Hi everyone:

I want to develop some engineering equipment, but don´t know much about electronics -I´m a geophysics engineer-. So a few days ago came up with the idea: I´m not an expert programmer, but if I could get a motherboard cheaper than a usual box motherboard, with usb and sound, I could probably program want I need. I could install linux from scrath or something like that, and that's it. But I can't find any "industrial motherboard" tutorial or something like that. Does anybody now of how to contact someone who is doing this? I know there are several persons doing similar things -companies actually- but have not been able to find something usefull.

I'm a graduate student, with an idea that could be fun to try, but not much money.

The final question I guess is something like this: say you want to build something like a cdplayer. If you get a cheap motherboard, a cdrom, install your distro, you got it. where can I find this kind of information?

Sorry for such a long thread, but it's difficult to explain what I´m looking for.

Not sure exactly if this is what you're looking for, but you could search for PC104 systems. They're generally small motherboards that use compact flash to store data. You can stack several of them together to get pretty complex systems. I feel like the mainboard with processor is around $100, but I could be mistaken. Some colleagues of mine put together a stack and built a controller for an Alstom Schilling Titan 3 hydraulic manipulator... I think the total stack is like 4 in x 4 in x 10 in.

OOOOOO those PC104's are neat. Is it like building a cluster? I want oneeeee... Well, like 20. What kind of hardware do they support? I think i've seen a picture of a bunch of these stacked togather in a cluster before that totaled like 10GHz, but they were all like running 400MHz chips, not sure if it was the same thing though.

http://gulker.com/photos/2002/pc104_cluster.jpg seeee!

I may be a bit off on pricing though. I did notice a parts list on one of those PC104 cluster sites that looked more like $400 each for a 266MHz mainboard...

Its all in the interpretation. Industrial computers could be ruggized rack mount PCs or similar that can handle harsh environments. Single board computers vary from just compact motherboards to specialized embedded controllers. The later typically do not have the capability of sound, video or hard drives and run a specialized version of an operating systems. PC014 is a standard for small form facter embedded single board computers.

Since this is a smaller market then the typical PC motherboard the prices are going to be generaly higher.

Search for single board computers.

There is also stuff like the Soekris (http://www.soekris.com) which are quite cheap, small and low power. Also runs linux no problems. For sound you would have to attach some external device to the USB port.

Probably still about as expensive as a bottom of the range consumer mobo/CPU/ram, with a fraction of the processing power.

VIA's nano-itx is also now on the market, with all the interfaces you would want and very small, but not cheap.

I'm an electrical engineer. You'd need to post your requirements and wants to be able to really direct you towards the correct hardware. I mean it's possible that an 8088 processor is all the computing power you need. If your requirements aren't too stringent, you might be able to pick up a used mobo for peanuts.

Like michaelk stated, industrial motherboards (or computers) are really computers designed to tolerate an industrial environment. High temp, dirty/dusty, high vibration, etc.

Hi, BTW I have some simple idea; why not building a DUAL CORE system it's a 2.8 GigaHerzt Intel P4 socket LGA775 (multiprocessor capabilities) on ASUS P5LD2 mainboard.(www.asus.com) but it would costs a lot for a student pocket ,otherwise you'll have a powerful system. Speaking of cheap system you can buy a Refurbished system for a hundred buckx.About an industrial system I havent found any cheaper solution; you know industrial board have specific configuration and rather unique. How about Single Board computer? Plenty of choice on the market but its difficult to upgrade and limited support from vendor. If you want an embeded computer you've got to spend more $$$ and knowledge on building them. Last but not least,ASROCK motherboards will help you a lot with; its brand new cheap system with today Computing capabilities and meets your budget. Here we're //ASUS ASROCK P4 socket LGA775 motherboard(the type is775i65GV) with onboards USB,VGA,sound module&LAN for only 58US$.
JUST A CLUE from BOBY.
regards.
☺☺☺☺☺

How about something like this...

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4030/53/

Hey mulciber, you are right. As soon as the Chinese ramp up production on those CPUs and distros like Debian and Gentoo get ported I think we will see some seriously low prices for linux systems.

Well, I never expected to get so many answers ! I´ll review everything and think it trough.

I´m not really into building anything specific for now. Later on I would like to build a small seismic adquisition system (say 40 channels) or a small tool for electromagnetic prospection for civil engineering. I´m not sure if it´s cheaper to build a simple thing than to buy the state of the art one, but at least you have some fun building it!

On the first one, basically you need to digitalize 40 500hz signals (frecuency may vary), for say 4 seconds, and record everything. On the second one, you generate a electromagnetic signal (I haven´t figure out it's power) and analize the response. It may be used to look for pipes o contamination.

again, thanks!

The first one should be pretty simple. You basically need a PC with a serial or parallel or USB port. Depending on the voltage levels you may need some circuitry external to the PC. The rest can be doen with software.

The second one is definitely going to need external hardware. You gotta have something to generate the electromagnetic signal. This one could cost some money. Controlling it with the PC would be easy though.

In any event, neither should require anything overly sophisticated. You could easily pick up an older PC and get by. In the States, the PC probably wouldn't cost you anything. Don't know about your neck of the woods.

Good luck.

Hi, you might wanna have a peek at......
http://www.arcom.com/products/icp/pc...es/default.htm
http://kerneltrap.org/node/6470
http://www.on-time.com/rtos-32-eval.htm
http://www.datec.at/
http://www.dataq.com/

Many of the "industrial ' single board computers have digital I/O ports right on the motherboard that you can interface with. perfect for data aquisition projects.

I suggest you also look at http://www.linuxdevices.com some really neat hardware and single board computers pass through that site.



I'm currently dealing with Acrosser for some of these single board computers, unfortunately they are not cheap, but they do contain all the features I need for a commercial product. and they do supprt Linux. Actually Acrosser will custom build an embedded Linux distro to your specs to accompany the board if you want (not for free unfortunately)

These boards contain things like built in CF slot that you can use to hold the OS. Built in VGA/LCD interface to directly drive a flat panel display. Low power consumption, passive cooling, and more..

These are probably out of the price range you are thinking of, but looking over the specs may give you some more ideas..

http://www.acrosser.com/products/ind...d-computer.htm Full spec sheets and manuals are on the site.