NetBurner Community Forum

i need to design a microcontroller based system that should communicate with my own web server and upload some data periodically. the microcontroller will take care of aquiring values and processing it. now i need an interface from this system to ethernet connectivity. can anyone suggest a compact and cost efficient method i can use.

Use a Netburner module as your microcontroller. It will already have ethernet capability built in.
Or assuming you already have your microcontroller, you haven't said what interface it has to convert to ethernet? Assuming it has a serial interface you could use one of the Netburner serial to ethernet devices.

Just look through the "Products" section of the Netburner web site.

I swear amymartin isn't some sales gimmick by us... Joking aside, Welcome to the Forum! Just to clarify things, this is a forum for discussing Netburner embedded products, so obviously we're going to tell you to grab one of those. Strictly speaking, unless you're designing for 10K+ production runs, we're (notice my icon) very cost efficient when considering the entire design cycle process (and even then, we have hardware licensing options available). The software is there, you simply need to drop in the data you want to send.

Depending on your requirements I'd steer you towards the NANO54415 or the MOD5441X, as those are our most capable products. If you need complex timing controls, you may wish to look at the MOD5234, with it's ETPU (Enhanced Timing Peripheral Unit?). Finally, take a look at the learn page (here) on our main site for a couple example doing what you're asking about.

-Dan

P.S. I'm not normally this salesy, but "Oh, boy! Someone who hasn't used/heard of us before! Come see how awesome we are!"

Well Dan - that's quite "Salesy"!!
I only answered because I thought you guys had missed Amy's post, and we should all be trying to encourage new members ...

I agree with Dan - the MOD54415 is a very capable platform for new designs, or the trimmed down NANO54415.
I'm using the MOD54415 as the controller for a new design of instrument.
The built-in web server (part of the software tools that come with the development kit), mean that you can use this as the "front panel" of the instrument for configuration and monitoring.
As well as this, there is other ethernet comms from my instrument as follows:
- every test cycle, at the end of the measurement sequence, the result is sent via UDP so any listening device ( eg a PC) can capture and display it
- every test cycle, at the end of the measurement sequence, the result is sent via TCP so a listening PC can capture save it to a .csv file or write the result to a database
- every 25ms the instrument sends some measured values and status via UDP so a listening PC app can use it to produce real time graphical display of the measurement process

This is all pretty straight forward to do, it's amazing how far you can get by using the many examples that come with the development kit, which are very reasonably priced, so there's no real barrier to entry.

And I find the help from the community on this forum really good - I've always had useful replies to questions posted on the forum, and the Netburner folks give really excellent support too. (This is not to be underestimated when tackling what inevitably will grow into a complex communication project).

The one proviso I guess is that if you're looking for a high volume rock bottom priced product then you'd have to talk to Netburner about licensing options.
My interest is in low volume high spec applications. Netburner products are ideal for this (at least I've not found anything better, or even close)

There - that was more "salesy" than Dan! In case you are wondering, I have no connection with Netburner, just a user - like you (potentially)