Society of Robots - Robot Forum
Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: vipulan12 on February 01, 2012, 10:03:18 PM
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Hey guys I' new at building robots and i need help choosing and buying a micro controller
could you guys tell me a micro controlled i could practice on to get a better idea of how it works and a link of where I could buy it
i would really appreciate it
thanks
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Hi there
When I was in same situation as You are now, I just bought cheapest ATmega I could find on eBay, it was ATmega48 (it still is the cheapest DIP ATmega on eBay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ATMEL-ATMEGA48-20PU-8-BIT-MICROCONTROLLER-IC-CHIP-/160608706978?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item25650661a2) You can get (£2.80)). So far I could achieve whatever I wanted to achieve with it in terms of uC projects (PWM, ADC, interfacing LCD, USART to USB comms).
Good luck :)
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thanks for advice i really appreciate it
i know this is a dumb question but could you tell me how i could use it for building a robot
i read the tutorial from society of robots but i don't understand how a microcontoller is hooked up and used?
could you explain that please
thanks :D
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Hi again :)
If You really don't understand what's what then start with Newbie's Guide to AVR Timers (http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=50106). It covers basics very well. It is an LED flasher tutorial, so to make it work You should get Yourself 1x LED and 1x a Resistor (http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz). After tutorial is complete - You should have much better understanding how microcontrollers work. Then carry on with Newbie's Guide to the AVR ADC (http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=56429), for it You will need a potentiometer, get a pack of 10k ones. After completing second tutorial, You will understand how $50 Robot utilizes uC.
NOTE: Take a look at help in programming thread (http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=14947.msg109175#msg109175) to get more links to various tutorials and useful links.
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If you are just getting started in electronics, and have a little money to spend, you may want to buy an Arduino starter kit. That will give you the basic things you need to work with an Atmega microcontroller so you learn how to use it.
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Or u could look at the PIC18F4550
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are their any good books where I could learn about the different types of micro controllers?
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I'd suggest looking at manufacturers web sites, they typically have comparisons of their chips. There are pages on the web that compare microcontrollers, but my experience has been that their real purpose is to guide you toward one or another.
The two most prevalent brands are probably Atmel and Microchip.
Atmel has a couple matrices that compare various chips. I can't post a link because this web site things it's a virus, but go to http://atmel.com (http://atmel.com), choose the "Products" menu, select "Atmel AVR 8 and 32 bit processors", and then scroll down to the 8-bit Mega and/or 8-bit tiny options.
Here (http://www.microchip.com/productselector/MCUProductSelector.html) is a matrix of Microchip 8-bit processors.
This (http://www.picaxe.com/) is the site for PicAxe processors, which are PICs that have a bootloader in them that understands a version of BASIC. There are three manuals available from this site that have more information than you can stuff in your head at once.
If all that leaves you overwhelmed, think about an Arduino (http://arduino.cc/). That's what a lot of people do until they get a better understanding of what they want.
EDIT: if you want to try something for (almost) nothing, look at the TI Launchpad (http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/MSP430_LaunchPad_%28MSP-EXP430G2%29?DCMP=launchpad&HQS=Other+OT+launchpadwiki). Last I checked you can get one for $4.30 U.S. It has a free development environment.
Joe
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Hey guys,
I wanna use image processing tech for robot, and I need speed too. AVR microcontrollers don't provide that speed, on the other hand, ARM processors seem not to be appropriate for IO usage of robot.
What do you suggest for my need????
[sorry if my sentences are not correct, English is not my native language :D]
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Really? ARM isn't sufficient for the IO? Check this one out:
STM32F103ZE6
It's what I'm using. I'm doing 7 motors with 13 analog IO and I'm using probably around 40 GPIO ports for various sensor interfacing. It has a stupid number of PWM channels to boot, so I'm using 14 of them and I think I have the option of using even more.
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Thanks for your suggestion, I googled STM32F103ZET6 and searched in st.com., but I didn't find the datasheet...Can You give me a source about this microcontroller that you suggest?
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Oops, sorry, it's actually: STM32F103ZET6. Forgot that little "T" at the end :-P
Check out the digikey page: http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/1501778-mcu-arm-512kb-flash-mem-144-lqfp-stm32f103zet6.html (http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/1501778-mcu-arm-512kb-flash-mem-144-lqfp-stm32f103zet6.html)
It has a link to the user's manual, but all the other stuff can be found with a quick google.
Sorry about that,
MIKE
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Hi,
Hey guys,
I wanna use image processing tech for robot, and I need speed too. AVR microcontrollers don't provide that speed, on the other hand, ARM processors seem not to be appropriate for IO usage of robot.
What do you suggest for my need????
Except for going against being too ambitious when starting out, you might wanna consider a Pico-ITX.
But starting out with something a bit simpler than image processing, is probably the best advice I can give :)
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Well, all right, but I've done several robots till now and I built this robot using IR sensors, Sharp and Ultra Sonic modules, compass and...
But I didn't succeed in competitions; once the compass wasn't fix, the other time a module hadn't work well, and usually IR sensors answered wrong because of environmental noise and many other problems... .
I think now it's the time for using IP in this robot (junior soccer)
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Hi,
Well, all right, but I've done several robots till now and I built this robot using IR sensors, Sharp and Ultra Sonic modules, compass and...
OK... It's always good to mention your present level when asking for advice :)
But I didn't succeed in competitions; once the compass wasn't fix, the other time a module hadn't work well, and usually IR sensors answered wrong because of environmental noise and many other problems... .
I think now it's the time for using IP in this robot (junior soccer)
Yeah, it's more fun to make new mistakes, rather than repeating old ones - with your previous, however, I'd disagree about your last sentence. If you wanna get good at something, don't step up until you master your present level. or you'll continue to have problems that you don't understand.
A fellow student (back in those happy days :)) took his engineering exam with a final project containing: 1 transistor!