Wanting to upgrade to Propeller would like advice

Craig T

I am currently using a BS2 and have been more than pleased with it in my robot projects but I have been wanting to get another stamp or upgrade to the propeller.
I would mainly be using it for robotics. I like the idea of 8 processors in the same chip. My plans so far are to buy the P8X32A-D40 Propeller microcontroller and use
it with the Propeller Professional Development Board. I would like to know if this would be a good move for me. Is propeller similar at all to the BS2? How much is
different between the BS2 and the propeller? What is your recommendation to get started with propeller? Is any familiar with using the professional development
board and how do you like it?

I basically need to know what I need to get and how to get started with the propeller.

Thanks ahead of time.

-Craig

John R.

Craig;

You'll probably get better advice here, in the Propeller forum than in the Robots Forum, and as cross posting is discourages (somewhat strongly), you should delete the post in the Robots Forum.

The Prop Pro Development Board is a nice board, but I don't know that it lends itself to robotics, just due to its physical size. If you're just looking for a "learning tool", it would probably work out OK.

I would also suggest looking at the Prop Education Kit (40 Pin Dip Version). This has a nice sized breadboard, and includes the parts required to work through the Propeller Education Tutorials/classes/lessons. It does not include all the inputs and other devices on the Pro Development Board.

For use on an actual robot, the demo board (small, but not much in the way of available outputs), prototype board ("bare bones", or one of the other Prop based boards (from Parallax or 3rd parties) may be more appropriate, depending on the specifics of your robot.

Other than that the Propeller and BS2 are both made by Parallax, and come with the associated support, they are pretty much totally different animals. There are tools (PBasic objects, and now even PropBasic) that you use a similar programming language.

Personally, given the price differences, I strongly encourage you to come over to the Propeller. It is less expensive, and more powerful.

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John R.
Click here to see my Nomad Build Log

Robert T

Craig

Have you looked at the Propeller Robot Control Board. Its setup for motor and servo control.

Roy Eltham

First up, I highly recommend getting the "Programming and Customizing The Multicore Propeller Microcontroller" book. It'll start you off with the very basics of working with the Prop, and take you all the way through to advanced stuff including some nice robot projects.

I really love my PPDB (Prop Pro Dev Board). If you can afford it, then I think it's a really excellent platform to use to learn the Propeller.

Also, the MSR1 Propeller Robot Control board is also a really nice board to use on your robots. I have 2 of these (one on my Stingray and one on my parallax wood platform bot).

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Check out the Propeller Wiki·and contribute if you can.

ElectricAye

Craig T said...
...I would like to know if this would be a good move for me. Is propeller similar at all to the BS2?....

Since you've already had plenty of experience with the BS2, I would say that no matter how you approach learning the Propeller you probably can't go wrong. In terms of capability, the Propeller is like an order of magnitude more powerful. The Propeller uses a different language, of course, but it's not so alien that it will bog you down. Once you learn how to juggle the different cogs, The Prop will blow your mind. I sashayed from BS2 to Prop via the "Propeller Education Kit" and lots of help from this forum, whose members very kindly provided tons of support.

It's a whole new world.

Welcome to it!

mctrivia

I would go with a Propeller Platform or propmod-us_ps_sd

The prop platform has many great boards including the Platform Universal Adapter Module which will let you use any of the modules available at ucontroller.com/

The propmod-us_ps_sd is a tiny board with all the basics that can easily be squeezed into a robot and then wired to other peripherals.

Which you use depends on what your end goal is.

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24 bit LCD Breakout Board now in. $24.99 has backlight driver and touch sensitive decoder.

If you have not already. Add yourself to the prophead map

WBA Consulting

If you have a BOE-Bot or if you plan to go the DIP40 PEKit route, this thread might interest you:
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=635059
PEKBot: A Propeller Education Kit setup on a Boe-Bot chassis.

The PE Kit is a very good start. I started with a demoboard and it worked great to jumpstart into understanding some SPIN basics and getting to see some things quickly. I am now going through the PE Kit to strengthen my SPIN fundamentals. I use my PPDB to layout and debug circuits/code that will be end up on perfboard or a custom PCB.

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Andrew Williams
WBA Consulting
WBA-TH1M Sensirion SHT11 Module
Special Olympics Polar Bear Plunge, Mar 20, 2010

benty

My personal experience(as far as ease of use) with the propeller is that its pretty easy to get in to, especially if you're already comfortable with the BS2. When I started with it I didn't have much microcontroller experience but I managed to make myself a spiffy weather station without too much trouble. I'd get the PE kit to start out with if I were to do it again since I started with a demo board and just figured stuff out as I went along which was a little more effort

Cluso99

CraigT: Firstly, welcome. You will find lots of good advice here. You cannot go wrong no matter which pcb you buy. I recomment the Parallax Propeller Proto Board with USB because you get a prop board with power supply and breadboard section. You also get a propplug (programmer) on the board. Later, you can modify this board to make the propplug section seperate so you can wire it to other pcbs. IIRC the Professional Development Board has a downloader/programmer also on board.

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz

Scope

I'm in the process of upgrading - I now only have about two weeks with my Propeller. I went through most of the Boe-Bot & WAM stuff and I began playing around with a few hair-brain ideas of my own using the Stamp 2.

Although the code for the Propeller is a little more challenging than PBASIC, the Propeller seems way more capable of doing some really incredible stuff.

Based on what I've learned thus far, I will be using four Propeller kits in my "Introduction to Microcontrollers" class which begins on 14-Apr-10. After carefully considering my options - and there are many out there - I'm taking my students from NXT's directly into microcontroller systems using the Propeller. I'm very new to this and so, take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but the more I learn about the Propeller, the more I'm fascinated by it and the more I'm convinced it's a wonderful way to learn while providing virtually limitless possibilities for future opportunities & growth.

I will always love the BASIC Stamp 2 - it was my first "real" microcontroller experience and I plan on keeping it very busy until I die. But, my Stamp 2 enjoys being busy.

And, that's the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it, uh huh, uh huh.

Post Edited (Scope) : 3/28/2010 7:51:47 PM GMT

sylvie369

It's a bit harder to get started with the Prop than with the Stamp, simply because you have to go through an addition couple of steps to get any debugging output. But once you've got that going, almost everything else - all of the cool stuff - is considerably easier, in my opinion, with the Prop than with the Stamp. In addition, the Prop is considerably cheaper and has WAY more "headroom", in the sense of being more capable.
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lardom

You will realize quickly that making the jump to the propeller is the right decision. I started and completed my first project in '09' with the BS2. I was excited to have programmed a machine with a keypad, an LCD and a stepper motor. Looking back, that machine used 4 microprocessors; Memkey, LittleStepU, serial LCD and the BS2. I'm translating that Pbasic program to Spin. I have the major chunks of code·and I'm adding a 'settings' function. I need the challenge so I guess I'll have to start learning ASM when this project is done. Meanwhile, my·BS2P is in a drawer.·

Craig T

Wow, thanks for all the help and info. I have made up my mind to upgrade to propeller. I really appreciate all the info including the different boards to get.