Multiple SPI/Serial + Ethernet MCU Solution

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1

Hi all,

I am currently researching solutions to a project I want to start. It will use:

TLC5940 LED controller (SPI)

HC-05 Bluetooth Transceiver (Serial)

Ethernet oe Wifi

3-5 other A/D I/O pins

I originally thought I would use an Arduino with Ethernet. However, upon further research, there are problems with the Arduino Ethernet shield and other SPI devices, not to mention pin conflicts with the Ethernet and TLC5940 libraries.

I am mainly looking for a single board solution with a MCU and Ethernet/Wifi, and enough I/O pins for my requirements. (something like https://www.sparkfun.com/products/7830 , but it doesn’t have the required # of SPI and Serial ports on external pins)

Raspberry Pi is another option, save for the TLC5940 part - there is no concrete library for it, and one of them has issues when the RPi does a context switch to a new process.

The PIC18F has models which include the TCP/IP stack, which the link before uses. I have a PICKIT3, so this is probably my forerunner choice. There is a lot of code out there for the TLC5940, and PIC18s include all the ports I need. However, I have not been able to find a board that meets my requirements, or any guides on how to wire my own.

There are so many other options out there that I thought I’d ask around before sorting through them all is I must.

Does anyone know of a board that has:
1) at least 1 SPI
2) at least 1 Serial
3) Ethernet or Wifi (or easily added)
4) at least 3 A/D pins
all externally accessible?
OR
a guide to wiring my own?

Thanks for any and all suggestions and ideas!

Thanks, Hengy

2

RPi runs Linux. Linux has a very fine TCP/IP stack for the ethernet and WiFi NICs.

Ethernet on the small micros… did you consider using the interfaces that are based on the WizNet 5100 or 5200 chips rather than the (crude/old) Microchip single connection/socket chip?

Consider too, the Teensy3.1 (or a bit older, Teensy3.0 or 2.0) module. Low cost has lots of I/O, big memory and drivers for the WizNet chips. The Teensy3.x are ARM Cortex CPUs, large memory, with good compatibility with Arduino libraries. The are teensy in size.

http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/index.html

great user forum…

http://forum.pjrc.com/forum.php

But these bare metal modules/Arduinos are in a different league than RPi or BeagleBlack boards with a full operating system.