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The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

jaycarlson.net

61–70 of 199 posts

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#61
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…

> the downside is you need to write code

You might call that an upside!

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#63
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…

How are you switching mains power safely? I looked into it, but gave up when I realized I'd have to install a rectifier in the wall which just seemed like a fire waiting to happen.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#64
post #49
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> You also need to include fuses and other safety circuitry to ensure it doesn't exceed that threshold your microcontroller can accept.

I'd say you need to include other safety circuitry, as well as proper PCB design, to make sure it doesn't start a fire.

If you don't know what you're doing, don't rely on random stuff from AliExpress etc to be grid safe, and don't try to make stuff that connects to the grid yourself.

If you do not know what you're doing, for stuff like this I'd go with say Fibaro Z-Wave stuff or similar devices which have built-in power monitors, and can interface with Home Assistant or similar.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#65

It's missing the below 5 cents microcontrollers: https://lcsc.com/product-detail/PADAUK_PADAUK-Tech-PMS150C_C...

I looked through the datasheet, but couldn't figure out what "1KW" of program memory meant.

Looks to be a typo for 1 KiB, since the address space seems to go from 0x0 to 0x3FF.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#66

It's missing the below 5 cents microcontrollers: https://lcsc.com/product-detail/PADAUK_PADAUK-Tech-PMS150C_C...

I looked through the datasheet, but couldn't figure out what "1KW" of program memory meant.

1 thousand words, probably.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#67

It's missing the below 5 cents microcontrollers: https://lcsc.com/product-detail/PADAUK_PADAUK-Tech-PMS150C_C...

I looked through the datasheet, but couldn't figure out what "1KW" of program memory meant.

It's supposed to be 1kW, ie 1024 words.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#68
This is a great round up of cheap microcontrollers - I would love to take that approach of "scoring" peripherals to be able to compare various vendor's offerings up and down the lineups!

As of right now it is hard to compare families at the start of a project, most of the time we just go with what we are comfortable with (and haven't been burned by in the last project!)

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#69
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…

Are you in the United States?

I'm just curious how your homeowner's insurance feels about this? That is, will they still pay out for a claim should something happen, and they determine your modifications were at fault?

Because if the adjuster or whomever does find you have such modifications - they -will- blame those.

And probably deny your claim and coverage (and probably cancel your policy).

At least that would likely be your experience if you live in the United States.

I've often thought that having such a system would be fun, but the potential downside should anything go wrong has put a damper on it (even if whatever happened was not related to your modifications - they will blame it on them, just to get out of the claim).

The only "inexpensive" way around it is to use UL listed interfaces made by a third party, then interface with those. But there, you don't usually get everything you want.

Of course at that point, the insurance company might just shift the burden on you to "So, did you have this done by a licensed electrician? Where is your inspection report?"...

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#70

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 dev…

He should have used the geometric mean, that's exactly what it is designed for.
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