Microcontroller options

Posted by Onesupermanone on May 25, 2007, 3:11 pm

Hi!

I am looking for a microcontroller which will match my needs. I have
looked at tons of sites and have a huge number of microcontrollers
that I can use but since the options seem to be endless I can't pick
one. I am hoping someone here will be able to help me out.

I want to build a robot which can move around, have several digital
and analog sensor inputs. I want to set up my robot to have wireless
communication with my PC at home within a limited range. I want to
add small speakers and a microphone as well.

Eventually I want to add a small (color maybe) video camera. Also in
the end I want the robot to use a GPS system for navigation.

This doesn't seem like a lot so I suspect any number of
microcontrollers will do. In university (10 years ago) I used a
handyboard to build / program a robot. My preference it to use C
language.

Money though limited is not a big issue if I can get something which
is more or less plug and play. I want to spend more time programming
the controller and building the actual robot.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Posted by Gordon McComb on May 25, 2007, 3:44 pm

Onesupermanone wrote:

> My preference it to use C language.

There are a lot of choices but I'd say the Atmel line is a good choice
for you. They offer some traditional 8-bit RISC controllers, and some
newer 32-bit ARM-based controllers. Funnily enough, one of my selection
criteria is whether the chip is available in a DIP package, so I don't
have to solder surface mount, or invest in an expensive breakout board.
If this matters to you be sure to note the package availability when
you're looking.

-- Gordon

Posted by Joe Strout on May 26, 2007, 5:51 pm

> Onesupermanone wrote:

> > My preference it to use C language.

>
> There are a lot of choices but I'd say the Atmel line is a good choice
> for you. They offer some traditional 8-bit RISC controllers, and some
> newer 32-bit ARM-based controllers. Funnily enough, one of my selection
> criteria is whether the chip is available in a DIP package, so I don't
> have to solder surface mount, or invest in an expensive breakout board.
> If this matters to you be sure to note the package availability when
> you're looking.

For what it's worth, I'm a newbie too, as anyone here will readily
attest from the way I constantly pester them with questions. :) I
recently went on just such a controller search myself, looking at
various boards under $50.

But, based in part on the advice of Gordon and others here, I've decided
to take the plunge and give a raw Atmel (AVR) chip a try. These are
electronically quite easy to use; the challenge may be setting up the
development environment, but if you use Windows then you'll probably
find that pretty easy too. If you don't, get back to me and we'll
suffer through setting up the GNU toolchain together. :)

Here's what I just ordered from Digikey:

Part#: ATAVRISP2-ND
Description: PROGRAMMER AVR IN SYSTEM
Price: $35.91

Part#: ATMEGA48-20PU-ND
Description: IC AVR MCU 4K 20MHZ 5V 28DIP
Price: $2.69

The programmer is a bit on the pricey side, but you get it once and use
it over and over. The controller itself, as you can see, is quite
cheap. So if you screw it up and turn it into a brick, you don't suffer
too much financially. :)

I chose this particular chip because the ATMega48 seems like a pretty
common AVR chip (it's used in one version of the Pololu Baby Orangutan
for example -- which BTW looks like a great board if you want something
with motor controllers built in). And it's a DIP package, as Gordon
points out (important for me since I use a prototyping breadboard a
lot). I don't know what the "20PU" or "ND" parts mean, so hopefully
they're not important!

Good luck,
- Joe

Posted by Joe Strout on May 28, 2007, 10:57 pm

> Joe, didn't you try the AVR Butterfly, at $19.99 from Digi-key?

Yes (though I got mine through the kindness of Dennis Clark).

> If so, what was your experience programming that, regards available tools and
> development environments?

I never managed to get anywhere with it. I even posted to the avrfreaks
forum, but nobody there had much in the way of specific advice. But to
be fair, I was extremely short on both time and money at the time, so I
was attempting to use the bootloader but lacked sufficient time to
figure out how to do so.

Now that I've got an AVR-ISP2 on the way, I'll probably get the
butterfly out again. And once I've figured out how to program it with
that, I may take another stab at the bootloader. Especially considering
that I think I have brickedthe Coridium ARMmite board I was planning to
use as the brain of my firefighting bot...

Best,
- Joe

Posted by dan michaels on May 29, 2007, 9:40 am

> > Joe, didn't you try the AVR Butterfly, at $19.99 from Digi-key?

> Yes (though I got mine through the kindness of Dennis Clark).

> > If so, what was your experience programming that, regards available tools and
> > development environments?

> I never managed to get anywhere with it. I even posted to the avrfreaks
> forum, but nobody there had much in the way of specific advice. But to
> be fair, I was extremely short on both time and money at the time, so I
> was attempting to use the bootloader but lacked sufficient time to
> figure out how to do so.
> Now that I've got an AVR-ISP2 on the way, I'll probably get the
> butterfly out again. And once I've figured out how to program it with
> that, I may take another stab at the bootloader.

I'm just guessing here, but it's possible if you use regular ISP
programming on the Butterfly, then it may erase the bootloader.

????

> Especially considering
> that I think I have brickedthe Coridium ARMmite board I was planning to
> use as the brain of my firefighting bot...
> Best,
> - Joe

Ummm, what is "bricked"? :-) I thought you also had the ARMexpress.

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