Arduino, AVR, Rasberry Pi, Oh my!

[Slippyblade]

Ok, the subject is a little far fetched but I'd like to chat about these gizmos a bit.

I understand the concept of the Arduino.  Great idea, all-in-one microcontroller for hobbyists and experimenters.  Cool.  Then I start to get fuzzy.  When I started looking at the Kade, it seems to me that the Minimus AVR is pretty much along the same lines as an Arduino, but without analog pins.  Is this even remotely correct?  I mean, now that I have a Minimus AVR, can it be used as an experimentation platform along the lines of an Arduino/STAMP/Pic?

I threw in the RasPi just because of the GPIO.  I know it's overkill for light weight experimenting.

Any thoughts folks?

[PL1]

You're on the right track here.

The current KADE boards (90USB162 and ATmega32u2) don't have analog pins.

The KADESTICK and several prototype boards (ATmega32u4 and others) that the KADE team are working with do have analog-capable pins.

You can write/edit/compile source code to make your own firmware.

You can use the KADE Loader program to load your own home-brew firmwares onto the supported boards, too

Jon made one firmware that is an LED controller demo mode and CraftyMech has made a monitor test-pattern generator from another model AVR.




Scott

[Howard_Casto]

Ok let me chime in on this one.  Don't be fooled, the arduino line is more of a marketing gimmick/programming language than anything else.  All of your popular avrs are essentially the same hardware wise and most support the arduino language.  If anything the arduino is a bit expensive and lack-luster in features. 

You need a serial programmer and it doesn't natively support USB and retails for around 50 bucks.  On the other hand, a similar product, the teensy, has a usb bootloader, so no serial programmer required, supports both classic C and the arduino programming language and costs a whopping 20 bucks.  So yeah....

[MonMotha]

Do the smaller USB AVRs not come with the Atmel DFU bootloader like the 128x/64x do?

[PL1]

The 16k and 32k Minimus boards come pre-programmed with the bootloader which allows code to be programmed inside the chip without any external programmer, just download the KADE Loader or FLIP software from Atmel's web site to load your HEX code.

The MattairTech boards like KADESTICK allow you to chose which bootloader (CDC - Arduino, DFU - FLIP, or Atmel DFU - FLIP) you want when you order the board.

None of the KADE-related boards require an external programmer, but KADESTICK and newer prototypes have the needed socket holes for the ISP 2x3 pin header (next to the USB connector below) if you want to use one.



IIRC, there are some boards out there that don't come with a bootloader -- those require an external programmer.


Scott

[Slippyblade]

The 16k and 32k Minimus boards come pre-programmed with the bootloader which allows code to be programmed inside the chip without any external programmer, just download the KADE Loader or FLIP software from Atmel's web site to load your HEX code.

The MattairTech boards like KADESTICK allow you to chose which bootloader (CDC - Arduino, DFU - FLIP, or Atmel DFU - FLIP) you want when you order the board.

None of the KADE-related boards require an external programmer, but KADESTICK and newer prototypes have the needed socket holes for the ISP 2x3 pin header (next to the USB connector below) if you want to use one.

IIRC, there are some boards out there that don't come with a bootloader -- those require an external programmer.

This is awesome info, thanks!  This is exactly the kind of stuff I was hoping to get when I made the thread.