Following on from the completion of the n2 is the design of the first device in a range of peripherals designed to complement the n2. The peripheral devices are the same form factor as the n2 CPU module and are designed to be stackable. For example you could stack An Ethernet Switch module, GPIO Module, and Serial module and the main n2 CPU module to form a small cube measuring 80mmx80mmx80mm all DIN Rail mountable.

This first peripheral off the line is a General Purpose IO module (GPIO) featuring 8 x digital inputs, 6 x relay outputs and an on board temperature sensor. The idea of this product is that an n2 may be deployed to a remote site shelter where there are some environmental and general site alarms that need to be monitored. With this low cost add-on you can monitor the shelter temperature to detect an air-conditioner failure, and you have the capability of wiring up door, fire, and genset alarms without the need of a third party IO module. The same module could be used as a low cost base ball switch driver for driving remote polarisation switches on small satellite uplink facilities.

Over the next few weeks we will be working on our next peripheral which will be a low cost 4 port serial board add-on. This will provide a cheap complete solution for sites that need to interconnect with serial based devices for  Remote Monitoring & Control. Be sure to also check out Newpoint Technologies who develop the software that runs on our nControl products.