Ultra Minimum Propeller - Fact or Fiction?

Humanoido · 2009-08-03 04:39

As understood, the absolute minimum setup for experimentation:
- Propeller chip
- PropPlug

attachment.php?attachmentid=62647

What is the speed and max program size that can be run?
Other ideas and applications?

Post Edited (humanoido) : 8/3/2009 9:11:23 AM GMT

mctrivia · 2009-08-03 04:47

Max speed is ruffly 12mhz with large error factor. Code size is same but on powerfailure you need to reload

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BradC · 2009-08-03 04:48

humanoido said...
Discussion on creating the ultra minimum propeller...

What is the speed and max program size that can be run?

- RCFAST == ~12Mhz

- 32k just the same as with the eeprom.

Both of your questions are answered within 8 lines of the picture you included on page 17-18 of the Propeller manual.

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lt's not particularly silly, is it?

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) · 2009-08-03 04:49

At some point, a rational cost/benefit analysis will determine that extreme minimalism is just plain silly. It would appear that this line has now been crossed.

-Phil

mctrivia · 2009-08-03 04:55

I advertise my propmods as having the essentials only plus some options. Though not technically essential crystal, eeprom, bypass caps and an overvoltage protection system are well worth the extra $4

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Peter Jakacki · 2009-08-03 05:00

An absolute minimum like this still needs a power-supply anyway, perhaps even two 1.5V batteries. There is nothing that really warrants running without a crystal though, they are cheap and small, as is the EEPROM, and what's a resistor?. The only real situation where a particular chip would not have it's own EEPROM and crystal is when it's part of a multi-prop system.

*Peter*

mctrivia · 2009-08-03 05:04

I pay $0.0039 for a 10k resister and 0.1uF are the same price.

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Philldapill · 2009-08-03 05:27

mctrivia, you MUST divulge your source...

Peter Jakacki · 2009-08-03 05:43

mctrivia, if you were replying to my previous post then that was a rhetorical question. However resistors are very very cheap if you buy reels of smd parts but caps still cost about 3 cents each if you buy a reel of 4,000. Otherwise in non-production quantities it's a totally different story.

*Peter*

Humanoido · 2009-08-03 09:05

I was rhetorically thinking out loud in regards to several things, one - in terms of multiple prop circuits where some resources could be saved, but c'mon, a quantity of 4,000 props is just about right, and dropping 4,000 crystals and 4,000 eeproms from the circuit will indeed add up to some cost savings. Now if we could just get those props on reels. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

heater · 2009-08-03 09:16

That minimal Prop configuration is very important. It means you can start with nothing but a Prop on a bread board and immediately get a program working. Instant confidence in your tool chain. From there you can add bit by bit with confidence. A crystal here a LED there...

Having built a number of PIC programming circuits that did not work reliably that was a big win immediately for the Prop for me, before I was even aware of it's other unique features.

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For me, the past is not over yet.

Rsadeika · 2009-08-03 10:11

I have to agree with heater on this one. When I got my PE kit, my first project was to assemble the kit as described in the instructions. But, it did not take me very long before I took the kit apart again, and built the minimal configuration. At 12 MHz, the fastest baud that you can use with the serial object is 57,600. I learned a whole lot more when I started with the minimal configuration; if I would have had a stable 3VDC setup, then I would have discarded the voltage regulator setup. But, then you may run into a problem with devices that need a 5 VDC supply.

Since you are probably thinking about hooking up a bunch of Props, the only drawback that I see, is that you have to program each Prop chip individually. So, that forces you to have an EEPROM for each chip, program it once, and load it too the EEPROM. It would be nice if the Prop had a 20 MHz internal oscillator, and maybe 32 KB of flash RAM. But, what do I know.

As for programs, I did not run into any problems, as long as you stayed under the 32 KB limit, but I only did some very minimal stuff.

Ray

Cluso99 · 2009-08-03 11:40

You definately should add a bypass capacitor across the power pins of the prop. Otherwise this minimal circuit is a perfectly good starting point. In fact, I didn't add an eeprom to my TriBlade board for a few weeks. Why bother when I was only downloading code for development. An eeprom is only required if you want it to boot something usable.

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Links to other interesting threads:

· Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBladeProp, RamBlade, TwinBlade,·SixBlade, website
· Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
· Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
· Emulators: Micros eg Altair, and Terminals eg VT100 (Index) ZiCog (Z80), MoCog (6809)
· Search the Propeller forums (via Google)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm

mctrivia · 2009-08-03 13:22

My source is digikey. I buy in 5k reels.

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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5

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jazzed · 2009-08-03 15:25

@humanoido, I use that circuit attached to another Propeller for debugging with Propalyzer.

If you want to stack a bunch of these together

, it's probably best not to connect crystal xouts
assuming that the bottom Propeller has a crystal (don't cut off any pins though).

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--Steve

Propalyzer: Propeller PC Logic Analyzer
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=788230

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) · 2009-08-03 15:41

If you're thinking of parallelling to gain performance, consider this: from a raw speed standpoint, one propeller with a 5MHz crystal is equal to more than six Propellers without one. One crystal is a lot cheaper than five additional Propellers.

-Phil

jazzed · 2009-08-03 15:50

Would be funny to connect about 14 of these together in a serial mesh. Would need a strong clock driver and eeproms to be functional though.
Added: On second thought, with a shared clock configuration, it might be possible to download them all with RX connected on each, but TX connected only on one Propeller.

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--Steve

Propalyzer: Propeller PC Logic Analyzer
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=788230

Post Edited (jazzed) : 8/3/2009 3:59:27 PM GMT

RevAaron · 2009-08-04 04:05

Apologies for cross-posting the photos... but it's almost exactly what humanoido asked about. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

I asked about this two weeks ago- curious what the bare minimum was to get up and running on a breadboard. I got my DIP Propellers today. 5 minutes of tinkering later and I had a ready to use Propeller dev setup.

The only real deviation is that I'm using a crystal. No reason not to use one. Without one, you'll be running at a really low speed, possibly with timing/reliability issues on top of it. If cost is *that* much of an issue, you'd be better off with a $2 PIC18 or mid-range AVR. Heck, you could get a lower-end PIC32 and a crystal for less than $5. For a high-performance and higher priced controller like the Propeller it's hard to argue that it's worth the $0.10 - $0.15 you'd save per crystal (in bulk) to cripple an $8 MCU into $1 performance. Net loss of $6.80. :P

Don't get me wrong- I'm all for trying things just because. I'd be happy to try it without the crystal if anyone is curious. In lieu of a PropPlug I used a Arduino- both the Arduino and the PropPlug use the FTDI FT232RL chip to do USB to TTL. Handy for the regulated power, too. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

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Post Edited (RevAaron) : 8/4/2009 4:36:22 AM GMT

Agent420 · 2009-08-11 14:02

I'm still experimenting on the demo board...· just to clarify, isn't an external eeprom required for freestanding operation in a finished project?· So really you need the Prop, a crystal and the eeprom for any project requiring speed/accuracy such as video?

mctrivia · 2009-08-11 14:20

Yes eeprom is needed or good battery backup system.

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Oldbitcollector (Jeff) · 2009-08-11 14:33

RevAaron said...
Don't get me wrong- I'm all for trying things just because. I'd be happy to try it without the crystal if anyone is curious. In lieu of a PropPlug I used a Arduino- both the Arduino and the PropPlug use the FTDI FT232RL chip to do USB to TTL. Handy for the regulated power, too. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Wow..

What a neat way for an Ardunio user to get started with the Propeller!
Would you mind documenting those connections you are making for me? (I'm not an Arduino guy)

OBC

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New to the Propeller?

Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.

Humanoido · 2009-08-11 14:56

Steve said...
Added: On second thought, with a shared clock configuration, it might be
possible to download them all with RX connected on each, but TX connected only on one Propeller.

If someone can draw up a circuit, I would like to build it and see how it works.

RobotWorkshop · 2009-08-11 15:10

humanoido said...
As understood, the absolute minimum setup for experimentation:
- Propeller chip
- PropPlug

What is the speed and max program size that can be run?
Other ideas and applications?

I would make sure to connect all the Vss and Vdd pins. I recall reading some older posts that mentioned it wasn't a good idea to use only one of each, leaving the others disconnected. It only adds a couple more wires or traces to make that happen.

Robert

Humanoido · 2009-08-11 15:20

Robert: excellent point about connecting Vss to Vss and Vdd to Vdd. It could be easy to miss this in thinking too much about connecting one prop to the next. For those etching prop boards, the connecting traces are important. Are these connected on all the other Prop boards? Did anyone notice?

BradC · 2009-08-11 15:30

humanoido said...
Robert: excellent point about connecting Vss to Vss and Vdd to Vdd. It could be easy to miss this in thinking too much about connecting one prop to the next. For those etching prop boards, the connecting traces are important. Are these connected on all the other Prop boards? Did anyone notice?

They certainly are on all the boards I have here. Bad things can happen if they are not.

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lt's not particularly silly, is it?

mctrivia · 2009-08-11 15:30

It is extremely important to connect all vss and vdd pins and have a decoupling capacitor for each vdd pin. Any pcb made by anyone here that I have seen does this.

if using a module like mine it is not usually esential to connect all because the pcb is good conductor but still best if you can.

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propmod_us and propmod_1x1 are in stock. Only $30. PCB available for $5

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SRLM · 2009-08-11 17:18

Agent420 said...
I'm still experimenting on the demo board... just to clarify, isn't an external eeprom required for freestanding operation in a finished project? So really you need the Prop, a crystal and the eeprom for any project requiring speed/accuracy such as video?

If you keep the propeller on all the time, then the code will have been loaded into RAM by the prop-tool, so there wouldn't be a need for EEPROM. Otherwise, if the power cycles, yes, an EEPROM would be needed to store the code.

jazzed · 2009-08-11 18:40

humanoido said...

Steve said...
Added: On second thought, with a shared clock configuration, it might be
possible to download them all with RX connected on each, but TX connected only on one Propeller.

If someone can draw up a circuit, I would like to build it and see how it works.

I'm sorry I did not respond. Somehow I thought the statement was sufficient. Attached is the circuit picture posted before with edits. Yes, decoupling caps should be used. If you need an eeprom, etc..., that's a different picture. I have not tested this circuit - YMMV.

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--Steve

Propalyzer: Propeller PC Logic Analyzer
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=788230

CounterRotatingProps · 2009-08-11 18:53

Hey Steve, Phil - maybe Cluso too?

I've been curious about clocking multiple props off one crystal...
Steve you said earlier here that N props would need a more robust clock.

Do you guys know the correct circuit to use one crystal to drive say 8 or 12 props? Would simple line driver/buffers be enough, or are there frequency stability issues? (I'm a crystal N00B [noparse]:)[/noparse]

thanks
- H
PS. Humanoido - you always seem to spark interesting discussions [noparse]:)[/noparse]

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mctrivia · 2009-08-11 18:56

Search for my prop galore project schematic is there

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Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) · 2009-08-11 19:06

The "one TX, multiple RX" circuit may not work for loading. The reason is that, during loading, the internal RC oscillator is used, not an external clock. So the Props will only be synchronized by the data they receive. Any responses they make as part of the protocol (and I haven't studied the protocol, so this may be a red herring) will not be synchronized and may take different lengths of time. If the Prop whose output is being monitored is faster than another, it could throw off the timing.

For running multiple Props from a common clock, you will need either an external oscillator or a master Prop which provides a clock signal from one of its port pins to all the others' XI pins.

-Phil

Ultra Minimum Propeller - Fact or Fiction?

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