I started learning embedded programming on ATMELs and to this day they are still my favorite. Solid documentation and pretty good command line tools when you don't want to use an IDE. Also you can find them sometimes in a dip package which is handy for prototyping.
The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
41–50 of 199 posts
Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
#42What I really would like to see is some more competition and price drops in displays. These microcontrollers are awesome and I love building small hardware projects. But the output systems are usually pricey. If color (ideally touch) displays can be made available for $5-$7. That would open up a flood gate of opportunities.
Color displays are available for $5-7, although they are usually only 2-4" diagonally with up to 240x320 pixels at 16-18 bits of color per pixel.
But it definitely did open up a flood gate of opportunity. You see ILI9341 and ST7735 TFT displays all over the place, even if they're a little too small for large pieces of equipment.
Not to mention the explosion in cheap individually-addressable color LEDs and drone-driven advances in small DC motors. It's fantastic, you can pretty much just plug electronics together like Lego bricks at this point.
Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
#43My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well. Last year, I started out to digitalize my entire house with these tiny ATTINY 85 chips and with some nrF wireless chips. It has worked really well for me and I'm able to control and monitor any power port in my house as well as my mains. The overall…
What does your programming environment look like for programming these chips?
Do you have any blog posts showcasing your project?
Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is the documentation on those?
Fine if you can read Chinese. There are several discussions about them at eevblog, with many people having success. It's probably the best place to get information in English.
The datasheet covers hardware + software (instruction encoding, I/O registers) and it's all in english here: https://datasheet.lcsc.com/szlcsc/PADAUK-Tech-PMS150C_C12912...
Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
How often do you want to send/receive data? I experimented with a Wemos D1 Mini and a pack of 4 rechargeable NiMH batteries (LiPo batteries seem like playing with fire, literally). In deep sleep the power consumption is very low, I measured something close to the 20uA from the spec sheet.
Yeah from what I've seen you can desolder the status LED to lower the current even more. With the ESP32's you can use the lower power processor as well. I want to automate my blinds, which is kinda annoying as that means ~6 different, "high up" spots in high visibility areas, and obvious motors mean "high power" (compared to micro amps). I'm really not sure how to approach this one yet...
Don't you have to run power to the blinds to run the motor to move them up and down anyway?
Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
#46Obligatory mention of ESP32. It might not be $1 but it's definitely worth being aware of.
Yes, esp seems to be a great choice in 2019 - more IO, more ram, wifi. Digikey prices for esp8266 start at $ 1.85 https://www.digikey.com/products/en/rf-if-and-rfid/rf-transc... , modules are a dollar more https://www.digikey.com/products/en/rf-if-and-rfid/rf-transc...
Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
#47I feel obligated to mention in every one of these threads the wemos D1.
I actually have a tough time explaining just how incredible this board is. You can program it in the Arduino environment, meaning if you are doing any hobby electronics, you're probably already really familiar with the programming modalities.
It comes with a programmer, and power regulator. No fussing with anything like you might have to with a bare ESP8266.
It also has WiFi. It is the magic internet of things that I swear everybody was dreaming about 5 years ago. Go buy 10 of them. They're my favorite favorite favorite general purpose dev board right now, and actually they're so cheap that I have no problem putting them into "finished products"[1].
Here they are for about $3: (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/ESP8266-ESP-12F-CH340-CH340G...)
[1]: I build custom/one-off large scale installation pieces and hardware prototypes. Almost every single one of them has an arduino-ish device in it somewhere.
Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
#48My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well. Last year, I started out to digitalize my entire house with these tiny ATTINY 85 chips and with some nrF wireless chips. It has worked really well for me and I'm able to control and monitor any power port in my house as well as my mains. The overall…
This is such a great setup. Maybe if we just put 10 of these mini-controllers in each home, we can cover the majority of electricity consumption, and get demand flexibility the cheap way (instead of fitting each home with an expensive smart meter). (Obviously the cloud/app parts will have to be centralized with consumer opt-in and preferences etc..) Have u thought about this ? Has this approach been explored ? great…
There's a world of difference between a hobby project and a large-scale production item. The CPU in the smart meter likely isn't much more powerful than an ATTiny. By the time you've scaled this project up to meet the needs of the electric company, the cost is likely comparable to what they already have.
BOM (Bill Of Materials) cost is rarely the limiting factor on commercial products. The selling price of most devices is usually a large multiple of the cost of components.
Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
#49My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well. Last year, I started out to digitalize my entire house with these tiny ATTINY 85 chips and with some nrF wireless chips. It has worked really well for me and I'm able to control and monitor any power port in my house as well as my mains. The overall…
As someone building up some home automation I'd love to know how you are monitoring and controlling power. Remote power strips? Replacement outlets? Something diy?
Sure. Power monitoring is tricky. Rest are simple.
Power monitoring involves converting the mains voltage to DC that is almost proportional to the mains voltage. Then you would rectify it and downsize it and get it to a voltage level that whatever power management IC you use can accept. You also need to include fuses and other safety circuitry to ensure it doesn't exceed that threshold your microcontroller can accept. For example, if my uC works based off just 5 volts, I want to make sure I downsize my 120VAC to just 2.5V but still proportional, this means, when there is a spike, my uC can take a hit upto 5 volts, but that means my actual power supply has a spike of 100%, which means I'm getting 240VAC on a 120VAC outlet (which has never happened so far).
Then, for the actual turning on or off of switches itself, I just use relays and some relay/motor coil ICs to control them. Sorry I don't remember exactly as this was a year ago and this system is lying inside my wall. So I need to remove the switchboard (and use a lens) to find out the numbers. But then, you can always google for "Power management / mains voltage IC", you can find even ready made modules on eBay.
The tricky part is component layout since you are dealing with high voltage, it can form arcs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlyEMQxTN0
Not as powerful, but still a smaller version of those arcs. So, you want to use well rated components with decent thresholds. Eg. Don't use a low power relay, cheap capacitors, etc.
All of this is then passed on through uCs(ATTINY 85 + other uCs in the circuit) to some nrF wireless modules I bought in bulk on AliBaba through my uC
To be clear, each switchboard housing contains - a couple of relays, uCs, nRF modules, temperature and humidity sensors and some infrared sensors (I don't use them anymore). I believe they also have overvoltage protection and short circuit protection in built (because of an IC I use). It will simply turn the relay off in the event of a spike or short circuit.
BTW, AliBaba is the cheapest. Don't buy from AliExpress, it's usually plagued with dropshippers (god, I hate them so much) who just keep hefty margins off a factory somewhere that you can find on AliBaba. Other alternatives, but still under AliBaba group: 1688.com, tmall.com
If you think about it, in cloud lingo, we would call this architecture as "micro services" except that there's one big monolith which is my mains module run by an old laptop motherboard. (Sony Vaio FZ series)
This nrF module talks to a an old laptop motherboard through serial, that passes information to a REST API. This laptop motherboard is located where usually all the mains connections go in. One thing I didn't use on purpose is smart trippers/circuit breakers. Sure, they're smart, but you're relying on someone else for security while also giving away your power usage consumption data. Besides, if a circuit breaker goes off, you want to know why it happened before turning it on, so I find it pointless to make them be able to turn on automatically or from your phone when I can just walk to my mains box and turn it on myself.
The REST API is built with Phoenix/Elixir, and is hosted on Google Cloud AppEngine. I haven't had any downtime so far (yet) and is blazing fast. Like I said, I'm a Google Cloud consultant, so this is what I do for a living. You may have luck doing the same with AWS/DigitalOcean. Just use something you know well.
And don't ever get into doing devops for this kind of thing. It's more critical than you think. So, don't make choices like try to save up on the servers by running your own instance on a DO droplet for 5 bucks a month. Sure, you saved up some cash, but the devops it takes you will cost you more. More importantly, if some hacker gets in, you're doomed!
Once, when I was in my house, the lights and TV suddenly started turning on and off in the hall room. This was right after I came back from watching Insidious and it was really scary. Then I found out, it happened because there was a really fat mouse on the motherboard (don't know how it got there) walking around the jumper wires. Haha!
Hope this helps, sorry I will try to update with specifics maybe in a separate blog post here.
Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)
#50My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well. Last year, I started out to digitalize my entire house with these tiny ATTINY 85 chips and with some nrF wireless chips. It has worked really well for me and I'm able to control and monitor any power port in my house as well as my mains. The overall…
What does your programming environment look like for programming these chips? Do you have any blog posts showcasing your project?
Just Arduino.
>Do you have any blog posts showcasing your project?
Started writing today. Haha. I will share it on HN once done.