Another microcontroller for me

[sry_not4sale]

Haha yeah, the Arduino is a way off. Would like a standalone monitoring screen tho, to replace all those ugly gauges people stick in their car.

[longracing]

If you've got the microcontroller there why not give it a go.
The 16x2 LCD dot matrix I bought was only $20.00AUD with built in backlight.
See if you can find an LCD library for your microcontroller. I needed
4 x data lines
1 x R/W
1 x E
1 x RS line
but you can get serial LCDs that use less lines or use a shift register.

Maybe have several bits of data on screen at the same time, have it cycling through or have a push button to cycle through to the desired data.

Even code it so it displays selected data normally then flashes up "Error: xxx" if any of your monitored values go outside their limits.

[sry_not4sale]

COOL will try

[jharvey]

I have started looking into AVR's a bit closer. I see many fairly new developments, as well as many possible options. I thought I'd post about it here.

I'm curious if anyone knows if avr-gcc supports avr32? I see avr ports of the Linux kernel, so I would guess avr32 is supported. How does avr-gcc know what chip you are programming, there must be a config file or some such thing.

I also see the dfu-programmer. I'm still learning, but it appears that Atmel will sell AVR's with a USB boot loader pre-installed. This allows you to simply upload firmware via USB bit wiggling, so no special hardware, just a USB cable. Does anyone know if that is correct?

I believe the Arduino is currently 8 bit only. Are there avr32 versions of the Arduino?

[longracing]

The Arduino's are currently all 8bit, there has been some talk about the 32bit AVR's but that would require new libraries.

I had a bit of a look on http://www.avrfreaks.net but didn't find if avr-gcc supports AVR32 yet. From what I can tell the AVR32, PIC32 etc.. uC are still rather new and libraries, config, header files are still being written for them.
I think the PIC32 uses the pic-gcc.

If you do a search I have seen a few schematics for AVR programmers that go from a serial port to 6pin ISP using just afew resistors, diodes and connectors. PM me if you want me to dig out what info I have. I was going to try it out but have stuck with the PIC and PIC-KIT2 programmer for the moment since the battery safety circuit I designed seams to be a success at work.

I thought I had fried my poor little Arduino the other day when I swapped it into a bread-board I had been using for a PIC16F. Thought that the jumpers were positioned wrong and killed the uC. Found I had put it in the wrong way round. All good now.

[deviousKA]

The simple DIY serial programmers for the AVR ISP do actually work quite well on most of the AVR 8 bit devices (using avrdude). The actual AVR brand ISP programmers are the only way to go though if you want to be able to program newer devices ( and the XMEGA).

Its a simpler, more cost effective solution to use a AVR in DIP format and going with the ISP (vs using an ardrino) , in my opinion. You can add your own bootloader if you want it and just program in AVR-GCC. AVR chips are only a couple bucks and are simple to have up and running, check out basic "blink an led" examples to see.

As far as IDE i like to use avr studio in windows, or kontrollerlab in linux (Using avr-gcc and avr dude for programming on both).

[longracing]

I'm looking at getting a few programmers for my tool kit again now that I am no longer working at the same workshop.

I have made a Robotics Control-Box project using a Playstation analog controller & ArduinoMega (uses the Atmega chip, lots of I/Os). The main reason I went with the Arduino is because of the ready made libraries to interface with the PSX controller and LCD. I will be going back to the PIC/AVR to try and learn more of the ''C'' language but at least I now have some experience and libraries to look over.

For those who like the Arduino environment and want to save a few bucks you could use the AVR chip in DIP format, add a crystal, then load the Arduino bootloader.

[MotoFab]

For those who like the Arduino environment and want to save a few bucks you could use the AVR chip in DIP format, add a crystal, then load the Arduino bootloader.

I saw this the other day. If you've got a simple Arduino-based design and you want to make it permanent, but don't want or need to use the full Arduino development board, here is a small proto board with the Arduino processor on it.
http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails ... ode=MKSKL4

[longracing]

That's a neat looking board.

I need to get a PICKit 2 or 3 for myself so I can start playing with the UBW32 board I've got again. Yes, I deleted the boot loader and I no longer have access to the programmer I was using.
http://www.schmalzhaus.com/UBW32/