[time-nuts] looking for low-power system for gps ntp timekeeping

Eric Williams wd6cmu at gmail.com
Tue Jul 2 02:11:57 EDT 2013


What did they leave out of the hardware?  Hard to tell what to look for
when it's not there.

Thanks for sharing your experience.
--
eric


On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 10:43 PM, NeonJohn <jgd at neon-john.com> wrote:

> Before anyone wastes his money on a BeagleBone, I suggest you join the
> mailing list and read the hundreds of messages each day that pass
> through, most of them citing problems, mostly with the Linux
> implementation.
>
> Basically, the ancient implementation of Angstrom Linux is a POS.  Just
> barely enough code to be able to say, for example, that SPI works.  It
> does - sorta - but not well enough for any application where clock
> timing or jitter matters.
>
> I had intended to embed the BB white in my next revision induction
> heater.  After several months of frustration and a considerable amount
> of money to a kernel programmer to write drivers that actually worked, I
> gave up.  I could easily had a man-year in the application that I can do
> bare metal in a few months.
>
> The thing that finally canned the BB for me was the short SD card life.
>  Even though the implementation uses a virtualized root file system, it
> still writes to the SD card about once a second.  The result is that
> even industrial grade SD cards rarely live over a year.  With the Black
> they tried to address the problem by putting some NAND memory on board
> but that only prolongs the problem and with components that are not
> easily changed.
>
> A final negative is the support.  The team member, a guy named Gerald,
> who provides official support on the mailing lists is one of the most
> hateful persons I've encountered on the net. No, I never personally had
> an encounter with him but I daily shook my head in amazement that TI
> would let such a person rep them.
>
> PS: Before you go to buy the Black, take a careful look at what all they
> left off in an effort to compete with the Pi.
>
> PSS:  I have a couple of Whites, one unopened, and a prototyping board
> for sale.  Cheap :-)
>
> John
>
>
>
> On 07/01/2013 11:14 AM, Chris Albertson wrote:
> > Thanks.  I didn't know there were two kinds.  This is more useful for
> only
> > $5 more.
>
>
> --
> John DeArmond
> Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
> http://www.fluxeon.com      <-- THE source for induction heaters
> http://www.neon-john.com    <-- email from here
> http://www.johndearmond.com <-- Best damned Blog on the net
> PGP key: wwwkeys.pgp.net: BCB68D77
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