|
Posted by Wayne C. Gramlich on June 17, 2009, 9:32 pm
kuikahi wrote:
>> Arduino Nano vs. Basic Stamp.
>> which is better? I have used a Parallax BS2 for many years and is
>> easy for me to use.
>> I don't know anything about Arduino. Please enlighten me.
>
> I am doing a project with DC linear actuators.
> What kind of code does Arduino use?
I am not familiar with DC linear actuators, but I suspect
that they are kind of similar to stepper motors. If so, you
probably have to ramp them up and down in step rate to get any
sort of decent performance. If so, I'd pick the Arduino over
the Basic Stamp II. You will have a much greater control over
your timing with the Arduino than with the BS2.
Arduino is a AVR ATmega168 with 16K bytes of program memory
and 1K of data RAM. It has been preprogrammed with a boot
loader that allows programs to be downloaded to it via a
USB connection to a host computer (PC, Mac, Linux, etc.)
I'm pretty sure that they use some version of Intel .hex
file format, but do not quote me on that; I could be wrong.
Unlike the Basic Stamp II, there a several programming languages
available for the AVR instruction set. The most commonly used
are assembly and the GCC ANSI-C compiler. Both are free.
There is at least Basic compiler for the AVR available from
BASCOM (not free) and there me be others that I am unfamiliar
with. In general, people who are new to embedded systems tend
to find basic easier to program in than ANSI-C. However, the
work horse of embedded systems is ANSI-C. Pretty much every
major micro-controller family out there has some sort of ANSI-C
compiler. (The compiler could be free or it could cost money,
it varies from vendor to vendor.)
For people who expect to be doing numerous projects using
microcontrollers, it is hard not to recommend that they
learn ANSI-C. If your goal is to do just this one project
and then do something else, well it might make sense to skip
ANSI-C, buy the basic compiler and be done with it.
I hope this helps,
-Wayne
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML site map
>
>
> which is better? I have used a Parallax BS2 for many years and is
> easy for me to use.
> I don't know anything about Arduino. Please enlighten me.