Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

jaycarlson.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 199 posts

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#121

Post by scrape_it »

patrickyeon wrote: post #116
scrape_it wrote: post #105

is it possible to somehow buy this off-line in person in mass quantities? seems like it takes ages to ship from alibaba, also I'm afraid of the Chinese government tapping my phone (as I suspect happened on WeChat I foolishly installed, literally seduced by this Chinese chick who claims she's in Vancouver but then doesn't know where Surrey is???? red flags) potentially , so I want to tinker with these interesting DIY…

Pretty near all of this stuff is available from North American distributors, Adafruit/Sparkfun for more hobbyist-minded stuff, Digikey/Mouser/Newark for industry. Adafruit takes bitcoin if you're that paranoid. You're going to have a hard time getting along in the current world, especially in electronics, if anything Chinese sets you on edge though. I'm trying to be gentle, and I know you didn't ask for advice, but c…

I am considering laying off the ganja for a while. but I need it to meet deadlines, to do the work the market demands at the best possible time to the best possible consumer, I am the invisible hand that keeps pushing me, in this struggling and character building times. thanks for the advice 친구!

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#122

Post by iheartpotatoes »

feistypharit wrote: post #120
iheartpotatoes wrote: post #75

Having used half the IDE's this person outlined, I really really really really wish every single one had a "write Makefile" option. Maybe 1/4 or the IDEs I use do that successfully. I always end up using GDB for debugging, and then the IDE for asm-level tweaking (well, I don't do the tweaking, someone smarter than me does :), but I can do 90% of my work in GDB). In the "real world" IAR Embedded Workshop is the hands-…

You actually can use make instead of the Arduino IDE many times. For the ESP, check out https://github.com/plerup/makeEspArduino . It works reasonably well.

Yeah, I didn't know that existed but I created my own make environment a while back. My arduinos have been gathering dust for about 5 years, ever since I discovered the ST nucleo64 line ... 80MHz, 1M flash, 256K sram, 4 UARTs, 4 SPI, 4 I2C, 20+ GPIO, 4 ADCs for under US$15 ... I pretty much stopped using Arduino everything.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#123

Post by [deleted] »

asteli wrote: post #84
mylons wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

does insurance feel the same way about a Nest and other commercial devices that are already available?

A homebrew device with some IGBTs controlling main voltages, controlled by an Arduino, is vastly different from a commercial product that has to pass UL/Intertek/TUV certification (not to mention FCC EMC compliance). Those certifications exist specifically to protect consumers from devices that will burn their house down. This isn't to say that I would discourage a hobbyist from building their home automation control…

[deleted]

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#124

Post by wolfgke »

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…

> I feel obligated to mention in every one of these threads the wemos D1.

Does there exist a similar board with an ESP32?

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#126

Post by voltagex_ »

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.

What's your hourly rate?

I've got a Google Home and LIFX bulbs, but I've also spent hundreds and hundreds of hours learning, tinkering and coding. I can do this because I'm single and am lucky enough to have a lot of free time.

If I was doing it again, I'd stick with the LIFX bulbs and use the hundreds of hours doing something that would earn me some money.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#127

Post by voltagex_ »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #26

The writer was on an episode of Embedded.fm podcast awhile back, one of the rare ones where they really get into embedded in detail. Good episode, I recommend it. Two take-aways were that he just loved the Silicon Labs EFM series, which is a modern set of peripherals wrapped around an absolutely outdated 8051. For the most part micros are just moving things from one peripheral to another and that can work out just fi…

>8051

TI is still pumping out Zigbee boards based on it. I had to dig through documentation and tick a box saying I wasn't going to make missiles just to figure out what I needed to program it.

I'm kinda curious about 8051 chips. They're absolutely everywhere, although maybe now the Espressif chips are taking over.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#128

Post by sigwinch28 »

wolfgke wrote: post #124
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…

> I feel obligated to mention in every one of these threads the wemos D1. Does there exist a similar board with an ESP32?

I use the LOLIN32 boards for this.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#129

Post by drewfish »

slhomme wrote: post #115
gmiller123456 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually prefer the Wemos D1 Mini. The D1 you linked has the same header layout as the Arduino, which might confuse a lot of people that you can use Arduino shields. Some of them might work, but probably not without modifying the libraries for them. The D1 Mini actually has it's own shield format, and several shields are available. Even experienced people will find value in the ability to just plug in a display, or…

I just got into the micro controller world a few days ago and it's overwhelming how many options there are! Between the pi, the Arduino, the ESP8266, Wemos ans so so many more which all come in so many flavors it's really tricky to the "ideal" one for a beginner like myself. The project I have in mind would require to work on batteries as opposed to plugin it into a well. It sounds like you're suggesting that anythin…

Depends on what you mean by "very low consumption". For one project I used a SparkFun SAMD21 Mini Breakout[0], and with the RTCZero[1] library was pretty easily able to get it down to 0.3mA when sleeping and averaging 1.3mA overall. (OK, I had to desolder the power LED which was eating 3mA.) I've since switched over to using Adafruit Feather M0 boards for most stuff, which is basically the same thing.

[0] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13664 [1] https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/RTC

edit: Oh sorry I missed the "with wifi" in your post. One nice thing about the ESP8266 is that lots of people use it -- hopefully that means you can find details on how to run it in low power modes.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#130

Post by kickscondor »

penagwin wrote: post #20
kickscondor wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally with you. The tiny original Digispark (with the USB traces on the board itself) is my fave - I use them for teaching school clubs and personal projects/gifts. If I need to go beyond that, it usually means straight to the ESP8266 or ESP32. But that's pretty rare. (With you on the nRFs, too!)

How do you like the nRFs? I've been all over the ESP8266/ESP32 since it came out, they're crazily versatile chips! I've been interested in Lora/nRF/LoraWAN for some of my low-power further range projects. I'm just curious as to how they compare to the ESP's. Also, how do you power your projects? I'm considering buying 6+ usb bricks, but I'm skeptical of non-brand name ones, and brand name bricks are expensive. After…

I can’t really speak to the difference between ESPs and nRFs - I haven’t played with ESP mesh networking enough to compare them. The nRFs just get used because I already have libraries that I use and enough chips on hand. (I would imagine the ESP at this point is superior in every regard? It just has such an ecosystem around it.)

For powering projects, it depends - most projects I do can be plugged into a laptop or into the wall - I have a programmable light array that is the main project I do with the kids. For other portable projects, I might use 18650s, might use coin cells, might just use AAs. This is a big topic and I’ve been meaning to write this up in detail.

Thanks for the questions! Sorry it took me until now to respond.

Post reply on HN