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The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

jaycarlson.net

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Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#51

Post by Darkphibre »

Oh, I really like his analysis on "Parametric Reach" for the various architectures:

> If you want to commit to a single architecture, it’s important to know which one gives you the most headroom to move up. I created a fictious “times better” score by comparing the the part tested with the best part available in the same ecosystem — this usually means fairly comparable peripheral programming, along with identical development tools. I multiplied the core speed, package size, flash, and RAM capacities together, ratioed the two parts, and then took the quartic root. Essentially, if every parameter is double, it is considered “2.0 x” as powerful.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#52

Post by FrojoS »

For those who needs something more beefy, check out https://www.nxp.com/support/developer-resources/evaluation-a... They are about 60 USD per board, though if you want only the chip for a final product, it will become much cheaper.

We use these development boards in combination with freeRTOS (bare C based) for lots of projects in our lab that require high sampling rates (e.g. 8 analog sensor readings at 1 kHz) motor control loops etc.

There is a very good blog on these chips at mcuoneclipse.com

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#53

Post by neya »

microtonal wrote: post #25
neya wrote: post #8

My 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…

My 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. How do you deal with the small number of pins? The NRF24L01+ uses SPI, which requires 4 pins. There are some guides on how to hook up an NRF with 3 pins. I think that only leaves 3 pins (besides VCC and GND)? The ATtiny seems to be very attractive o…

I did consider the ATTINY 84, in fact it was the 84 was the one I wanted to order. But due to a mistake, I had ordered the 85 instead. So, when they arrived, I didn't really feel like waiting another week to get working on this project, so I found an online hack/article that allowed me to use the 85s with just 3 pins. I can't remember exactly (it was a year ago), but something similar to this I guess:

https://www.instructables.com/id/NRF24L01-With-ATtiny85-3-Pi...

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#54

Post by neya »

stevetodd wrote: post #11
neya wrote: post #8

My 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…

Do you have any write ups or code on this to share?

I am working on one. I will post it on HN when it's done :)

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#55

Post by neya »

dhruvkar wrote: post #17
neya wrote: post #8

My 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…

Sounds fascinating! >> yet, vastly more powerful What's sorts of things can you now do with this setup?

#1 is my privacy. I don't trust anyone else with my privacy.

I can do some stuff like turn on AV receivers and program them to do something automatically, like switch to movie mode if I stay in the room for 2 minutes (just an example) for example because each of my power outlet has an IR transceiver. Though I don't use them much, they have a lot of utility. The reason I don't use them much now is I upgraded my receiver and now I need to re-program the IR transceiver with the commands from the AV unit's remote.

With Google cloud, you can write your own Siri-like interface, so you can talk to any power outlets you want, which is my next milestone. Stuff like this would normally require different vendors to operate together (Eg. Nest + SIRI + Homekit) but because this is my own platform, I can do whatever I want.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#57

Post by neya »

penagwin wrote: post #18
neya wrote: post #8

My 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's your experience with running your server non-locally? Not judging, just curious as usually those that DIY their home automations are also into homelab stuff and setup a spare laptop or something for the server. Derp - You're a cloud consultant, oh okay haha. I'm guessing your home ISP network is pretty reliable then? I'm stuck on con-cast so unfortunetly I have to be prepared for occasional high-packet loss/no…

It depends on your requirements. I don't need to constantly monitor what my voltage values are. I just want stuff to happen when I send a REST API call. So, I'm not too bothered about latency. I just need to know if there's an outage or overvoltage, or short circuit, etc..

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#58

Post by neya »

yeahitslikethat wrote: post #30
neya wrote: post #8

My 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…

I'm doing the same thing now. I bet your people think you're as crazy as my people think of me. My other friends are spending thousands of dollars retrofitting lighting and everything when they could spend a fraction and write some code. And learn a skill. And not have their privacy invaded. And have more money they always complain about not having enough of.

> I bet your people think you're as crazy as my people think of me.

For one year, it was constant annoying discouragement. Then, once we had this party in my house and I showed it off to everyone and they finally realized its worth. To me, the privacy factor is alone worth doing this project.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#59

Post by mikepurvis »

penagwin wrote: post #21
so_tired wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm curious, is this a common problem? At least here in Michigan, our electric company essentially replaced all meters with smart meters for free, unless you choose to opt-out. Power-measuring outlets do exist, Belkin has one under the WEMO brand for example. It's just that it generally makes far more sense (for the electric company) to put the meter in one spot, instead of every outlet. You still have to have the mi…

There's also Sense, which monitors for the distinct waveforms of your big inductive loads— washer, fridge, A/C, etc. I don't have one yet, but my colleague who does absolutely swears by it. Allegedly you basically get whole-home monitoring with a single tap at the panel:

https://sense.com/

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#60

Post by sickrumbear »

blhack wrote: post #47

I 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 b…

this looks really cool! any project write-ups online that show how it can/ is being used?
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