Last I checked (over a year ago), compact DSP boards were still too power hungry to power with 9v or AA batteries for any length of time. Any lower powered boards now?
Battery powered DSP boards
Started by ●May 29, 2008
Reply by ●May 29, 20082008-05-29
On May 29, 6:02�am, R <R...@nospam.com> wrote:> Last I checked (over a year ago), compact DSP boards were still too > power hungry to power with 9v or AA batteries for any length of time. > Any lower powered boards now?nothing much new introduced in the last year or so, but, depending on your requirements, "DSP capable" micros (such as the floating point LPC3180, or fixed point AVR32) can certainly run on AA batteries.
Reply by ●May 29, 20082008-05-29
steve wrote:> On May 29, 6:02 am, R <R...@nospam.com> wrote: >> Last I checked (over a year ago), compact DSP boards were still too >> power hungry to power with 9v or AA batteries for any length of time. >> Any lower powered boards now? > > nothing much new introduced in the last year or so, but, depending on > your requirements, "DSP capable" micros (such as the floating point > LPC3180, or fixed point AVR32) can certainly run on AA batteries.Check out the TMS430, also. TI is _very_ proud of it's low-power features, and some versions have extra DSP capability. Granted, the architectures with the extra DSP capability are about as graceful as a parking an RV on top of a garage and calling it an apartment, but it is there. -- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com Do you need to implement control loops in software? "Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says. See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
Reply by ●May 29, 20082008-05-29
steve wrote:> On May 29, 6:02 am, R <R...@nospam.com> wrote: >> Last I checked (over a year ago), compact DSP boards were still too >> power hungry to power with 9v or AA batteries for any length of time. >> Any lower powered boards now? > > nothing much new introduced in the last year or so, but, depending on > your requirements, "DSP capable" micros (such as the floating point > LPC3180, or fixed point AVR32) can certainly run on AA batteries.did you ever look at TI's 'VC33? How about 2200 mAH NiMH AA cells? Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●May 29, 20082008-05-29
Un bel giorno R digit�:> Last I checked (over a year ago), compact DSP boards were still too > power hungry to power with 9v or AA batteries for any length of time. > Any lower powered boards now?The TMS320F2xxx family from TI is power friendly enough. They have a good MIPS/W performance, and several low power modes down to <1uA...100uA, depending on the model. This is the theory; the reality is a little different. I've used a TMS320LF24xx processor for a battery-powered device, and it's been quite a challenge; it's clear that the power saving wasn't the first project goal. Three examples: -If you need to go really down with the standby current, you have to manually shut down the internal flash controller with an elaborate procedure; -There isn't any auxiliary low-power oscillator input (for example for a 32 kHz clock crystal) and very few clock domains (if any); -There are only drastic ways to wake up from the deepest standby modes: a reset, an external NMI, or a special external interrupt (PDPINT). No chance to wake up from a peripheral event (all clocks are shut down and there isn't any combinatorial path, except from reset, NMI and PDPINT). -- emboliaschizoide.splinder.com
Reply by ●May 30, 20082008-05-30
On Thu, 29 May 2008 14:55:00 -0400, Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote:>steve wrote: >> On May 29, 6:02 am, R <R...@nospam.com> wrote: >>> Last I checked (over a year ago), compact DSP boards were still too >>> power hungry to power with 9v or AA batteries for any length of time. >>> Any lower powered boards now?>> nothing much new introduced in the last year or so, but, depending on >> your requirements, "DSP capable" micros (such as the floating point >> LPC3180, or fixed point AVR32) can certainly run on AA batteries.That's a thought. I certainly wouldn't mind having an actual OS. But it could be a pain to deal with sample rates, phasing, etc. Right?> did you ever look at TI's 'VC33? How about 2200 mAH NiMH AA cells? > >JerryJerry, If you're using the VC33, what is your opinion of development tools? Ideally, I'd like to find something with a C compiler, and if memory serves, that was a weak point of the TI DSP series.
Reply by ●May 30, 20082008-05-30
R wrote:> On Thu, 29 May 2008 14:55:00 -0400, Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote: > >> steve wrote: >>> On May 29, 6:02 am, R <R...@nospam.com> wrote: >>>> Last I checked (over a year ago), compact DSP boards were still too >>>> power hungry to power with 9v or AA batteries for any length of time. >>>> Any lower powered boards now? > >>> nothing much new introduced in the last year or so, but, depending on >>> your requirements, "DSP capable" micros (such as the floating point >>> LPC3180, or fixed point AVR32) can certainly run on AA batteries. > > That's a thought. I certainly wouldn't mind having an actual OS. > But it could be a pain to deal with sample rates, phasing, etc. Right? > >> did you ever look at TI's 'VC33? How about 2200 mAH NiMH AA cells? >> >> Jerry > > Jerry, If you're using the VC33, what is your opinion of development > tools? Ideally, I'd like to find something with a C compiler, and if > memory serves, that was a weak point of the TI DSP series.I was comped a development board and played with it a bit. Assembler only, though. I found that comfortable, but not everybody likes itchy underwear. :-) Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●May 30, 20082008-05-30
On Thu, 29 May 2008 23:39:37 -0400, Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote:>R wrote: >> >> Jerry, If you're using the VC33, what is your opinion of development >> tools? Ideally, I'd like to find something with a C compiler, and if >> memory serves, that was a weak point of the TI DSP series. > >I was comped a development board and played with it a bit. Assembler >only, though. I found that comfortable, but not everybody likes itchy >underwear. :-)Ha! Good analogy. Actually I've written lots of assembler for various microprocessors, but that's not something I'd look forward to. I don't even like looking at C code these days, but at least there can be some visible structure to it. Is the VC33 more energy efficient than others in the TI line?
Reply by ●May 30, 20082008-05-30
On May 29, 11:14�pm, R <R...@nospam.com> wrote:> On Thu, 29 May 2008 14:55:00 -0400, Jerry Avins <j...@ieee.org> wrote: > >steve wrote: > >> On May 29, 6:02 am, R <R...@nospam.com> wrote: > >>> Last I checked (over a year ago), compact DSP boards were still too > >>> power hungry to power with 9v or AA batteries for any length of time. > >>> Any lower powered boards now? > >> nothing much new introduced in the last year or so, but, depending on > >> your requirements, "DSP capable" micros (such as the floating point > >> LPC3180, or fixed point AVR32) can certainly run on AA batteries. > > That's a thought. I certainly wouldn't mind having an actual OS. > But it could be a pain to deal with sample rates, phasing, etc. Right?Yes, I've never used an actual OS, always wrote my own, even on systems with 10's of megs of memory. If something in the OS doesn't work right, you're screwed because you can't change it.
Reply by ●May 30, 20082008-05-30
R wrote:> On Thu, 29 May 2008 14:55:00 -0400, Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote: > >> steve wrote: >>> On May 29, 6:02 am, R <R...@nospam.com> wrote: >>>> Last I checked (over a year ago), compact DSP boards were still too >>>> power hungry to power with 9v or AA batteries for any length of time. >>>> Any lower powered boards now? > >>> nothing much new introduced in the last year or so, but, depending on >>> your requirements, "DSP capable" micros (such as the floating point >>> LPC3180, or fixed point AVR32) can certainly run on AA batteries. > > That's a thought. I certainly wouldn't mind having an actual OS. > But it could be a pain to deal with sample rates, phasing, etc. Right? > >> did you ever look at TI's 'VC33? How about 2200 mAH NiMH AA cells? >> >> Jerry > > Jerry, If you're using the VC33, what is your opinion of development > tools? Ideally, I'd like to find something with a C compiler, and if > memory serves, that was a weak point of the TI DSP series.I don't know about the 'VC33, but the tools for the '2812 work reasonably well. It's not fully ANSI-compatible ('double' is only 32 bit), and the optimizer can be a bit too aggressive about deleting code it doesn't think you really want (I call it "Code Composter"), but it's not too bad otherwise. -- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com Do you need to implement control loops in software? "Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says. See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
