Created Date: February 22,2020

Created by: Cyber175

So I now have several of the P1AM-100 kits. I am hopeful that the world of Arduino microcontrollers will begin to cause significant changes in the PLC world. The Maker community, and its Open Source Engineers, Technicians and Kids, have much positive change to contribute to the PLC world.

I am also fairly literate about that PLC world. I consider the typically Ladder Logic based PLCs (Allen-Bradly, Siemens, etc) to be antiquated history unhampered by the progress made in computer science. Yours is no the first company landing on this modern microcontroller beachhead. Thanks for joining the fray...

So, the 2015 Arduino MKR Zero architecture is currently antiquated, and no longer in the mainstream. Staying mainstream is a technical challenge for everyone, myself included. With that being said, it now seems to me that the Adafruit Feather architecture provides a more dynamic Arduino design structure. Why did you not adopt LadyAda's (Limore Fried) ideas? Is it too late to change or add her way of doing things?

I haven't given up on you guys, Facts Engineering or Massimo yet, but it does appear that the MKR Zero evolutionary branch has died. It is hard to even get MKR Zero shields to add onto your P1AM-100 system. And additionally, as others have mentioned, it is hard to ignore the desirability of getting your Productivity1000 modules accessible by all those Raspberry Pi makers. And I am definitely one of them too.

Created Date: February 24,2020

Created by: FACTS_ENG_TEAM1

Thank you for buying some P1AM kits!

The Arduino MKR line actually uses the same micro controller as the feather M0 line, the SAMD21. While their pinouts may not be identical, libraries and code should be cross-compatible. The MKR also has 2 more GPIO pins. The shields available in the MKR family seemed more industrially focused for the most part. Because of this, we thought MKR made sense for the first ProductivityOpen product.

I personally disagree that the MKR branch has died. One of the upcoming products from Arduino is the Portenta . This board has a high density bus connector (think Raspberry Pi compute) as well as the standard MKR header layout.

I appreciate you taking the time to put these ideas out there. Any product design is going to include compromises that will work for some and not for others. We are definitely looking towards what is next and feedback like this is invaluable in making decisions.

Thanks

Adam

Created Date: February 24,2020

Created by: Cyber175

Thanks for the response. You wanted some ideas. So I thought I would share some of mine.

Most makers, programmers, engineers, and kids realize that learning to code is best done initially by looking at and understanding other people's working code. In effect plagiarism, copying and modifying existing code is the quickest way to learn to implement solid solutions. Adafruit understands this and has built a wealth of tutorials. This proves their open source belief in these simple truths. I think it is clear that your company has a ways to go in this area. Just a suggestion. Take a look at Adafruit vs Arduino tutorials. Starting out by writing original code is a fool's errand. Massimo realized this, and so does Limore Fried.

It is also obvious that Adafruit has adopted the SAMD21 in their Feather line and elsewhere. Moving from an 8-bit to 32-bit SOC is not a difficult choice. That is why I remain hopeful regarding your future products. Take a look at the $25 Adafruit Circuit Playground Express (CPX) and all of its included inputs, outputs and example programs. Also take a look at http://makecode.org for a robust and modern implementation of Scratch, ArduBlock and your ProductivityBlocks. There is much more work to do...

Another reason to be hopeful about the SAMD21 is MicroPython ( http://microbit.org ) and Adafruit's CircuitPython, which runs well on the SAMD21 and CPX ( https://www.adafruit.com/product/3333 ). And then there is the kid oriented http://microbit.org . Being able to program future PLCs in some form of embedded Python provides another great evolutionary PLC opportunity.

To be sure, programming in C and C++ is still going to be a game changer for the PLC world. Don't drop that idea...

Created Date: February 24,2020

Created by: FACTS_ENG_TEAM1

I totally agree with your points about example code. Our library comes with about 20 examples that show how to use the P1AM functions. Check them out here: https://github.com/facts-engineering/P1AM/tree/master/examples

We also are releasing example code that focuses on integrating other things like Modbus or MQTT into a P1AM project: https://forum.automationdirect.com/forum/open-source-devices/productivityopen-p1am/128014-adc-example-code

I can't speak to specifics on anything of course, but we do plan on expanding the ProductivityOpen product line. Thank you for your suggestions and feedback.