11–20 of 100 posts
I link to this only partially in jest - you really will need way more components than the plan says you'll need. Even microcontrollers; misaligning a header by one pin can result in things like putting the output of a 3C Li-Poly over a signal header...
A quicker guide for real beginners: Do you want to understand in detail what's happening? => Arduino UNO Is the UNO too small/slow? => Arduino Due Still too small or you really just want a small computer running Linux but with GPIO-Pins? => Raspberry PI
Do you need wifi: Wemos D1 mini
Do you need bluetooth low energy: light blue bean
1: PLAY "Shenzhen I/O"[0] 2: JMP :1 [0] http://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/
1: PLAY "Shenzhen I/O"[0] 2: JMP :1 [0] http://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/
Be sure to jump to Factorio when you want a bit more experience in designing circuit traces. It's amazing how quickly main bus designs naturally evolve.
1: PLAY "Shenzhen I/O"[0] 2: JMP :1 [0] http://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/
A quicker guide for real beginners: Do you want to understand in detail what's happening? => Arduino UNO Is the UNO too small/slow? => Arduino Due Still too small or you really just want a small computer running Linux but with GPIO-Pins? => Raspberry PI
I'll append with: Do you need wifi: Wemos D1 mini Do you need bluetooth low energy: light blue bean
ESP is production ready. But doesn't have bluetooth (esp32 is not ready for prime time yet). What are other considerations?
Wemos D1 mini or NodeMCU :).
Parallax Propeller
Cons:
- Comparatively high price point at $8
- The custom 8-core architecture is more difficult to make full use of
- No other chips in the family (can't flexibly move up or down in flash size / IO / core count)
- No interrupts
- Uncertain availability, and may be nearing end-of-life (this is speculative)
- Programming in C is secondary to the proprietary scripting language SPIN (which has an interpreter in the chip)
Pro:
- The processor is open source under GPL v3
- Multicore architecture makes it easy to create systems that work concurrently
- VGA output
- No interrupts
- SPIN isn't that bad... and assembly code integrates nicely with it
A quicker guide for real beginners: Do you want to understand in detail what's happening? => Arduino UNO Is the UNO too small/slow? => Arduino Due Still too small or you really just want a small computer running Linux but with GPIO-Pins? => Raspberry PI
Paul Stoffregen's Teensy boards are the way to go. The hardware and the software are excellent. Heaps of power thanks to the ARM Cortex M4 and you still get the Arduino IDE. Can't recommend them enough, wish I had of moved to them far sooner. Everybody I've given one to has loved them, and the USB support is also very welcome. (As far as price goes, they're development boards and worth every cent for beginners.)
It's worth noting that while you can ease your way into programming with the functions available within the Arduino IDE, there are libraries for many of the special functions of the chips, and all of the special function registers are exposed, so you can make full use of your hardware capabilities if desired.
As for choosing a microcontroller, I'm generally tempted to start by choosing a development tool, because I'll be spending more of my time in code development and testing than in any other activity.
A quicker guide for real beginners: Do you want to understand in detail what's happening? => Arduino UNO Is the UNO too small/slow? => Arduino Due Still too small or you really just want a small computer running Linux but with GPIO-Pins? => Raspberry PI
Paul Stoffregen's Teensy boards are the way to go. The hardware and the software are excellent. Heaps of power thanks to the ARM Cortex M4 and you still get the Arduino IDE. Can't recommend them enough, wish I had of moved to them far sooner. Everybody I've given one to has loved them, and the USB support is also very welcome. (As far as price goes, they're development boards and worth every cent for beginners.)
A quicker guide for real beginners: Do you want to understand in detail what's happening? => Arduino UNO Is the UNO too small/slow? => Arduino Due Still too small or you really just want a small computer running Linux but with GPIO-Pins? => Raspberry PI