S12X.COM
SK-S12XDP512-A Review

The SofTec SK-S12XDP512-A arrived at my door not too long ago and I thought it might be useful for other to see what all was included, how smooth the software install went and how easy it was to get the board up and running with their provided sample project. Click on any of the photos to view them in higher resolution.

Here is a shot of the package as it arrived. It was shipped overseas and arrived promptly in good condition.

Inside the shipping box there was a big, nice looking box that contained the development board. I thought all EVBs came in little white boxes! This was definately a surprise and I think a show by them that they are paying attention to detail to make this a good EVB.

Once I opened the cover of box I saw that the packaging was doing its job. Everything was in its place and the board was inside an additional layer of protection behind the documentation and software. Nothing was floating around the box - as if it had come out of its spot.

There was no shortage of information about this EVB. SofTec included a great getting started poster that walks you through all the necessary steps to get the EVB up and running and connected to your PC. The poster alone contains most of the information that I have recieved with other EVBs but SofTec also included a great 77 page book crammed with information and diagrams about working with this board. Anything you could possibly need to know about setting up software or what a particular jumper does is listed in the manual.

I was quite surprised how large the actual EVB was. When I first saw it I said to myself wow.. That looks like a motherboard. In reality it is actually nearly the size of your average ATX motherboard. I had a Gigabyte ATX board laying around at the time and compared the size of the SK-S12XDP512-A to it. In both length and width it was only smaller by 1 inch! There is a generous amount of prototyping area. Nearly 16 square inches all told.

The five CAN Connectors, six LIN connectors and two RS-232 connectors all have transcievers and there is a large expansion port for FlexRay. The LEDs on the board are VERY bright and can be seen easily in all light conditions from any viewing angle. If you are going to be using them to display any kind of debugging or data values you won't have any trouble reading them at all. As far as inputs go there are 4 push button inputs as well as a pot and a photo sesnor. In the event you want to connect anything else every pin from the S12XDP512 is brought out for you.

Another great thing about this board is you have full BDM control from a S12UF32 that is on the board with the S12XDP512. I am not against serial based development boards but full BDM control through codewarrior is definately a huge advantage in my opinion.

Here is a closer shot of the S12XDP512 itself.

It also came with a wide range of power connectors for its supply. The 2 on the left were immediately obvious to me. They are the 2 most common U.S. power connectors. The center is a universal grounded European electric adapter. Next to that is a universal grounded UK electric adapter followed by a universal grounded Australian electric adapter.

To be continued...