Electronics > Electronics
Help me with Microcontrollers
cyber0066:
I'm looking for a versatile microcontroller unit. Just some background on me, I'm pretty familiar with the mechanical things (I'm Mech Eng student) as well as software but I know NOTHING about electrical. I've already built a mini sumo bot at school but I didn't touch the electrical part at all. So now I'm trying to learn more about electrical.
For the mini sumo bot at school, we were already given a circuit board so all we had to take care of was the mechanical and software portion. The circuit board was custom made but I was wondering if I can buy ready made circuit boards that I can use for other robots I want to build. Don't know if this matters or not, but the IC components were:
PIC18f4580 microcontroller x1
MAX3313 x1
MC33886 HSOP package x2
Can anybody tell me what these parts do?
Anyways, I'm looking for some suggestions on a whole circuit board unit that I can buy. Here's my criteria
1. I don't want it pre-programmed. I want to program it myself using C.
2. I'm planning to use the board for a few robots...first will be another mini sumo and maybe some other applications like a line follower or other simple robots. I'd prefer to have more I/Os if I want to make more complicated robots in the future.
3. Have some sort of H-bridge so I can drive motors from it.
4. Some output indicators. LEDs are fine.
5. Cost...under $150. The custom made one cost around $60 CDN and that suited our purpose already.
So I hope these aren't very rudimentary questions...I really don't know a lot about electrical.
Thanks
ed1380:
http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/study.htm
Heres a great site to get you started
My suggestion is that you go to www.digikey.com and use that to find the data sheets for the ic's you mentioned
snow:
I like http://www.datasheetarchive.com/ for datasheets.
zamboniman60:
I recommend you get a 12 v wall transformer, a breadboard, and some parts (resistors, capacitors, transistors) from your local gougingly expensive electronic parts store - then get a beginner's guide from the library and muck around for a few hours. It's much more useful than extremely math-heavy theory courses.
ed1380:
--- Quote from: snow on April 07, 2007, 03:51:12 PM ---I like http://www.datasheetarchive.com/ for datasheets.
--- End quote ---
bookmarked
Thanks :)
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