[comp.robotics] low power vme

rg@msel.unh.edu (Roger Gonzalez) (05/22/91)

We're looking for low-power VME manufacturers that use Wind River's
VxWorks realtime OS.  So far we have come up with Dynatem, who also
distributes low-power boards from a german company called "o+r".

We're looking for boards that draw around 1 amp.  Just as a comparison:
Heurikon 68030 cpu    12A
Dynatem 68030 cpu      1A   (all CMOS)

These boards have to reliably run off batteries for many hours.

Thanks,
Roger

Vendor notice: VxWorks support is -not- negotiable.  If it won't run
with your product, or takes over 1A for a stripped CPU or 2A for a
CPU with SCSI and ethernet, please don't bother to call.  I don't care
if you support OS/9, VRTX, pSOS, etc.  We've evaluated them all to
death.

-- 
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting
 than the question of whether a submarine can swim" - Edsgar W. Dijkstra 
rg@[msel|unhd].unh.edu        |  UNH Marine Systems Engineering Laboratory
r_gonzalez@unhh.bitnet        |  Durham, NH  03824-3525

mkb@rover.ri.cmu.edu (05/23/91)

In article <1991May22.132045.13601@unhd.unh.edu> rg@msel.unh.edu (Roger
Gonzalez) writes:
>We're looking for low-power VME manufacturers that use Wind River's
>VxWorks realtime OS.  So far we have come up with Dynatem, who also
>distributes low-power boards from a german company called "o+r".
>
>We're looking for boards that draw around 1 amp.  Just as a comparison:
>Heurikon 68030 cpu    12A
>Dynatem 68030 cpu      1A   (all CMOS)
>
We have been running a Dynatem DCPU-30 on the Uranus mobile robot for over a
year, and it works great. All memory is battery backed, which is very
convenient. We made a minor mod to the board so the timers can generate
on-board interrupts (across the daughter card connector to the daughter card
vector), since the fastest rate through the RTC wasn't fast enough for us.

VxWorks support for the board has just become available, and I issued a PO for
it this afternoon. Note that VxWorks will support the Dynatem DLAN ethernet
controller (3U size card, 1A current draw), but not the XLAN daughter card.

        Mike Blackwell         mkb@rover.ri.cmu.edu
        Field Robotics Center, Carnegie Mellon University