[TriEmbed] (POE) Ethernet microcontroller

[John Vaughters]

Glen,

Thanks for follwoing up. Since you are dealing with what seems like a production type issue. I would like to make a suggestion that you concentrate on the reliability of the solution or the troubleshooting time will kill any hardware savings. Spend the money up front and test test test. From your description, you may want to consider a fully embedded solution vs. an Arduino. You will get your sound and it will be quite good actually. Solutions like R-Pi may be a better bet. There are literally tons of options out there for a fully embedded solution, so look around. 


I personally have stayed away from ethernet as a reliable solution for Arduino. The logic being that the software is way to new and the point about the 8 vs. 32 bit just strengthened my belief. With an R-Pi and any other linux based embedded solution, you are getting very robust software stacks that have literally been in Development for decades. You also get serial UARTs that can be directly connected to Arduinos and UARTs have been around since computer interfaces have been around. Meaning about the most reliable software you can find. You can connect an arduino to an embedded system via UART and expect very reliable communication to a very reliable Linux OS. This is a production solution. Of course you could also extend the Embedded hardware for I/O, but I would rather preserve my embedded device as a simple computer and let the Arduinos fry in the expected event of hardware problems ie shorts and mis-wiring.  You can replace an Arduino for very
 little cost these days. Less than $10. 

Concerning POE, you could look for embedded devices that accept it, but it seems to me that they jack the cost up higher than need be for that priveledge. You could also look for RJ-45 break out boards and some buck regulators which are super cheap and create your own POE break out solution. It really would not be that hard. Maybe search OshPark for a POE break out with a Buck regulator.

When you are done testing and your hardware is selected, if you have a significant volume, talk to the vendors directly and see if there is anything you can do to make a bulk order and consider removing any hardware that you may not need. That may not be possible for manufacturing reasons, but I just do not know how much volume you are talking about. But this may help you with your cost. 

Good Luck and please share the results of your decisions.

John Vaughters
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