Peter, Thanks for your reply. Sorry for not providing more information. I'm a junior EE student, but am somewhat proficient with PIC18 microcontrollers from hobby projects I've done over the years. This is also a personal hobby project I plan to work on over the summer, not for school. > Do you plan to do the whole project on demo boards or will you be making > boards of your own? If the latter do you have the ability (on both the > PCB fabrication and soldering side) to reliablly work with 0.5mm pitch > parts? If not then you should probablly rule out those chips now. I'll be designing and making the PCB on my own, which I think will be half the fun :-) I'm fairly confident I can work with 0.5mm pitch, but if not then I can send my design off to a PCB fab (I've never done this, but I know Advanced Circuits has great deals for students). > A TCP/IP stack on a PIC18 micro is going to dominate your program That's what I was afraid of. I've done some projects with Arduino UNO boards before and the Ethernet shield that's available for it handles all of the processing and just exchanges data with the Arduino via SPI, so it doesn't really bog down the Arduino CPU at all. >another option is to find an intelligent module that handles all the >TCP/IP stuff for you. Downside of this approach is that it will be >significantly more expensive and give you significantly less control >over how the ethernet is used. Again whether this matters depends very >much on your application. I assume that's what the Wiznet W5100 on the Arduino Ethernet shield does? So that leaves me with three options: 1. Built-in Ethernet with the PIC18F67J60 - Pros: all-in-one solution, inexpensive - Cons: will "dominate" the PIC18's CPU, possibly not leaving enough processing power for other things 2. Interface with a chip like the enc28j60 - Pros: none? - Cons: additional cost, will still bog down the PIC18's CPU 3. Use something like the Wiznet W5100 on the Arduino Ethernet shield - Pros: handles all of the Ethernet processing and takes up very little of the PIC18's CPU - Cons: additional cost Thanks for your advice, Nate On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 8:56 PM, peter green wrote: > Nathan House wrote: > > Hello, > > > > I'm a student and am interested in doing a project involving Ethernet. > You don't say what level of student you are, in what subject, how > competent you are or what the project is planning to do. Getting a > student project right is often a matter of balancing how much you "do > yourself" vs how much you "buy in". Doing stuff yourself is needed to > get marks but if you try and do everything yourself you can fail at the > project goals. > > I'm > > wanting to use a PIC18 microcontroller and it appears there are two wit= h > > built-in Ethernet controllers: > > > > PIC18F66J60 > > PIC18F67J60 > > > > They appear to be essentially the same, with the only difference being > the > > second one having more program memory. > > > > Do you think it would be better to use one of the microcontrollers with > > built-in Ethernet, or to interface another PIC18 microcontroller with a= n > > external Ethernet controller? > > > It depends, there are several considerations > > Do you plan to do the whole project on demo boards or will you be making > boards of your own? If the latter do you have the ability (on both the > PCB fabrication and soldering side) to reliablly work with 0.5mm pitch > parts? If not then you should probablly rule out those chips now. > > > One disadvantage I can think of with using one of the above PIC18 > > microcontrollers is that I would probably have to use an Ethernet > > stack/framework on the microcontroller, which might take up a lot of th= e > > processing power and make the software a lot more complex. > > > A TCP/IP stack on a PIC18 micro is going to dominate your program. > Whether this is a problem depends very much on what exactly you are > doing. This will apply if you use a PIC with built in ethernet. It will > also apply if you use a PIC18 with a chip like the enc28j60 > > another option is to find an intelligent module that handles all the > TCP/IP stuff for you. Downside of this approach is that it will be > significantly more expensive and give you significantly less control > over how the ethernet is used. Again whether this matters depends very > much on your application. > > Could anyone give me some advice on what approach I should take? > > > Not without more details. > -- > http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > --=20 I'm a college student, take it easy on me ;-) Check out my small hobby electronics business! www.foxytronics.com --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .