What do you use for emailing?

smanzer · Joined: 14 Sep 2009 Posts: 24 Location: Ontario, Canada

Hi Everyone,

I have been having a wonderful time wasting my life away with the ENC28J60 from Futurlec. I have now abandoned this and would recommend other users to avoid this like the plague.

What would you recommend to use for emailing status reports from your PIC? I have looked at the EZ Web Lynx from CCS, and others but want something that does not tie up huge resources (i.e. my time, and the PIC RAM/ROM).

I had a SimpleLAN and they were great, but are no longer available.

Can anyone suggest a good module that works with CCS?

Thanks in advance,

Steven
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dezso · Joined: 04 Mar 2010 Posts: 102

What was the problem with that ?
I'm planning to buy a few of this, based on the ENC28J60.

smanzer · Joined: 14 Sep 2009 Posts: 24 Location: Ontario, Canada

Hi Dezso,

My first major complaint is the complexity of the TCIP stack. I have been programming since 1983 and do networking for a living. I know the 7 layers yada yada yada... The stack is not easy to implement, and after about fourty hours of frustration, I still could not send an email.

I am using a real time clock module and a software interrupt timer for my tasks. The interrupt timer affected the stack, so that was going to be an issue.

The ENC29J60 module uses 3 pins on the C port as well as four other support pins. Not a big deal on the 18F8722, but five I/O vs 2 serial is three too many.

Sometimes it is just not worth the time and effort to make something work when there are already modules designed to almost plug and play. Last night I looked at the CCS Web Lynx and it looks like you can send serial data for email. A whole lot easier and not much more $ to get the job done.

Now the big question is what module is the easiest to implement? The SimpleLAN was fabulous at $30, but is no longer made. The WebLynx looks good, there is a netburner device, a rabbit, and likely more. Does anyone have any experience with these modules?

I am sure that I am not the only one that wants to email status - someone has already invented the wheel - comments????

Thanks,

Steve
_________________
"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
- Pablo Picasso

bkamen · Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 11:47 pm

no.

I've been doing all my work with MCHP's TCP/IP stack.

So far I've had only minor issues getting HTTP/S, SNMP, and such working... I even wrote my own user config menu (available through telnet) and serial2tcp bridge....

I won't say it hasn't been without quirks... but it's been pretty decent too.

There is an SMTP demo for CCS as well as a lot of updates with the latest 5.20 stack from MCHP.

-Ben

p.s. keep in mind the serial for the 28j60 is SPI, not RS232... it operates at speeds up to the limit of the 28j60 where RS232 cannot.
Have you looked at the XPORT from Lantronix? Maybe that has the higher level interface you're looking for?
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