On 2021-02-16 1:34 p.m., Mauro Souza via talk wrote:

If you need IO pins, Arduino is the way to go. They too have lots of variants, with more pins, less pins, large, small, and they are very easy to program.

You can also make your own board using an ATtiny or ATmega chip. The Arduino boards I've seen always(?) have ATmega328's on them. That limits your options somewhat as to amount of program memory. There is also the Beagle Bone boards as a possible alternative to Arduino. ATmega chips can be as large as 40-pin so there are plenty of I/O pins. There is also the AVR32 (32-bit) line of devices. There are many Pi variants available: BananaPi, OrangePi, and NeoPi to name three that come to mind. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ | "Nerds make the shiny things that https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | distract the mouth-breathers, and | that's why we're powerful" Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick

On Tue, 16 Feb 2021 at 16:43, Scott Allen <mlxxxp@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, 16 Feb 2021 at 15:40, Kevin Cozens via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

...

The Arduino boards I've seen always(?) have ATmega328's on them.

Nope.

I almost forgot; Arduino have announced an upcoming board based the the RP2040 MCU used on the Raspberry Pi Pico https://blog.arduino.cc/2021/01/20/welcome-raspberry-pi-to-the-world-of-micr... -- Scott

On 2021-02-16 1:55 p.m., Giles Orr via talk wrote:

I think when you said "Raspberry Pi" above you were referring to the SBC, but they have very recently issued their own microcontroller board, "the Raspberry Pi Pico:"

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/pico/getting-started/

In fact they don't seem to have shipped yet, but they're going to be selling for $5.25CA each.

I snagged two of them already, purchased two weeks ago (at launch) from the usual local supplier. https://elmwoodelectronics.ca/products/raspberry-pi-pico Of course, who know when the re-stock will happen. On that note, we can expect short supply and rising prices for electronics for the next year or two. The fabs that actually produce all the chips are swamped. Labor was initial constrained due to the pandemic, followed by heavy increase in demand from the consumer market. This couple with no new capacity. The auto makers are making noises about this because they tended not to keep much stock on hand. The buffer of which has been draining out of the wholesalers for the last year. -- Scott Sullivan

I wouldn't be so negative about capes and shields -- they're where you put your own peripherals and interface circuitry. Start by mapping out the sensors and drivers you're going to connect to the big hardware, and work inward from there to the microcontroller. The hard work is out there with questions of noise immunity, and the all-important question of what the cutters and conveyors will do if the computer glitches or stops working. Olimex used to be good for microcontroller boards. Service was pretty good, even though they shipped from Romania. Some more local vendors are ABRA, BCRobotics, Creatron right in Toronto. There's not much to soldering an ATmega processor to a board; the processor plus a voltage regulator plus maybe a crystal, plus a half-dozen capacitors and it's done. There are gcc toolchains around for many of the popular lines of controller, AVR and ARM in my experience. The mission-specific circuitry outside the computer is the real challenge.

On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 10:22 AM o1bigtenor <o1bigtenor@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Greetings

I'm wanting to use micro controllers in more of an industrial setting. Don't want to spend the $$$$$$$$$$$ to get the officially hardened etc etc etc models.

Looking for information - - - - - there's piles on using Arduino, Raspberry Pi but they're not really developed for serious use (one point - - - - almost always have to add a cape or a shield to get real connectivity - - - - don't need the the hp waste that's RPi so I"d rather not use that . . . .) Trying to find other ucontroller boards - - - - can find plenty of SoB - - - - but not boards. Hoping to use open source tools for the programming and control.

Any suggestions as to where to look for this kind of stuff?

I'm not sure I'm doing this right - - - - no - - - - I"m not answering my own question (have had to do that a few times - - - grin) but there are some great ideas in the thread - - - - but - - - - .

Yes I had red of the RPi Pico. RPi is rather interesting in that you can buy quantity 1 of the board reasonably and then if you want more than 1 - - - - - well you have to buy their cables and wall wart and and and making the purchase not so reasonable! One project - - - - there have been questions over what I'm trying to do - - - sorta like this. If anyone knows what a gang saw is then you have some idea of what I'm doing.

I want to have one electric motor for moving like a large mass of material forwards (and back if I wish), then there is a higher hp motor to power a whole bunch (2 m worth) of blades and then there is a third moderately sized motor that moves the gang setup up and down. The gang is turning at a fairly high rpm (7500 rpm in the prototype and 10k in the design) and moving quite quickly, 2 m in under 10 to 12 seconds. So the load on the gang is monitored so that if the load moves over say 103% of rated that the gang movement speed is slowed or if the load is under 80% that the gang movement speed is increased. So there, planning is anyway, a vfd on all three items - - - - with a ucontroller per motor (maybe I don't need to do one on each- - - - dunno) and the whole being controlled from some small system. This system may be working for as much as hours per time and multiple times per day. Overloads/heating will also be monitored. This is the kind of equipment that I don't want to have to babysit but it must work.

(another project is a small animal feeder - - - weighing in and out, body temperature, control the mixing, id reading water heating, - - - may not sound to complicated but there would be at least 6 or 7 different functions that need to work is a particular sequence - - - - - ja - - - I know I'se more than a little touched - - - grin!)

So I have some Arduino kind of boards here - - - - they may work but they need added cape for this and shield for that. Looked in PLCs and in some ways they are more robust - - - - but pricing - - - - ouch! It is possible to get an arduino clone for likely under $5 can w/o shipping on the web - - - - a cheap plc is $85 usd and a good one might be some $250 USD.

Does that help point more as to the issues?

I can find a lot of information on the SoC for the umpteen different variants of ucontrollers. Sure can't find much info for boards - - - maybe large companies can roll their own designs - - - - but I'm hoping that there is some info hidden someplace for smaller companies. I just haven't been able to find anything - - - yet!

Thanks to one and all for the suggestions and assistance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! --- Post to this mailing list talk@gtalug.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk

On 2021-02-16 8:16 p.m., Stewart Russell via talk wrote:

A particularly handy board they sell is the CANADUINO PLC 300-24 — https://www.universal-solder.ca/product/canaduino-plc-300-24-arduino-mega256... — that's basically an Arduino Mega but with proper relay outputs and 0-10 V analogue I/O, all protected.

They have 3 versions of the Canaduino boards. In addition to the one above they have one with 4 relays and one with 6. The boards have both analog and digital inputs and outputs in addition to the ability to some relays. I have the 6 relay version. I am looking at it as a way to enhance an existing product used for the monitoring and control of industrial CNC machines. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ | "Nerds make the shiny things that https://www.patreon.com/KevinCozens | distract the mouth-breathers, and | that's why we're powerful" Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick