Which microcontroller?

roksraka

Yeah, I know, I already asked this a million times....
I'm planning to build my second robot (Boe-Bot was my first). I can't decide which microcontroller to use. I already have BS2, but it's very expensive, it's not open-source, and has low memory and it is slow. On the other hand, I have cheaper microcontrollers like Arduino or PICAXE. I'm very confused... :S

Please reply, if you have any suggestions!
thanks you very much...

roksraka

roksraka

one more thing...it's not necessary to be any of microcontrollers that I mentioned earlier...
it can be anything.

dandreae

You might take a look at the Propeller Prop board.· I can't imagine a better controller than the Propeller for Robotics'.· Here is a link for more information:

http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/PropellerDevelopmentBoards/tabid/514/CategoryID/73/List/0/Level/a/ProductID/509/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName%2cProductName

Dave

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Dave Andreae

Parallax Tech Support·

allanlane5

The $10 SX48 board is quite powerful. 50 MIPS, with REAL interrupts, LOTS of Flash memory on board.

Mike Green

This is like asking "I'm hungry. What food should I eat?" Already you've implied that open-source is important to you, available memory is important, speed is important, price is important.

You need to make a list of what things are really important. Some things are absolutely necessary and some things are just preferable. You need a first cut at a stated list before asking the question "Which microcontroller?" again. Here you will get advice on the various Parallax microcontrollers like the Stamps, the SX, and the Propeller.

roksraka

The problem with microcontrollers from Parallax, is that they are very expensive.

And here is the list of important stuff:
- CHEAP
- open-source
- easily expandable
- lots of I/Os
- lots of memory

Andy Lindsay (Parallax)

Propeller Microcontroller - $13,· 32 I/O,· 32 KB RAM,· and downloader provided if you want to design it into your own development software.

In addition, with 8 built-in 32-bit processors clocked up to 80 MHz, it significantly outperforms the other microcontrollers you referred to, and its multiprocessor architecture excels in robotics applications.

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Andy Lindsay

Education Department
Parallax, Inc.

Post Edited (Andy Lindsay (Parallax)) : 11/24/2008 9:47:22 PM GMT

Mike Green

The Stamps are expensive because you get a lot for your money. They're programmable from a PC with essentially no additional hardware. They have their own voltage regulator, they have an extremely high level of support and existing documentation and other learning tools, all available in downloadable form for free. The Propeller is now available as the USB Protoboard which has a similar cost to the Stamps, but is also pretty much self contained.

There are plenty of cheap microcontrollers including the PICs, AVRs, and others. There are plenty of PIC programmers on the market and some of them are very simple and very cheap to make or buy. You can find a number of open-source development tools as well as inexpensive 3rd party compilers. Some of the PICs have lots of I/O pins and several K of memory and you can find various models with pretty much any features you want. On the other hand, they're harder to use and there's not as much support as there is for the Stamps. You can buy an Arduino from SparkFun for $20US. It's a good microcontroller with open-source development tools. Why not use that?

Chris Savage

Another thing to factor in when judging the cost of a BASIC Stamp is that you’re making an example of the development module. If you were an OEM and needed production cost to implement a BASIC Stamp into your own design it can be done for less than $15.00.

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Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering