Looking for controller + SD card solution

I have used:

I installed this data logger in a rooftop air conditioning unit 2 years ago.

Still running.

The only problem is which SD card to use. The first cards I used did not like the summer heat. In the summer none of the SD cards I used lasted more then 2-3 weeks.

I added this:

and ran the SD card over a serial link inside the building.

A relay to switch power ON/OFF to the OpenLOG device helped keep things in check.

If I were to do this over, I would use an Arduino and OpenLOG device together.

hamilton

This works:

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If you need any kind of real-time data rate with the logging, go with your guru and pick a BIG inexpensive micro. Big in RAM, that is. SD cards are nasty little things that can go AWOL for many, many milliseconds at a time (unspecified by 'class' or anywhere else that I can tell). You need enough buffer to avoid that happening.

You also need to look at the library for file systems if that's important to you (so you can read it on a PC or whatever), and you may need to license IP for a file system that can handle large file sizes. Just writing to a SD card using SPI mode is something any micro can handle, but you probably want better than that.

I would definitely go with an ARM processor, and one that has an eval board with an SD card socket and library to check it out. I can't give any specific recomendations beyond that (though I note that a few ARM micros have hardware to support SD cards on board- OKI maybe and others??)

On a sunny day (Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:01:47 -0400) it happened Spehro Pefhany wrote in :

Edison and his men solved this data logging thing a long time ago by scratching with a needle in tin foil. I remember nice loggers with several moving pens drawing directly on a slowly moving piece of paper, saving you the printer, SDcard, memory, and micro shit.

So I do not know what he is logging, but of it is sunrise-sunset maybe ebay for a real paper logger like that?

with a needle in tin foil.

moving piece of paper,

This is what a real paper logger looks like 'roud these here parts:

On a sunny day (Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:10:05 -0400) it happened Spehro Pefhany wrote in :

scratching with a needle in tin foil.

moving piece of paper,

That really is a very nice video clip :-)

scratching with a needle in tin foil.

moving piece of paper,

for

This is a more clear version, but I thought you'd like the other one ;-)

A Microchip PIC32 or even PIC24 associated with the FatFS open-source FAT stack will be ideal. We just finalized a project using this solution, with up to 460KB/s sustained write throughput on an SDHC using a PIC32. Nice, code, easy integration.

Cheers, Robert Lacoste ALCIOM - The mixed signal experts

Hello,

The question is simple: I'm looking for a relatively simple microcontroller with proper SD card support, for logging some basic data (switching LEDs on, waiting for a button to be pressed, and loggin the timing between these events).

In the past, I've built something based on an Atmel controller and Ronald Riegel's SD software stack

), but the programming guru I worked with found this a bit too frugal in all, and wasn't quite certain it was fully stable. I did the job though, but I thought I'd look for something more modern anyway.

I found NXP's LPC1758 and LPC1768 controllers, but these are frankly overkill for the job. If it weren't for the SD card, I could easily do the whole thing in the cheapest PIC controller.

Since I'm better at hardware than at software, I thought I'd ask here for some hints to point me in the right direction. Basically, I need a simple controller with proven reliable SD card support. Does anyone around here have any tips or preferences?

Thanks in advance, best regards,

Richard Rasker

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http://www.linetec.nl

microcontroller

these

Ronald

but

and

the

for

simple

On the face of, it at this point, take a blowtorch to the "programmer" about what is wrong with frugal. Indicate that you despise people that need 10X the resources to do something simple.

But that is just my point of view.

?-)

Have a look at this one. 79 bux I think.

Dave