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Adapter board in Netburner kit
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 4:17 am
by Ralph
The PINK kit from Netburner includes an "adapter board" and jumper cable that was not included with the kit from Parallax. What is this adapter and can it be puchased separately? By the way, thank you (netburner) very much for continuing this product! I was very disappointed when I heard that it was being discontinued by Parallax since I just started using it and have hopes of adding more so that I can monitor and control functions of our various greenhouses and refrigerated strorage areas.
Re: Adapter board in Netburner kit
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:22 am
by lgitlitz
The extra adapter included in this kit is the same adapter that is included in the standard SB70 development kit. What this provides is a switching power supply which accepts 7-22VDC and also level translators for the two UARTs along with DB9 serial ports. We also include the walwort to power this adapter from a standard outlet. This is useful if you need to debug the PINK module directly from a PC without relying on a Parallax power supply or STAMP module. If you already have a power supply for the PINK and are just using the digital UARTs to talk to a STAMP then you will not need this adapter board except for debugging. This adapter board can be found on the store here:
http://www.netburnerstore.com/embedded_ ... -100cr.htm
If you are getting multiple units I suggest only getting a single PINK kit and then just purchasing the SB70 units alone. This should save about $50 over the kit pricing when this was supplied by Parallax... even more if you are buying higher volumes. The stand alone SB70 units come with no cables, I suggest monoprice.com if you want to buy cheap wires.
I do not believe that Parallax gave the ability to update the software of the PINK modules but NetBurner now supports this. You can update the PINK software from any PC connected on the same network by using the AutoUpdate PC application. Look at the bottom of the NetBurner resources page for all the software and docs you will need for debugging or updating your PINK module:
http://www.netburner.com/resources/index.html
Take note that we have updated the PINK application to version 1.36 which can be applied to all versions of the PINK modules. In this version we have added SSL authentication for sending and receiving e-mail. This will allow you to use popular "anonymous" e-mail services such as Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail. Most freely available "anonymous" e-mail services no longer support plain text SMTP to prevent spammer abuse.
-Larry Gitlitz