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

How to pick a microcontroller

sureshjoshi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 100 posts

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#81

Post by bpye »

TD-Linux wrote: post #52
gwu78 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I like about this choice is one does not need an IDE, at least not with the 2.0. One can do non-graphical (systems) programming on an underpowered computer with no graphics. I statically compile the loader. On BSD at least, no 3rd party libs are needed. Then all I need is avr-gcc. I can do everything from the command line. No closed source tools. No requisite graphics layer (e.g., Windows OS). No la…

Any of the Cortex-M* series are also generally a good choice, for example the STM32* series. All of these are supported in mainline gcc, and have open source support libraries provided by the vendor or via libopencm3. Be a bit careful, as some vendors like to use proprietary licenses for their headers, but in most cases there is at least one open source alternative. And of course the RISC-V HiFive1, though it's still…

And you can use OpenOCD to program/debug most ARM devices.

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#82

Post by bigiain »

juliendorra wrote: post #5
std_throwaway wrote: post #2

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 want easy wifi and Bluetooth ? ESP. (Arduino Yun are a nightmare in workshops / sprint context)

I'll recommend NextThing CHIPs here too (I started buying them because PiZeros are/were too difficult to get in quantities greater then one. Same with the PiZeroW right now, I've got a project where I'd like 12 of them, but it's not work jumping through the hoops (and paying 12 times the shipping costs to Australia) to bother right now.

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#83

Post by [deleted] »

juliendorra wrote: post #5
std_throwaway wrote: post #2

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 want easy wifi and Bluetooth ? ESP. (Arduino Yun are a nightmare in workshops / sprint context)

[deleted]

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#84

Post by StavrosK »

dragontamer wrote: post #70
fragmede wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're recommending pet favorites, the Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless, despite being the newest, is now my recommended "microcontroller". There are a few tweaks needed on top of the base Rasbian distro to make it appropriate for use as a microcontroller, but with a base price of $10, it's cheaper, more powerful, and has accessories (ie - anything USB with open source Linux drivers), than some Arduinos. Built in wifi, L…

I still consider that a 'computer' and not a microcontroller. You will inevitably need adc functionality, possibly real time clock and battery usage. Most servos don't need wifi or Ethernet. Instead, you will usually want to be able to read a voltage and then time how long it takes for that to change. 15 cent quartz crystal and built in adcs. Bitbanging pwm from raspberry pi is also horribly inaccurate... You need a…

Plus no OS to update or have hacked...

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#85

Post by blhack »

jwr wrote: post #21
std_throwaway wrote: post #2

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 disagree. Everything you listed a) can't be used for products, b) doesn't let you make progress beyond "oh look, I lit up an LED!". Sure, if you never programmed a small device, by all means, start with an Arduino. But after you do light up that LED, please learn more. Go bare metal, learn about interrupts, state machines, entering sleep states -- without those things you'll stay forever in the toy world. In the re…

>I disagree. Everything you listed a) can't be used for products, b) doesn't let you make progress beyond "oh look, I lit up an LED!".

Nonsense. This device: http://nanthealth.com/vitality/, which was a "big deal" to telemedicine folks (and is still a good product, please somebody reproduce it for cheap), and resulted in a MASSIVE exit for the people who founded it, was built around an atmega328p.

I would be good money that it was prototyped on an arduino.

This: https://www.industrialshields.com/ is based on an arduino. Like an actual, blue, retail arduino.

I've personally built one-offs for advertising installations (products for sure, but probably not exactly what you meant), that are full of arduinos.

>doesn't let you make progress beyond "oh look, I lit up an LED!".

This is wrong enough to make me think that you either don't actually know what a microcontroller is, or are being deliberately misleading.

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#86

Post by photojosh »

dragontamer wrote: post #70
fragmede wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're recommending pet favorites, the Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless, despite being the newest, is now my recommended "microcontroller". There are a few tweaks needed on top of the base Rasbian distro to make it appropriate for use as a microcontroller, but with a base price of $10, it's cheaper, more powerful, and has accessories (ie - anything USB with open source Linux drivers), than some Arduinos. Built in wifi, L…

I still consider that a 'computer' and not a microcontroller. You will inevitably need adc functionality, possibly real time clock and battery usage. Most servos don't need wifi or Ethernet. Instead, you will usually want to be able to read a voltage and then time how long it takes for that to change. 15 cent quartz crystal and built in adcs. Bitbanging pwm from raspberry pi is also horribly inaccurate... You need a…

Absolutely. It makes me cringe when the Pi-class processors get referred to as microcontrollers. They are most definitely not.

If they don't have RAM and ROM on the actual chip, and need an operating system for you to do anything with them, then they're microprocessors.

The SoC cost is not a way to differentiate them either, one of our current designs uses an 8-bit microcontroller than costs more than the Pi Zero!

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#87

Post by brokenmachine »

Berobero wrote: post #37
analog31 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Teensy boards are fabulous. I'm so impressed by what Paul Stoffgren has done. He must be some kind of 100x developer. And there are some power users of his boards, who have contributed libraries as well. 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…

We've had the pleasure of having Paul as a sponsor for our senior project, a sample-based midi synthesizer, running on, at least, the Teensy 3.2 and 3.6; we got free hardware for development, and he's been quite supportive, despite being obviously perpetually busy. And I can't say I ever felt at all hindered by the hardware or its libraries, and although we started the project with almost no embedded experience. Quit…

Do you have a site about your project?

I'm interested in synths (and teensies) and would be interested to see it.

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#88

Post by jpm_sd »

jwr wrote: post #57
jpm_sd wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched from STM32 to the Kinetis family two years ago and I've been super happy with the change. The free IDE is actually pretty solid and support has been adequate. Now that Freescale has been doubly gobbled up (first by NXP and then NXP by Qualcomm) this may go downhill a bit, but the user forums are decent. Edit: I'm also using an M4 with dual bank flash almost everywhere. The projects I'm doing these days are…

Interesting -- could you write about your impressions? How do peripherals compare? I think you get 32-bit timers on the STM32? And I heard that most other peripherals are newer/better than the 8-bit peripherals that NXP/Freescale adapts to the Kinetis chips -- what do you think?

I guess I just haven't needed those bells and whistles. 32 bit timers are kinda huge. And some of the peripherals on the STM are suffering from "newer ain't always better" - the CAN and I2C controllers are more complicated than they need to be, IMHO.

Edit: I can't make any useful comparison on analog peripherals since I use external ADCs, DACs, etc. more or less 100% of the time

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#89

Post by bschwindHN »

How is almost no one talking about the esp32? WiFi, Bluetooth, two cores, and an ultra low power processor that can wake the main cores for when you need low power consumption are just the main features of this thing, there are plenty more. Not to mention they have a great tool chain with lots of example code.

Re: How to pick a microcontroller

#90

Post by justin66 »

bsamuels wrote: post #20
std_throwaway wrote: post #2

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

your advice is excellent for makers and hackers, but if you're building a product, arduino/raspberry pi is far too expensive

The RPi (its SoC, really) is probably a fine choice financially for the applications where it doesn't represent ridiculous overengineering.
Post reply on HN