it small enough for the Belkin with Telnetd, HTTPD, NFS and the common bin utils.

On the OWFS page, there is already binaries to FUSE, OWFS, OWHTTD that has been XComplied for the WRT. Which just happens to run on the Belkin because it happens to have the same Kernel verison and uclibc version as the Linksys.

If you're going with the WRT as your platform, then it is easy. You just have to do the Buzzsaw extentions on it, and you're on your way.

With the Belkin, I had to strip a lot of software off the Stock firmware, rewrite my new image wrapped in it's special firmware header.

The relay you quoted only supports 60w switching, which is probably too low for lights/chiller/heater. Auxilary high wattage relays needs to be chained to it to be useful.

I thought it was, I'm no EE. Looking through the spec I was thinking that I can just take that to drive yet another relay like an SSR for higher loads.

Alternatively, use I/O switch like DS2406 driving external relay would be a much better choice.


Other readily available 1-w parts:

1-wire temp precision sensor DS18S20

DS-2190 for lights dimming

I'll probably need help with this. I've been collecting various samples and schematics from and for Dallas parts. The 4 channel AD converter is the one I can't wait to play with.

DS2480B Serial->1wire converter for network reliability.

This is probably what I will put right into the Belkin if I can't get the USB interface working on it. This is also Paul Allfie (author of OWFS) suggestion for the WRT where they have the luxury of 2 serial ports.

As far as software goes, you can write a daemon that does continueous monitoring and/or periodic evaluation. Or glue things together with cron as you suggested, but a single daemon that starts at every boot would be much more easy to debug and manage, and better reliability. It just has to be designed to deal with power failure. Cron job is nothing more than just periodic activation, which can be easily achieved with a daemon.

My background is in Linux embedded computing platform (everything from kernel/driver to userapps to web). I'm interested in your project and in contributing to it down the line.

Again I'll probably need help with this. I'm no programmer either But show me a sample or get me started, I usually can produce something that sort of works.

With regards to working on the pc for easier debugging, if you look at this link:

http://www.efn.org/~rick/work/f5d7230/

That's exactly the setup. He setups up a console and makes the router's bootloader boot off his pc. Reminds me of the vxworks loaders the Software Engineerers at my work uses, I guess it is the same idea here.

Let me know if you choose to go with the Belkin, I can give you all my notes on what it takes to make the image, what I stripped.. etc.. etc..

Either way, what ever hardware and software we come up with will work on any of these Broadcom reference design routers.