Comments on: Custom light sequencer

By: ao

ao — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:02:39 +0000

Good luck w/ the Mega clone. I’d say the best resources are at the Arduino site: the Playground and the Forum.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, cheers,
ao.

By: TS

TS — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:21:03 +0000

So I just ordered a clone Mega 1280 for $30 from a US seller on EBay. Not as good as the new Mega 2560, but I think 128k is plenty of memory. I want to avoid having to be clever in programing to avoid the memory limitations. Yeah, it is a surface mount chip, but I think it will be a nice environment to learn in. Later I can move to a DIP chip.

Speaking of learning, what did you find useful as resources to learn the ins and outs of interactive light control with the Arduino? ? ? ?

I will be doing a lot of reading before my Mega gets here. I am downloading the editor/compiler now.

Yes I hope this will be fun.
thanks again,
TS

By: ao

ao — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:26:30 +0000

No worries . . . Limitations w/ the regular Arduino can be RAM and program space, which can *sometimes* be fixed with clever programming; though this totally depends how complex your application is. I/O pins can be a limitation, though these can often be solved with shift registers, mux’s, or the like.

Since the mega uses a surface mount chip, it won’t be as straightforward to integrate that chip into your designs independent of the board, and the Mega board is certainly more expensive than the Uno.

For another option, in between, look up the Sanguino.

All that said, I wouldn’t be too quick to jump from the Uno right away: depending on what you will be using t0 dim the light loads, you may have enough I/O already — I believe it has 6 PWM capable pins, and I believe there are libraries to create more as well — or if you are using a driver chip or other peripheral, you may only need to use the serial port, SPI, or I2C which would only need a few pins.

That’s about all I can offer for now based on what I understand of your application.

Good luck and have fun,
ao.

By: TS

TS — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:09:35 +0000

Thanks, I think you have answered my 2nd question too. I am looking at either the Arduino Uno or the bigger more expensive Mega. I will be wanting to dim 6 channels of lights, so I think I may have to step up to the Mega and its higher price.

What kind of limitations have you all run into, and will the Mega alleviate them?

And thanks for explaining how you pop out the Amtel chip for final projects. Yes, that makes Arduino the way to go.

By: ao

ao — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:17:14 +0000

TS,

Hi, thanks for checking out my blog!

The Arduino is based on the ATmega328 chip by Atmel which is actually comparable to PICs in price. The $30 Arduino board is more of a development board; for my final projects I don’t embed a whole Arduino board, but rather just an ATmega328 chip, just as I would w/ a PIC. The advantages of working w/ the Arduino environment are all the easy/accessible support and libraries for various sensors, displays, etc. The limitation is that an Arduino can only do so much, but so far people have been stretching its capabilities pretty far. If you are new to microprocessors, I’d def. suggest starting w/ Arduino.

Cheers,
ao.

By: TS

TS — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:02:24 +0000

I am curious about your transition from a PIC processor to Aruino. I am looking at some similar projects, interactive light sequencing hardware. It seems the PIC processors are much cheaper @ $4, versus $30 for the Arduino’s, but that the Aruino’s are more self-contained/easier to use devices. I am intersted in what works, and what doesn’t, and what is worth learning.

Thanks for your Blog,
TS O’Grady