Smaller or custom VINT board for single device

[julien]

Hello,
I have a project where I would need to drive a single motor with limited room.
I like the controller + separate VINT board but would love even more a smaller board that can only drive 1 (or 2) devices and maybe with a different (micro) USB connector too .

Is the VINT protocol something we could reimplement on our own board? Are there some options for smaller boards?

Thanks in advance

[mparadis]

The VINT protocol is a packet-based protocol like USB, so your board would need to have specialized firmware to decode incoming packets and encode outgoing packets. While theoretically possible, it's not a good idea because of the huge time investment it would require to code and reverse-engineer, and it could easily be broken by future updates to the library if it's not done carefully.

You can save some space by taking the VINT Hub out of its enclosure, or by running a long Phidget Cable so the VINT Hub doesn't need to be in the limited space at all. I suspect you're not going to find a smaller motor driver than the DCC1003, because of the space required to make a motor controller that can properly drive decent-sized motors (capacitors, heatsink, etc.).

[julien]

Thanks for you reply.
As far as I understand, there is no plan to open the VINT protocol for support of other "custom made" devices or to allow development of our own VINT hubs? VINT is proprietary and intended to stay so?

The controller is indeed quite small, although I have seen a very small one (32.0 x 22.0 x 7.0 mm) micro EPOS from Maxon

[mparadis]

The VINT protocol is public in the sense that any user is free to download our linux libraries and view the source code. We have had a few users write programs to interface with VINT packets directly, so a custom device is not impossible. But we don't have the development resources to support a framework for custom devices, and we don't want to make any of our device firmware public because it would make it relatively easy for a competitor to clone our products.

I think the DCC1003 could be as small as the Maxon board if we removed the fuse, heatsink, and the terminal block, but it wouldn't be as convenient for prototyping and we'd probably get a lot more warranty requests from users running motors a bit too large.

[Patrick]

The USB protocol to the VINT Hubs is 'documented' in the open source libraries. The VINT protocol itself is proprietary and completely undocumented publicly.

-Patrick

[julien]

Thanks a lot for you help