which microcontroller (again).

[dunk]

so how many times has someone been on here asking "which microcontroller should i buy?"
to which everyone goes and gets on their soap boxes and starts talking about the one true microcontroller.

so i stumbled across this today:
http://www.instructables.com/id/EKRQRQHQDIEWH1IMC9/?ALLSTEPS
it's a reasonable doc that discusses some of the more popular options.

i also found this:
http://www.instructables.com/id/E5H5UDWB5UEUKIKV8V/?ALLSTEPS
which is a nice guide to getting started with AVRs for anyone on a tight budget.

anyone know of similar guides for other microcontrollers?

dunk.

[trigger]

A good PIC tutorial:
http://www.mstracey.btinternet.co.uk/pictutorial/picmain.htm

[Joe]

A great microcontroller that is virtually unknown is the BasicX by NetMedia http://www.basicx.com. For $50 the BX-24 processes 83,000 Basic instructions per second, has 32K bytes of EEPROM for instructions, 400 bytes of RAM, 16 data inputs (8 of them can be analog), and the language is "compatible" with VB, meaning it looks just like it aside from different library of functions, etc. Side by side it is vastly superior to the Basic Stamp in every way except for marketing. The compiler is free and you do not need a "programmer" as you do with a PIC. And no, I do not work for NetMedia, but I am very familiar with their MC and am biased towards it. It would be nice if more people tried it out so that there would be more talk/tips about it on the Web.

[JonHylands]

I've used the BX-24 in the past, and I agree - its a great chip for doing all kinds of stuff. Its too expensive to use in a lot of projects, but for getting starting with robotics, its an interesting microcontroller with a lot of ability that is relatively easy to use.

- Jon

[groovy9]

i also found this:
http://www.instructables.com/id/E5H5UDWB5UEUKIKV8V/?ALLSTEPS
which is a nice guide to getting started with AVRs for anyone on a tight budget.

This is the route I went, and it worked like a charm.  A couple bucks in parts from the local surplus electronics store, half an hour to make the cable, download AVRDude and BASCOM (Basic for AVRs, free for up to 4k program size), and BAM!  Blinky blinky on a solderless breadboard.

I'm a C guy from way back, but I found that Win AVR (AVR GCC for Windows) was a pain and available libraries (AVRlib) resulted in a huge program size.  Given that, even though I'd much prefer C over Basic, BASCOM is the way to go if you want to be up and running quickly with a useful program.

[stlcards08]

Hey guys, I am interested in getting into robotics. I was looking at the BX-24 for a microcontroller. Am I correct in assuming that I would need to buy motor drivers seperate, or does this have them installed already? Thanks.

[JonHylands]

The BX-24 has a couple pins that you can use to drive the motor drivers (basically, a pair of hardware PWM outputs).

You will still need the h-bridge(s) to drive your motors.

- Jon

[Admin]

Am I correct in assuming that I would need to buy motor drivers seperate, or does this have them installed already?

instead of getting motors, you could get servos. servos have built in motor drivers, so you can hook them up directly to the BX-24 . . .

[jakx12]

Just saying, i use a bx-24 chip with a RAMB II motherboard. Its brilliant, iv built many autonomous robots, and am currently designing an autonomous robot arm that can find things and pick them up without the uses of cameras and vision algorithms. It will use ir sensors!
jakx12

[SmAsH]

                                               **old topic**
you have to explain to me how your robot is going to use the ir sensors! i am really interested...
and are you going to have color sensing?

[jakx12]

ok well i can pm u