Prop proto board versus basic stamp.
jeffjohnvol
Posts: 197
I've been working with a bs2px stamp on my current project because I needed something that would work with the PLC product (I needed 24 volt i/o). But when bored at work, I read the forums and the product guides etc.
I was looking at the propeller proto board for around $20. And it has the chip and crystal already on it ready to run. Incredible. So.... my question is, is there any benefit to using a stamp over the propeller other than pbasic? Looking at spin, I think I would prefer that because I prefer functions over goto/gosub anyway.
I realize there is an additional initial cost for the prop plug, but that’s small compared to the price of a stamp plus a development board.
I'm assuming that each cog of the propeller is faster than the stamps, or is that an incorrect assumption?
Are there any advantages of the stamp over the propeller?
Also, can anyone tell me that if I were to interface a 1302 or 1307 timekeeping chip, would I be able to share the same crystal/clock on the protoboard?
I was looking at the propeller proto board for around $20. And it has the chip and crystal already on it ready to run. Incredible. So.... my question is, is there any benefit to using a stamp over the propeller other than pbasic? Looking at spin, I think I would prefer that because I prefer functions over goto/gosub anyway.
I realize there is an additional initial cost for the prop plug, but that’s small compared to the price of a stamp plus a development board.
I'm assuming that each cog of the propeller is faster than the stamps, or is that an incorrect assumption?
Are there any advantages of the stamp over the propeller?
Also, can anyone tell me that if I were to interface a 1302 or 1307 timekeeping chip, would I be able to share the same crystal/clock on the protoboard?
Comments
i know the basicstamp only a little bit. The main difference is the greater flexability of the propeller.
Whenever you need a driver for whatever or anything is timecritical you dedicate a cog to this job
and its working.
There are a lot of ready to use codes in the object exchange.
There is already one for the DS1302 obex.parallax.com/objects/89/
Yes SPIN allows a very structured way of programming with its objects.
Loops and lines - belonging to if or case statements - are defined by indention.
There is no other way so the IDE makes everybody program in a formatted way
best regards
Stefan
2) The real time clock chips usually require a 32768Hz crystal mounted close to the chip and you can't place extra loads on it. It doesn't make sense to run the RTC chip off the Propeller's clock, not the least of which is that the RTC is expected to have a backup battery while the Propeller would normally be shut off from time to time. If the Propeller is not going to be shut off, why not have the Propeller keep track of the time and date?
2) another good point.· When Chris Savage mentioned he adds a 1302 to each of his stamp projects for the RAM alone if nothing else, I just made an assumption that I would want it for the prop.· I haven't searched, but I take it there is built in time keeping abilities in the prop, or code written for it already?
The Propeller normally runs off a crystal (5MHz on the Protoboard) and, once a program is running, the CNT register (see the Manual) keeps track of system clock cycles since the last power on (modulo 32 bits). You would need to devote a cog to using this as a time "tick" and keeping an actual time and date since, with an 80MHz system clock (commonly used), a 32 bit count rolls over in less than a minute. It's not hard to do.