How Would You RoadTest a Powerful Microcontroller Designed for EV Charging, e-Bikes and Robotics?

Its an interesting processor and board. There is a lot of stuff in that processor chip - you would be spending a LOT more than 40 hours just reading the data and getting to understand how it works.

Then you need to think of a decent project and try and implement it.

Things that stand out for me are the CAN FD and ethernet, you could make a nice CAN FD monitor device with Ethernet connection to PC - I've done that with an ST ARM M7 for single speed CAN and it's a lot of work.

Any real project using this processor will be a lot of work !

It would be really nice to have another board that talks CAN FD as part of the kit so it has something to talk to.

I don't have a current project that would use this part - and while it might be fun to play with it a bit that wouldn't really make a good Road Test.

For any one who does have a serious project for it the cost of the board is just going to be lost in the noise of the other project costs.

So the ideal tester will be some one with time on their hands and a lot of skill and experience - not too common a person to find.

MK

Infineon microcontrollers are absolutely awesome.

The older ones used the 'DAVE' programming environment, but these newer ones use Modus Toolbox.

The processor is powerful, but Infineon microcontrollers usually have very nice integrated peripherals too, and good API (at least with DAVE, the APIs were very nice), for all sorts of industrial applications.

For this particular device, it would be interesting to see RoadTest reviews that would exercise (and the user to provide their code!) at least the CAN, Ethernet and the configurable serial blocks.

It's also got very interesting memory interfaces, and also support high-speed writing to SD cards, which is neat for logging loads of data, measurements, etc.

It's an extremely powerful, feature-rich processor, and the board looks well thought-out too. Also interesting to see M.2 interface on the board, which has SDIO and UART it looks like connected to it.

It's really a case of how deep a user wants to go, to review such a product. It's super-feature-rich.

With an old XMOS Xcore microcontroller, since that was a totally new concept to most people (including me), I wrote three blogs that described the architecture and then went into example projects with it. (link to first blog is here in case it helps show what I mean). Probably, this Infineon chip needs a slightly similar thing to get people up-to-speed. But, I'm concerned, most people won't be interested to read the review (which then doesn't help anyone), unless it's really targetted to the potential users of this product. Therefore it would be a shame seeing this board being used to flash neopixels (unless it was demonstrating some underlying OS or important middleware). 

It would be nice to spend time learning to use this microcontroller, it's a big time investment for sure, and would need several blogs perhaps spaced a few weeks apart. Provided a long application isn't needed, I'd love to apply : ) I'd rather be learning stuff over Xmas than not : )

Same as Michael, I don't have a current project for this, so if I was selected really it would only be an explanation of the technology and how to use it, with example hardware/software, prototyped onto the development board, i.e. no actual end device being made.

In terms of extras, perhaps the less the better, so that the focus is on using the microcontroller. However, I have not used CAN, and would require some sort of simple CAN node to attach to. I don't know what, perhaps others can suggest that.

I would get a used power wheels car (which it already an EV) remove the switch gas pedal, and make it an smart EV. Would need some type of ev charge connector to be realistic.

My ultimate dream is refitting a power wheels style tank, kick out the kids, and making it RC. Would need at least 1 substantial servo > 20kg*cm for steering. I dont think the kiddie tank has a motor per tread, 50 and 100amp H bridges arent bank breakers for motor drivers. Massive sound system for the diesel and tread clanking.

Now that would be a fun project. 

robogary said:

Massive sound system for the diesel and tread clanking

You have seen Nik Nowak's 'Sound Tank' haven't you ?

https://en-uk.sennheiser.com/shape-the-future-of-audio-nik-nowak-sound-tank-performance-gramps-miami

Awesomeness  

I want to see Infineon fund this project for you, @robogary!!

now thats what I'm talking about !   The 1812 Overture could use a speaker like that. 

The debut being in Miami I'm sure played some Pitbull on it   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaSZE194D4I

I wanna see the tuned port enclosure calculations for this one 

If you want something a little more challenging, i.e. weekend project as opposed to single evening project, then a motorised line array that allows automatic alignment of each segment of the array for optimal sound coverage using machine vision to detect the current space occupancy.

Looks like an interesting kit. I was in a challenge for the PSoC RA2 an kit and I’m presently participating in a challenge on hackster.. Im  utilizing the PSoC 4100S Pioneer kit.

in my experience he’s a very well design kits. Usually the self-contained with the sensors needed to experiment with. This one would probably need extra offboard components to test it.

What I  usually do for road test  is to scrutinize the documentation and the code examples. Modus toolbox is a complex programming  environment. There is always hello world,

I am planning to purchase an electric cycle next summer so if this road test overlapped with that purchase I would try to do comparison tests between this controller and a commercial controller.

This powerful module/kit is not a complete charging controller, so there would be a lot of work to design and build it into a useful charging controller. No doubt it could be a much smarter and better connected controller than a normal commercial controller, but it is not clear how much could be accomplished in a typical road test period.

I have not researched this module enough yet to determine if I would take on such an ambitious project.