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Hello, I am Kris (though I am originally from Montego Bay, Jamaica, West Indies). You guys might be wondering what someone from the tropics is doing in the cold of Canada... well, long story .

I have a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, primarily in power systems, and I currently own a 2008 Suzuki SX4 JLX AWD, which I might consider your ECU (once it matures) for someday. I've seen your videos on YouTube, and, for such a young project, I'm quite impressed with your progress .

The only questions/suggestions I have:

1. I assume you're planning future versions of your "Frankenso" board (now that you're looking to using the TMS570). I hope the new board is a little smaller that what you currently have, because the current one is pretty big.

2. Would using an FPGA (assuming 32-bit, non-volatile) be of any help to your efforts? This is not really my area of expertise, but I was looking at Altera (possibly their MAX 10) or Lattice (this one might be more of a long-shot from an OS point-of-view, since I haven't seen a Chibios/RT port for any of the the soft processor cores, apart from Altera's Nios II). Would pricing for these devices be worth your effort?

Cheers!

Hey Kris and welcome

klyttle wrote:1. I assume you're planning future versions of your "Frankenso" board (now that you're looking to using the TMS570). I hope the new board is a little smaller that what you currently have, because the current one is pretty big.

TMS570 might take a while and the smaller board is Frankenstein which might get an on-board power supply one day.

As for maturity, that would only happen if enough people would tinker with the current Beta version

Hello Kris,

Welcome along. I had a co-worker who poked his head over the cubical wall one wintery New-England day. He asked where I was born, and I noted a town about an hour away. He said oh, I got lost, then sat back down. I poked my head over the wall to learn more of what he meant. I asked what do you mean? He then claimed he once went on vacation one summer day, ran out of gas and has been trying to make enough money to get home ever sense I then noted that I thought he was there for some 20 years, he corrected me and noted 25 years, then looked at the cold weather with gloom. It was funny, so I figured I'd share the story.

About FPGA, don't tell russian, but I have a http://papilio.cc/index.php?n=Papilio.PapilioPro

I like the low latency, which becomes more important for fast RPM and direct injection where you can pulse around 5 times during combustion. If you are interested in porting to a soft processor, I'd be interested in the effort. I'm weak about software, so probably not much help in porting, but I would certainly find it interesting. I know and understand russian's approach to keep it simple and the processor we have can do many things.

Thank you both.

@kb1gtt: Moral of your story: Wherever you get lost, and your car quits on you, that's where you're gonna end up living .

Another FPGA option would be one with an integrated hard ARM processor; should make life a little easier for us... that is if this is another avenue worth pursuing.

One day down the road, perhaps.

Cheers!