Another Amicus18-Ethernet approach

[dhouston]

And if Tibbo really delivers on its long promised EM500 firmware for theGA1000, this could also do WiFi.

and if they don't it will my sanity that's at risk.

[HenrikOlsson]

Hi,
The dimensions of the shield and the location of the main I/O headers matches those of the Arduino shields otherwise the Arduino shields would not fit the AMICUS (mechanically....electrically they might not anyway as we've seen).

.brd files are board files for Cadsoft EAGLE layout, you can download the free version of EAGLE from their website and use it to extract any dimensions you need - if you don't want to use to create/edit the shield files.

(Hoefully Lester jumps in and corrects my if I make a mistake here).
The AMICUS18 can be used with both 3.3V and 5V devices, it comes with the 18F25K20 which is a 3.3V device and therefor it is set up for 3.3V. The board is powered either from USB or extaranlly by ~9VDC and it supplies 5V and 3.3V to the shield. There are solder-pads available on the board which, when bridged feeds 5V to the PIC instead of 3.3V in which case the I/O's are obviously 5V instead of 3.3V.

There is a schematic on page 11 in the hardware manual.

HTH
/Henrik.

[dhouston]

The dimensions of the shield and the location of the main I/O headers matches those of the Arduino shields otherwise the Arduino shields would not fit the AMICUS (mechanically....electrically they might not anyway as we've seen).

Thanks, Henrik.

I had already found the schematic and then I also found a PDF with the shield outline and dimensions. Both are attached to my last response to Bruce in this section along with a link to where I found the dimensioned drawing where there's also a link to an even lower cost Arduino clone for 18 or 28 pin PIC or PICAXE.

The EM500 shield will have minimal connections to the main board - I think 3.3V, GND, RX, TX re all that are needed. (I may find more once I'm fully awake - I was up well past my bedtime last night.) The site I referenced in the other thread mentioned a new 5V version of the chip, also.

[dhouston]

The Arduino clone for both 18 & 28 pin PIC or PICAXE is here and that's also where I saw the mention of the 5V 18F25K22..

[Gevo]

@dhouston

The Ami18 board (full Amicus18 clone) is already running with the PIC18F25K22 (5-volt) part.

http://www.picshop.nl/ami18_board.html

With a DS30 bootloader or a PICkit2 programmer, the board is usable for PBP users. I use up for ten years PBP Pro, so al my firmware is in PBP.

[dhouston]

@gevo

Thanks for the link.

I'm going to order a Xino Basic kit (I usually don't like it when the International airmail postage is nearly as much as the product but will make an exception in this case.). That way I can test any shields I design.

I suspect I can have it assembled long before Tibbo releases the long-promised EM500 firmware that supports the GA1000. And it will only take about a week to get a few boards from CircuitMart or ezPCB as soon as Tibbo confirms the EM500/GA1000 interconnect scheme.

About a year ago they told me they could be assigned in the EM500 program but a lot has changed (except for the EM500 firmware ) since then so I need confirmation before etching any copper.