need a board automotive

If the device already existed in exactly the required form, they wouldn't need *you*. Take what you can get and make it into what you need. Hint: It's called engineering.

Bob

I think you answered "wrong" question. I'll concede he may have also asked a "wrong" question.

Note that he specified that this was a *student* question. He also specified that his concern was "a board that has _interlocking connectors_ and can _withstand vibrations_." [emphasis added]

I suspect he has seen ads which tout *development* boards suitable for _low volume_ *PRODUCTION*

So where did he LOGICALLY go wrong? He is obviously in "development phase". He is obviously "low volume" user. Does not "production" imply something suitable for shipping to a paying customer?

I believe he should also consider temperature extremes and storage voltages on power and I/O lines.

Since the last commercial system I dealt with was probably built before he was born ... ;)

Mike, feel free to contact me. [email valid if heavily filtered] May not have 'answers' but might have 'educational questions'

I also think Mike could have been a little more helpful. [%X]

I recall that there are some companies out there that produce small processor boards that are able to be bolted down onto a board that contains the I/O portion of the project. This way, the I/O circuitry can be designed, by the OP, to handle the automotive power supplies and transients.

The rest of the automotive environment (temperature, vibration, electrical noise) can be managed by electronics package siting, enclosure, filtering, and thermal management.

I wish I could remember which companies did the very small boards. Perhaps others may know. Failing that I will have a list after I visit ESS on Thursday.

Thanks for your replies everyone.

First of all I want to emphasize a few things that I might have not been very clear about. First of all, this project is for a race car, which means that we are not intending to mass produce the board. Second, the reason why I cannot design the board from scratch is not so much because it is a student project but more because I am the only person working on the embedded system part and there are significant time constraints on when the system should be available for testing. Thus, I was not looking to purchase something that can be mass produced but rather a board that was almost ready to go into the car and would need a few minor tweaks. The bulk of the work is designing the algorythm to run the control system. There are plenty of general purpose boards available on the market that are intended for use in real applications and not as evaluation boards. However, I thought that there may be companies that manufacture microcontroller boards that can operate under heavy conditions. That turns out to not to be true so far.

It seems that right now the best solution would be to use a general purpose board, solder out the IO connectors and replace them as necessary and then put it in a shockproof (and other -proof) casing. I have seen some examples of production systems (like engine control units that come off the market sealed in a plastic case filled completely with epoxy so that only the outside connectors are accessible. The heat is not an issue since the control tasks will not be extremely complex and should not draw any excessive power.

I like the idea of servo board used to interface with the motors and as a matter of fact I have considered such an idea (robotics sites are definetely the best for that kind of stuff) however the exact type of motors is still unknown and will be determined after the necessary calculations and design are complete.

Thanks again to everyone who replied! Best regards

- Mike

As I indicated in my previous response, not as a single board. Howver, you could gather a collection of boards and put them together in quite a robust fashion.

Many of the small processor modules are built with 0.1 inch header strips. So long as these poke through the board they can interface with an appropriately positioned turned-pin header soxket strip. With the small processor modules the weight is minimal and so does not impose to much strain on the mountings (especially when the boards are bolted down together). The motherboard that you bolt down the processor module can sport the decent resilient connectors for connecting to the outside (hostile) world. It is the sort of construction I would employ for prototype test of principle systems.

I managed to find some time to browse around a little.

You may find

helpful sites to get you started.

If you don't find the exact interface set-up you require you can always build your own onto pre-drilled proto-boards using the hook-up wire methods I outlined in another thread. It can be quite robust despite not looking that pretty.

I've done precisely that for prototypes myself

The above link is to a prototype using a simmstick format board. You can see it bolted to the carrier board at 4 places. In this case I hard wired the external wires. The carrier board in turn was bolted into its case.

Of course you still have to design the I/O carrier.

Robert