Micro Controllers

My bits arrived from the Picaxe store

a starter kit

Which has the USB download usb cable for programming the picaxe. a Picaxe-08M2 chip (an 8 pin Picaxe chip), a 08 prototyping board assembly and a 3 x AA battery box.

I also bought an additional 08 prototyping box

and some additional Picaxe chips, 4 x 08M2, 3 x 28X2 and a 40X1.

Also on order from evil bay is a 28 and 40 pin prototyping boards.

Away to make up the 8 pin prototyping boards

Paul

 

Cheers Bob, that was a great video.

I've downloaded Logicator for version 6 of the PICAXE software - not sure if there maybe a licencing issue. I remember Flowcharts from school (bet I've thrown away the plastic template we had for drawing them out) and can see it being useful for smaller programs and subroutines but may be a bit unwieldy for larger programs. But I'm still at baby steps so we will see, and may help structuring the bigger programs.

For those looking at interfacing Microcontrollers to the outside world, the PICAXE Manual No.3 Microcontroller Interfacing Circuits is a very useful resource, as the examples are relevant to any microcontroller covering both input and output devices. A very useful PDF to have in the library.

Paul

 

Ok a bit of context

Basically I've looked at four different Microcontroller families

PIC - Manufactured by Microchip
PICAXE - Based on a range Microchip PICs with modified firmware
Arduino - ATMEL based processors
Raspberry Pi Pico - uses the Raspberry Pi RP2040 custom chip

The Raspberry Pi foundation has released the RP2040 chip independantly of the Pico board, and interestingly Arduino has released there own RP2040 based boards. Maybe this is to protect themselves from the Takeover of ATMEL by Microchip.

Both the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Arduino are proponants of open source in both hardware and software, gining rise to the number of clones of Arduino designs which follow the Arduino designs but may use other variants of the processors.

Now lets talk size, the PIC and PICAXE have an advantage as you can buy the chip on it's own (in both dual in line (DIL) and surface mount (smd)) and build a minimilistic circuit around it, where as the Nano and Pico are mounted on thier own support boards, and although the chips can be purchased seperately, assembly would probably be by a chip assembly service by a board manufacturer.

And then price

The PIC start from approx £1.20 for a 16F16313 8 pin to £2.70 for a 16F18344 20 pin chip.

The PICAXE chips start at £2.40 for the 8 pin 08M2, £3.30 for the 14M2 14 pin chip, £3.59 18M2 18 pin and 20M2 20 pin chips, £6.73 for the 28X2 28 pin & 40X2 40 pin chips.

Arduino Nano Original £12.50 and approx £3.50 for clones from the likes of Alibaba - you can buy in bulk from ebay for cheaper the last ones I bought cost £15 for 10.

Raspberry Pi Pico £3.40

Currently the Pico would seem to be the best bang for your buck .......... and ....... I've just come accross the method to update / modify the Arduino IDE to be able to program the Rpi Pico , which means all of the Arduino libraries are available for the Pico

Just got some downloads to make .......

Paul