Hi If you head over to the auction sites and do a bit of creative digging / bidding, the Arduino clones are amazingly cheap. They easily beat the $12 or so Freescale and TI demo boards by a wide margin cost wise. Bang for the buck wise, indeed the demo boards win out. For blinking a LED, running out of horsepower isn't a major concern with any of them.
Bob On May 26, 2013, at 1:19 PM, Chris Albertson <albertson.ch...@gmail.com> wrote: > A fan controller (8-pin DIP package) is simple enough to build on perf > board. But mostly I agree that it is best to buy these on PCBs. You can > use them right out of the box. I do have an Arduino and it's advantage is > that you can build very fast. I had a device that measured the resistance > across a pot and displayed the value on a 2x16 LCD working about 40 minutes > after I got the Arduino un-boxed. It is easy and fast. But they cost a > few $$ > > A cheaper alternative I think I like is TI's "launchpads" They come on > little credit card sized PCBs and the concept of very much the same as > Arduino. TI sells several. One is a $13 ARM Cortex M4. It is a complete > development system. The other is a MSP430 version for $10. But with the > MSP versionyou can remove the uP after it is programmer if you like, or > leave it on the board. These prices include shipping. $13 is good pice > for an ARM on a breakout board. > > They also sell an assortment of "booster boards" that plug in and provide > all kinds of interfaces, pretty much the same concept as Arduino "shields" > > More info here: > /launchpad/overview_head.html<http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/overview_head.html> > > On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 9:18 AM, Jim Lux <jim...@earthlink.net> wrote: >> On 5/26/13 9:00 AM, Chris Albertson wrote: >>>> >>>> But for many applications, the inevitable overhead >>>> (power, heat, external components, OS, etc) simply >>>> eliminates the gain of having a better/faster CPU. >>>> >>>> Sometimes I end up using a 6 or 8 pin PIC with only >>>> a few lines of code to to solve complex problems where >>>> a (F)PGA/CPLD design would be a lot of work and a >>>> 16/32bit microcontroller simply overkill. >>> >>> >>> >>> As it turns out there are a LOT more simple jobs than there are >>> complex jobs. This is why they make and sel a lot motr 8-t >>> controllers than they sell 32-bit controllers. >>> >>> For example I want to control the cooling fan for a rubidium >>> oscillator's heat sink. I only need three pins, 1) the temperature >>> sensor, 2) Fan tachometer pulse, fan voltage. A $1 "tiny AVR" 8-pin >>> chip can handle this just fine and we are talking about 20 lines of >>> code maybe after the pins are set up. Using an ARM and running an OS >>> would be silly overkill. >>> >> >> The other thing is packaging and peripherals..not to mention development >> time. It might be more "cost effective" (where cost is some complex >> conglomeration of your time and money) to always use the same part, even > if >> overkill. >> >> Some people are happy to layout a new PCB, get it fabbed (or make it >> themselves) or deadbug it. Others might want a board with terminal > strips. >> Or you might want something that you have a box for or maybe you like >> mounting it inside. >> >> >> I think everyone has their favorites, and most folks tend to have > relatively >> few candidates at any given time (it's difficult to switch among various >> processors on a day to day basis). Right now, I tend to use Matlab on PCs >> for big things, with some python. For smaller needs, I've been using lots >> of Arduino Uno R3s and Teensy3s, because of the packaging. Both using the >> Arduino semi-C tool chain and also the non-arduino compilers. (having a > USB >> boot loader, etc, does make life easier). >> >> I've used PICs and Rabbits in the not too recent past, but the Rabbits > don't >> have as nice a development environment, and there's no equivalent of the > $20 >> Arduino, nor the plethora of cheap interfaces to things like relays and > what >> not. >> >> I haven't looked much at whether a low cost PIC on a board with > peripherals >> is available. They've always been a "build a circuit" either with > perfboard, >> deadbug, or small PCB, and that makes it take a few more hours or days. >> >> For the "I want to finish the project this weekend starting Saturday >> afternoon", the whole arduino world is pretty convenient, at least as far > as >> getting the hardware put together and a first load of software running. >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com >> To unsubscribe, go to >> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts >> and follow the instructions there. > > > > -- > > Chris Albertson > Redondo Beach, California > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
