221–230 of 413 posts
I also like the RP2040, but I'd like to explain why I migrated away from it for my current project. First, the drama with PlatformIO really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm taking the side of the developers who are hurt by confusion in tooling. Second, the top of the line ESP32-S3 comes in a module format that can be dropped on a PCB with basically nothing but a few decoupling capacitors. The RP2040 requires careful plac…
RP2040 has single handedly reinvigorated a really niche market: custom controllers. Due to the wonderful work done on gp2040[1] which is open source game pad firmware, people can buy cheap, quality, fightsticks and leverless controllers for a lot cheaper than they can from vendors like Victrix or Razer. Not only that but because its open sourced the hobbyist side of the controller community are building RP2040 pcbs t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Analog is large area and expensive in general so sticking to good digital and passable analog is a very good strategy to keep costs down.
Modern Microcontrollers focus on analog because modern microprocessors start at like $5, maybe even cheaper. If you need digital girth, don't mess with lol 264kB RP2040 systems. Just buy $3 of DDR3L RAM (aka: 128MB) and run Linux for goodness sake. --------- Even ESP32 is a glorified Bluetooth/Wifi chip first and everything secondary. You have to have a niche at this price point to be competitive. RP2040's niche is t…
I think the PIO state machines are pretty cool and relatively unique. I am also glad the Foundation resisted the temptation to market them as extra cores and sell the RP2040 as 10-core processor. When it comes to the Raspi Pico and similar devices[1], I think UF2 flashing is the best thing since sliced bread. This alone lowers the barrier for beginners significantly. Things I don't like: power consumption. But you ca…
> Things I don't like: power consumption I understand it could use ~0.08W, given it draws 3.3V at ~24mA... I am not a specialist, is that a lot? Ref.: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/rp2040-thing-plus-hooku...
PIO is fantastic. Revolutionary. Not trivial to use but extremely powerful and adaptable. Too bad about the ADC. To be clear: the ADC is not "OK". It' s BAD.
See https://pico-adc.markomo.me/ for a thorough analysis of the problems.
Especially look at the DNL.
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It's safe to assume he's talking about the chip in both cases. You can connect either of them to a battery charger, camera, or nuclear reactor but all of those 'peripherals' are completely irrelevant to this comparison.
FYI. In the embedded space, peripherals refer to the chip's built in capabilities. Typically there is a peripheral that handles SPI, a peripheral that handles I2C, a peripheral that handles USART. There might be a peripheral that handles USB, or I2S, or any number of different abilities. It's either transistors or microcode on more sophisticated MCUs that allows these peripherals, and not every pin is connected to ev…
> From Wifi/Bluetooth Antenna, LI Battery Controller, Ethernet whatever, Display or Camera Connector - You choose.
None of those are in-chip peripherals. Besides, the RP2040 comes with a lot of peripherals too. Not as much as an ESP32 by a wide margin, but still.
RP2040 has single handedly reinvigorated a really niche market: custom controllers. Due to the wonderful work done on gp2040[1] which is open source game pad firmware, people can buy cheap, quality, fightsticks and leverless controllers for a lot cheaper than they can from vendors like Victrix or Razer. Not only that but because its open sourced the hobbyist side of the controller community are building RP2040 pcbs t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modern Microcontrollers focus on analog because modern microprocessors start at like $5, maybe even cheaper. If you need digital girth, don't mess with lol 264kB RP2040 systems. Just buy $3 of DDR3L RAM (aka: 128MB) and run Linux for goodness sake. --------- Even ESP32 is a glorified Bluetooth/Wifi chip first and everything secondary. You have to have a niche at this price point to be competitive. RP2040's niche is t…
You can't run Linux on DRAM. You need a CPU.
RP2040 sits at an awkward placement. It requires external parts, but low end SPI parts and not the nicer proper RAM like DDR3L or the like.
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My point is that if you have a design that fundamentally requires external parts like the RP2040, the accurate comparison is against MPUs. Chips that are specifically designed to work with powerful and cost effective external components.
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Analog-focused designs like ATMega, ESP32 or STM32 comfortably do things that the real computers or MPUs cannot do. Like read a voltage, work with OpAMPs or other analog stuff that cannot fit on a proper Linux computer chip like SAM9x60D1G. And to do so without any external parts, so that you have the simplest design possible.
I also like the RP2040, but I'd like to explain why I migrated away from it for my current project. First, the drama with PlatformIO really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm taking the side of the developers who are hurt by confusion in tooling. Second, the top of the line ESP32-S3 comes in a module format that can be dropped on a PCB with basically nothing but a few decoupling capacitors. The RP2040 requires careful plac…