AVR kits which one?
mikediv
Posts: 825
Hi guys I have been seeing a lot of chats lately about AVR's even Parallax is talking about doing something with them for the back pack I think ,, Can anyone please recommend a good training kit for a person brand new to AVR's?
I would like to get a good educational kit and start learning about them ,, of course I will never abandon my props or even basic stamps but I would like to stay on top of technical things and to be honest they seem to be widely used and supported
Thanks when I did a Google search there are just so many AVR chips its overwhelming 128 seems to be popular but before I put down the money I figured I would ask this time,,lol
Thanks guys
I would like to get a good educational kit and start learning about them ,, of course I will never abandon my props or even basic stamps but I would like to stay on top of technical things and to be honest they seem to be widely used and supported
Thanks when I did a Google search there are just so many AVR chips its overwhelming 128 seems to be popular but before I put down the money I figured I would ask this time,,lol
Thanks guys
Comments
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- Stephen
Jim
www.atmel.com/dyn/Products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=2725
And WinAVR (free GNU GCC compiler)
winavr.sourceforge.net/
Then you need a cheap programmer.
An STK500, AVRisp2 or AVR Dragon
Digikey sells them.
I'd start with an Atmega168 or 328, the same chips used in the arduino.
There is a lot of info on the web for these 2 chips.
You can make up a very simple test board with just the AVR chip
and a few parts. Start with the "hello world" of controllers
and make an LED blink
There are many sites that show you how to start out with AVR.
Just google for them.
The 128 is a great chip but you might want to start with a DIP
and not a sm part. The Atmega644 is a powerful 40 pin AVR.
It is used for the final projects at Cornell. You can see these here.
courses.cit.cornell.edu/ee476/FinalProjects/
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Andrew Williams
WBA Consulting
WBA-TH1M Sensirion SHT11 Module
Special Olympics Polar Bear Plunge, Mar 20, 2010
The 328 is socketed, so you can easily replace/program chips as needed. The 328 on the board has the Arduino bootloader, so if you want to use raw 328s, or re-program the included w/o bootloader, you'll need one of the programmers Holly mentioned. You can add the bootloader to a raw 328 via the Arduino IDE.
As far as kits go, many of the Arduino-based kits aren't nearly as well designed or thought out as the BS2 kits from Parallax. However, if you want to build your own (or purchase from the UK), here is a good one: www.earthshineelectronics.com/11-arduino-duemilanove-compatible-starter-kit.html. If nothing else, download & look at the pdf book at the bottom of that page. It's very good.
Edit: *I meant Duemilanove , not Diecimila. The Duemilanove is the current board, which replaces the Diecimila.
Post Edited (Kevin Wood) : 5/12/2010 3:50:35 AM GMT
www.siliconcoder.com
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Think Inside the box first and if that doesn't work..
Re-arrange what's inside the box then...
Think outside the BOX!
Chuck other people have told me they closed there site as well I don't know why..
thanks again guys
Oh metron I am sorry I did to see that link I am checking it out now thank you..
Hey guys I found a really nice kit on Ebay "ATMEL AVR ATMEGA128 -16AU" but I am not sure I understand how they identify there products is the AVR-128 compatible with the 168 or the 328 Holly and others has suggested?
Post Edited (mikediv) : 5/12/2010 12:22:18 AM GMT
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·"If you build it, they will come."
Some sites grow to a size that is not manageable because they have spam, fights, continual·newbe questions, etc.
They probably reached a level of success and don't have to bother with you and I.· It is easier just to close the doors and only those who are professional get to share their forums.
I asked a lot of basic questions on the Arduino website and while they answered some, users suggested I buy without fully answering some questions which is not okay for me.· I don't buy a car without test driving and since they won't tell me it is kind of a hard sell because they aren't interested in teaching the more in depth parts and differences between units.· I'm sure the support on some of the harder aspects of the Arduino might be·nonexistent as well because they don't know since they are stuck on the tutorials.
Now, that said, could Holly or some of the other Atmel fans help me understand why for low quantity stuff (hobby or commercial), I would want to stray from the Parallax brand, and the level of support it represents? I honestly haven't looked very hard at them, and if there is a reason to look further, please enlighten me.
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John R.
Click here to see my Nomad Build Log
I love the tiny chips.
My favorite is the tiny85 with 8k of flash.
Very cheap when you buy 25 at a time.
Paired with a cheap (.23) 20mhz xtal you get almost 20mips.
Works well even with just the adjustable internal clock.
I scatter tiny AVR chips onto boards because it is so cheap
to do so. I replaced the 555 timer with a tiny. Now I never
use 555 chips any more, what's the point.
It's amazing what you can do with a tiny
@mikediv
The underlying hardware is very similar on all 8 bit AVRs.
There are differences though, mainly due to differing pin count
and peripherals.
C is certainly the way to go here!
And don't overlook AVR assembly, it's easy to use and fast.
I advise against the 128 for various reasons. As An AVR newbie
I'd suggest the 168, 328, any tiny (especially the 85) or a big boy
like the 40pin DIP Atmega644. You need something you can fry and then
swap another dip chip in, the 128 is sm.
There is a new big brother to the 644 that has 128k flash, but I have been
waiting on an order for some time....maybe in June I will get some to play with.
oh, the 84 is a 14pin with 8k flash...less than 2$
It is just a slight step up from the 8pin tiny chips.
For hobby stuff I would stick to what I know best.
For commercial you want to save time and money (much the same thing)
And this means using something like a tiny AVR if it does the job....
Use whatever is cheapest and fastest to market.
Every nickle you save moves you up the ladder..
(it has so far for me..I have a rep as someone that saves $$$)
I will tell anyone Parallax has no equal when it comes to support the fact that his website lets me come here and talk with countless experts not just for the Parallax stuff, this company is very good to its customers.
That said its a big world and some of these other chips have there place and need. While I am sure others can go into much better detail than me its good to remain open to other products just because they may have a specific function or cost or something you might want to consider some day .. I decided to look into the AVR's because many of the members here have been telling me about them and some uses as Holly had stated she uses them to replace the 555 I did not even think of that "good idea"
Also Parallax has mentioned that they will be using them in there Back Pack product.. I could be wrong about that by the way You just never know what you might run into .. Also and there is a TON of debate on this but I have been wanting to learn C for a very long time on the MCU side of things and the AVR's seem to be a good choice for that .. This of course is just my .02
Holly I wish I came back here first before but I just won an auction for the 128 I was confused that this was the same chip as the 168-328 for some reason guess I am tired . Anyway I will have for it whatever .. I will look into getting the 168-328 I just can't seem to find a decent board
I did find the"""Arduino Diecimila""" on ebay but the darn things do not say which chip they have in them????? Holly do you program them in C?
Thanks again guys
http://www.nkcelectronics.com/seeeduino-mega-fully-assembled.html
But an experienced user says it isn't going to help the beginner at Robotics.
Post Edited (Chuckz) : 5/12/2010 1:19:16 AM GMT
Arduino is great but I think you should play with an AVR
without the crutch of a bootloader though. The arduino bootloader
just makes it all different and you should know how to work with
raw AVRs. In no time you will be able to write your own boot loader code
The arduino has made lots of info available on the 168 and 328 chips though.
But it has gotten hard to find a quantity of 328's to buy...the dweenos
have sucked them all up
The Arduino "language" is C/C++ based on another project called Wiring. It is basically a set of libraries that get run through avr-gcc on the way to the ATMega. The nice thing about the Arduino IDE is that using the libraries makes it very easy to get going. However, since the IDE is basically a front end to avr-gcc, you can get as low-level as you want to by creating your own functions/libraries. If you're interested in more detail, see the following: arduino.cc/en/Hacking/HomePage.
I mentioned the Diecimila, but if you get one, you'll want the Duemilanove... arduino.cc/en/Main/Hardware. The newer ones come with the ATMega328, the older ones come with the ATMega168. The 168 boards can be upgraded by replacing the ATMega. You can buy them with the bootloader already burned (from SparkFun), or use a raw chip and burn it yourself.
Just curious.· Where can you get 25 of them on the cheap?
Chuck
Digikey.com
25 1.43400ea 35.85total
search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=ATTINY85-20PU-ND
Mouser.com
25 $1.33ea 33.25total
www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=attiny85
There may be a slightly cheaper price somewhere else, you never know.
You cannot as a rule find AVRs at a great price on ebay.
Buying 100 or even a 1000+ brings the price down a bit more.
Still, at 1.33ea a lot of bang for the buck
To everyone else,
I've decided not to get involved with AVR for now.· Electronics is not where I make my living yet and if I buy a lot of programmers and chips then that is all I will have.· For me, family is what needs my time and not learning a lot of platforms and there are a lot out there.
When I looked online, the sites which sell AVR (I won't name them) are making money off of the projects you can buy and while there are easy tutorials;·they are short.· I can do all of my experimenting on a cheap $15 dollar breadboard and the arduino sites want me to buy a·project board for everything (it is packaged with everything).· What is missing are engineers who can answer my questions in a forum.
I was thinking and laying in bed thinking about it this morning and I'll probably email Ken an algabraic formula as to why I see people getting more value out of the products here as soon as I can make a good presentation.· It would probably make a good marketing tool as to explain why Parallax has more value because while we're being tricked into buying a cheap Arduino; they make up the profit by producing the tutorials with headers and boards they sell for not what they are paying.· At least the Propeller Demo board comes with a breadboard on top so I don't have to buy shields for each time I want to experiment.· You get a forum on Arduino sites but I don't recognize a lot of engineers on their forums.· If you got that, you would be paying for it.
The problem is that while I see tutorials on other sites on how to hook up stuff, they do most of the work and their hardware is doing it for me so I don't learn all about what is involved.· Some of the chips mentioned lack the support that Arduino has.
It comes down to this.· I have to learn it myself because I'm not an expert and when there are more projects you can buy than there are tutorials that do it for me, I'm not learning.· And why settle for a 20 MHZ Arduino when the Prop is faster?
Sure, if all you have is nothing then following a tutorial makes you do something except I recognize a lot of it as playing instead of knowing how to do something.· If I didn't have a bootloader I would be clueless as how to program the Arduino in the first place so I learned their system but I didn't learn how to do some things myself.
There is absolutely nothing that says you have to use the Arduino IDE/software and hardware together. The hardware is basically a generic AVR board (with an annoying header layout). The chip is just a 328 (typically) with a bootloader installed. You can use a regular programmer (and ignore/overwrite the bootloader). You can use any language (assembly, AVR C, BASCOM, Arduino, ...).
You can program an AVR using an Arduino board and then transplant it in a board of your choice - or plug it into a breadboard. If you go this route, you only need to buy one board. Then you can buy your chips from digikey, mouser, etc.
Also, programming the AVRs using the Arduino bootloader just plain works. It's similar to programming a BASIC Stamp or a Prop. I use several other AVR programmers, but I always seem to need to update drivers or firmware (whether they are the Atmel programmers or third party).
Like others here, I do like AVRs. I've been using them since before the Arduino project started.
I still think that the BASIC Stamps are the best way to learn anything.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Post Edited (Leon) : 5/13/2010 3:21:21 PM GMT