In Control

Well, the festive season is upon us, and we are also celebrating the release of our latest SPLat controller, the CC16. As usual I am running a spot the SPLanta contest (it's become a bit of a tradition).

I have hidden a number of SPLantas on our website. For a chance to win a CC16DK all you have to do is find them all and send me a list of where they are located. Do not include the one to the left or the ones in the SPLat Knowledge Base.

Let me give you a couple of hints:

• There are 6 or more SPLantas
  
• Some are rather cunningly hidden, but they are there
  
• Be sure you don't count the same SPLanta twice.
  
• splatco.com and splatco.com.au are not counted as separate places.
  

Happy hunting. And Season's Greetings!

We have just released a new controller that is aimed at very cost sensitive applications.

The CC16 is so named because it is the size of a credit card and has 16 I/O points. Each I/O can be used an an input or as an output. The 1-off price at introduction is $65 for the OEM version. Interesting features include:

• 400mA outputs, just like our other, dearer, controllers
• Protected, NPN compatible inputs
• New processor, over twice as fast as other current products
• Full multitasking
• 25K program space, equivalent to over 200K in a C-programmed controller
• Capable of working with our regular expansion boards
• ModBus

So how do we do it?

Well, there are naturally some compromises. Mainly, the board can't accept SPice add-on boards. That means no option to add analog. It has no RS232, so you need a special programming cable (the same one we use with the MS12). There is no timing crystal, so timing accuracy is around 2%.

Connections are via the now-familiar friction lock connectors, using 0.1in pitch. Early in 2007 we will be releasing a plug-on terminal block adapter, which will convert the power and I/O connections to screw terminals. There will also be a larger "developer's breakout board" with screw terminals, indicator LEDs and DIP switches for activating inputs. That alone will make this my second favorite board for trying out programming ideas (my favorite is still the TR601 trainer, because it has lots of onboard widgets for playing with.)

Well, it's nearly Christmas. This is the holiday season for us in Australia. Summer is around the corner. The state of Victoria is in the grip of extensive bush fires, and Melbourne has been blanketed in smoke today.

This afternoon we had our Christmas breakup with a barbecue and an outing to play a game of lawn bowls. This was a new experience for us all, and a good way to wind down after a hectic year.

Our office will technically be shut until January 8, though we will process one or two batches of orders during that time. Please be patient, and allow a few extra days. Our Boston warehouse will be shut December 20 to January 22, so shipments will be made from Melbourne.

Support requests will still be answered, but please allow a little more time than usual.

The CC16 controller is our latest model, introduced just before Christmas. It gives you 16 industrialized digital I/O points at the lowest price per point in the industry. We are now about to add two optional accessories to make the CC16 even easier to use.

The first of the two is the CC16BB. BB stands for "Breakout Board". This board plugs onto the CC16 and brings all the I/O and power connections out to screw terminal blocks. It also has DIP switches for activating inputs and LEDs to indicate the state of each I/O point. Remember, each point on the CC16 can be used as an input or as an output. To use a point as an output you simply make sure the corresponding DIP switch is left OFF. The CC16BB is intended for use during development, and will make it very easy for you to test your programs without being connected to the "real thing".

Just before Christmas I ran a competition to see who could spot all the SPLantas on our main website. We have 5 lucky (or should I say clever?) winners.

And the winners are .... (drum roll) ...

Adrian Hoffman, Queensland, Australia
Bob Whitefield, North Carolina, USA
Gilbert Harmon, USA
Dennis Knowles, Florida, USA
David Edwards, Tasmania, Australia

The winners are being notified via email. An honorable mention goes to A. Fernando whose entry was logged 6 minutes after the 5th correct entry.

Congratulations. You have each won a CC16DK developer's kit. It will be sent to you as soon as we have your address details.

We have now completed a redesign of the MS12, renaming it MS120, and we are shipping the new product. The MS120 has all the features of its predecessor, but with the following enhancements:

• Approximately twice as fast;
  
• 24K of program memory versus 6K;
  
• Support for ModBus slave RTU;
  
• RoHS compliant (lead-free construction);
  
• Improved EMI performance
  

Back in 1998 we designed the first SPLat with a built in operator interface (OI, HMI). Little did we realize at the time how successful the product would be, how many competitors would emulate the concept of a controller with on board OI and user legendable graphics overlay and how may direct successors it would have.

The MMi product has been designed in to a large number of OEM products world-wide, from industrial laminators to pump controllers.

Now there is a new, improved family member.

As we get access to faster microcontroller chips, we are able to incorporate new features. The latest feature is a medium speed counter implemented in firmware.

The "OnBoard Counter type B" (OBCB) is able to count at up to 1.8kHz on up to 8 inputs simultaneously. It accumulates counts in a 16-bit counter per channel. A novel timebase system lets you make frequency measurements.

This feature is in addition to the hardware based high speed counter, which goes to up to 100kHz (depending on the product), and the quadrature counter, plus of course all the ways you can count in SPLatWare.

Our website now features a new "Take the Tour" section for OEM. In 5 minutes this brief and to the point "slideshow" will give you an idea of how well a SPLat controller in your product would help make you more competitive. So if your product needs an electronic controller, why not Take the Tour now!

We recently launched our non-technical Tour for OEMs. This has worked very well in helping new visitors to our website get a quick overview of SPLat from one point of view. We now made a new tour for the more technically minded. The Tour for Techies will give you a quick sample of what it is like to use SPLat from an electrical and programming point of view. It is accessible from our home page.

We have just released free upgrade feature for all current model off-the-shelf SPLat controllers. It is called OnBoard Counter B (OBCB). With this counter you have 8 channels of medium speed (up to 1.8kHz) counting that can be used for frequency or events. OBCB is documented here.

A customer recently asked how he could get a SPLat working down to a time resolution of 6mS, i.e. shorter than the basic 10mS heart beat we normally use. So what we have done is to create a way of setting the rate at which the SuperTimers tick over. This can now be set to anywhere from 1mS to 255mS. To use the faster settings you would have to make sure your program is very short and tight ... there's no point having the timer period shorter that the execution time of your program. For the slower setting you can now time up to a whopping 49 days in one go, albeit with resolution reduced to 255mS. Documentation.

And here's the customer's reaction.

I am really excited about this.

We have just completed work on a whole new method of interconnecting several SPLat boards into a "very local network". We call it Xwire.

Xwire is a very easy to use, extremely low cost serial peripheral bus. If you have a CC16 or MS120, you may have noticed some 2-pin connectors labeled X1 and/or X2. On the CC16 there are 2 of them (X1 and X2). On the MS120 there is one. You can connect the X1/X2 connectors on a number of boards together using simple twisted wire, and with some very easy programming get the boards exchanging data. In effect, once it is set up with a master controller and one or more slaves, the master can swap nominated bytes of RAM with each slave.

In the 15 months since its release the CC16 has become very popular. We have now upgraded the design and included a couple of new features, namely two analog inputs and a bi-color status LED. The new model is called CC18.

The analog inputs are very well suited to the new breed of sensors that produce a ratiometric output voltage between 0V and the + supply (normally 5V).

The LED is a red/green LED that can be set to light steady of blink in red, green or orange.

Everything else is exactly what you have become used to, only the 5V regulator is now flat to the board, reducing the overall hight.

More on the CC18