The Texas heat is killing me in the unconditioned shop. It is keeping me away from experimenting with the Xbee and the Parallax Propeller (computer). The inside temperature in the garage shop has been hovering at 100 degrees while the outdoor has been 105 to 107.

This is NOT for a few days mind you. We have been getting this temperature every single day for over two months steady. Yes, every day.

My new shop fan helps a lot at 80 or 90 degrees but near 100 or over it is just like sitting in a blowtorch. No fun. I tough it out in the morning (on weekends) for a few hours but by 10:00 or 11:00 AM,  it’s breaking over 100 again.

Actually the little control computers don’t mind this kind of heat. They are very low powered so don’t generate much heat on their own. It depends on how much power you pull from them.  I can’t say that about the PC computer that I use to write the application software. I believe it is maxed out with 105 degree ambient air temp trying to cool the processor, hard drive and other PC components. I had one of my CNC computers (another machine) shut down from the heat after running almost four hours. Luckily I had just finished the part I was cutting and was bringing the HB2 back to home position. I don’t do long CNC runs anymore in a hundred degree shop.

I like the newer Propeller processor. With 8 processors or “cogs” it is a “hot” multitasking little controller. That is figuratively hot. Not environmentally hot. I definitely have it earmarked to be the processor on the boat end. I was thinking about it today, and I am going to also use it on the shore terminal.

I don’t think I need its multi cog power on the shore unit but my thinking is to keep the software programming the same “flavor” for the entire project. I can put the BS2 STAMP to other uses.

I have a few ideas how to design the shore transceiver. It will be a small standalone unit. I was originally thinking of using a PC or Net Book as the shore terminal with just an XBee for the communication. The more I thought I decided a control box would be a better interface and not so expensive (to fix) when getting too close to the water, if you catch my drift. A BS2 would be plenty of computer smarts to run things but as I said above, I’m going to opt for another Propeller.

But hey! Who says I can’t play with my options.

With the Propellers at both ends of the communications I can dedicate one or more cogs in each Propeller to just run the XBees at their best transmission rates. Decision made.

If the Texas heat takes a few days off over the holiday weekend, I plan to get a lot more done with testing the com link. Then I can start designing the Propeller proto boards for the real link.

I also discovered there is a new Propeller multicore processor in the works. It will be bigger and hotter that the present Propeller. But hotter will also be the heat it generates. I suspect it will be more useful in applications where enough “shore” power is available and chip temps can be controlled. I think the Parallax Propeller has a great future and will be useful for a long time.