On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 1:11 PM, William Huston <williamahuston@gmail.com> wrote:

I hope this is relevant to this list!

I am having big dreams about what can be done with cheap, tiny computers running PD. Look at the various Laptop Orchestras popping up. So exciting!

My minimum specification is:

* Pi-like horsepower
* 10x buffered ADCs with 12bit precision
* 4x high quality isolated 24 bit @ 48 khz audio ins and 4x out

I want to build 100,
But first I need to build 1.

It seems the big disadvantage of an Arduino is it is underpowered vs. a RPi quad core (w/faster CPU, more memory, etc). But it seems people love Arduino due to its IO pins. Many ADCs for controllers and sensors!

Whereas the RPi is just the opposite. Also high-quality audio both in and out on a Pi seems like a problem people face. Has anyone fixed the issue yet with USB2 stability yet?

Do some people use a Pi for CPU and an Arduinio just for IO? (cf. Arduberry) This seems like what an Udoo is (both in one unit). Udoo comments?

Along these lines, I have found I really like the specs of the Wolfson Audio card. The chip it's based on (WM5102) is a 6x6.
Any experiences to share?

I haven't found a buffered ADC solution for high resolution sensors yet. I'm just starting a search of chips capable of this, and found about 6 so far... So I'm guessing there are several possible boards. Again, any recommendations appreciated (esp. of their voltage ranges can be scaled).

Are there any other single board computers I should be looking at which might help keep h/w costs down?

The Beaglebone Black has 6 12-bit ADCs that run on 1.8V.

I use one combined with a USB audio interface, the Behringer UCA-202.

It's easier to do that than build an audio codec.

Also the Beaglebone has many more IO pins than the Pi, all 3.3V levels though.

I find it easier to do sensor IO with an Arduino connected to a Beaglebone as it's a big hassle to set up the pins and the way of doing it changes all the time, although I did manage to get a text LCD display running and read some potentiometers. It means running two programs simultaneously, one to interface the sensors and display and another to make sound, communicating by OSC over UDP to localhost.

Martin