Yeah, I've been digging into it since yesterday and EtherCAT works a bit differently than I thought it did. The master can run on a standard ethernet port with just some software. The slaves need an EtherCAT Slave Controller or ESC. The ESC has...
I've seen a few posts from a couple years ago but nothing with much info. I've seen some projects using an Arduino and this ethercat shield:
https://www.bausano.net/en/hardware/easycat.html
It seems like it would be a hell of alot cheaper and...
I know exactly what you meant. Like I said, it's 3 layers of serial protocols just to read some buttons. USB->Teensy, TeensyRS485->keypadMCU, KeypadMCU->I2C eapanders
The cable is 2ft long, what I was asking in the original post was if it might...
I don't think I wanna go that route. The keypad requires 64 IO, so I'd still have to use some kind of expander or mux ICs on the keypad even if I did use a small microcontroller. Stacking 3 layers of serial just to read/write buttons/LEDs is a...
I'm re-doing a project that originally used an Arduino Mega. I wanted to use a Teensy 4.1 but it's short on pins and voltage level...etc. I have to make some changes basically to work around some firmware issues and I figure I may as well just...
I've been using them for years, I haven't seen an increase in quality because it's always been good. I assemble my own PCBs and don't get into BGA type stuff but I do some 4layer boards. At some point I'll finish my PnP machine, but that's a...
I've never used OshPark, I've done quotes several times as it would be nice to use a US PCB manufacturer but it never works out, their prices are never reasonable vs qty.
I've used PCBway a couple of times, I can't really remember why. I hate...