Goodbye

[Normnet]

Dumb question. Is Arduino similar to a $50 stamp and is the processor available in its self for $2.00 or so or do all Arduino projects require a $50 board with the supporting circuitry? Also don't forget Meliane as one of the supporting members lost as time went on.

Norm

[Ioannis]

I could not follow you on this Norm. You mean that the Arduino is expensive? If so, chinese boards are available for much less.

But anyway, it is targeted to a different audience, with different expectations and knowledge.

And sure not to professionals in any way.

Ioannis

[HenrikOlsson]

The Arduino hardware is simply a microcontroller (an 8-bit Atmel job in its original form) with a bootloader mounted on a somewhat standardized form factor PCB with headers. There are many different versions of "Arduino" based on many different microcontrollers, from 8 all the way to 32 bits I believe.

It's not running an interpreter but compiled/assembled code from the Arduino IDE (which I believe is built upon the gcc compiler). You can download the bootloader and flash it into a blank microcontroller using a device programmer (which can actually be another Arduino) and it "becomes" an Arduino.

So no, the Arduino is not similar to a BASIC Stamp (which is running a propritary interpreter) and you can buy blank microcontrollers from "anywhere" and program the Arduino bootloader into them yourself.

[Ioannis]

Not just any AVR MCU you like I think. Only those supported.

And then you have to accept and tolerate the limitations of the environment, as you have no word on which pins will be input/output/analog/pwm etc.

Of course this is expected to be so that there is compatibility with the extension boards and libs.

Like what Apple did only Arduino proved more successful.

Great idea for specific purposes (learning, hobby or education).

Ioannis

[Scampy]

Dumb question. Is Arduino similar to a $50 stamp and is the processor available in its self for $2.00 or so or do all Arduino projects require a $50 board with the supporting circuitry? Also don't forget Meliane as one of the supporting members lost as time went on.

Norm

You can pick up an Arduino Mega2560 board for around £10, and you can also pick up just the chip (probably for around the same amount) but the package if the chip does not make it practical to program it and then use that in a custom designed PCB as you would a PIC. As Ioannis has mentioned, the platform is not aimed at the professional developer

I agree that Meliane was also a good contributor, but there were also a lot of others, and I could be here for hours if I included everyone in that tribute, and most have since moved on.

[Normnet]

You can pick up an Arduino Mega2560 board for around £10, and you can also pick up just the chip (probably for around the same amount) but the package if the chip does not make it practical to program it and then use that in a custom designed PCB as you would a PIC. As Ioannis has mentioned, the platform is not aimed at the professional developer

I agree that Meliane was also a good contributor, but there were also a lot of others, and I could be here for hours if I included everyone in that tribute, and most have since moved on.

You are saying its not practical to program an Arduino supported chip and place it into a custom designed PBC as you would a PIC?
If so is it common for Arduino projects to be made up of jumpered development modules to make up the final project?

[Scampy]

You are saying its not practical to program an Arduino supported chip and place it into a custom designed PBC as you would a PIC?
If so is it common for Arduino projects to be made up of jumpered development modules to make up the final project?

To a degree yes. The ATMEGA 2560 is an 8 bit micro running at 16mhz, with 256 KB of program space, but its in a 100 pin TQFP package which makes programming and soldering to a custom hobby PCB more of a challenge compared to an 8 bit PIC which is in a DIP or SOIC package.

I've just ported a project that was originally developed around an 18F based PIC in DIP package. I developed a custom PCB with all the supporting components on it and then would program the PIC via my EasyPIC5 and then place that into the board. Porting this to the Ardiumo based platform the custom PCB had the majority of the supporting components on it, but the board was designed to plug directly into the header pins on the Mega2560 board, like a large custom shield (as can be seen here testing the TFT screen). The mega was a cloan purchased for £11 from Amazon, and cost less than the individual ATMEGA 2560 chip on its own.

[Normnet]

Got it...thanks

[Normnet]

For 3 simpler $25 PIC 8 bit plug in modules see Microchip Direct and do a search for PIM and check development tools then 8 bit. Probably not a lot of 8 bit due to they are available in DIP packages for easier prototyping.

[queenidog]

Thanks for all your replies. I wasn't going to come back but I was curious if anyone was agreeing with me...and some did.

I just bought 6 Arduino UNO boards for $12 (CAD) each, all taxes and shipping included. (They were shipped from Canada, but no doubt made in China). These are genuine UNO's made to the specification demanded by Arduino. As such it has a boot loader installed on it and it's just plug and play. I made an ultrasonic scanner using the inexpensive HC-SR04 and an UNO. How easy was it? In under 15 minutes I had one working, using the built in libraries and example code. then I started tweaking it with my limited knowledge of C++ at the time. How would this have been done with a PIC development system and PBP? I likely would have to write the code (with Arduino libraries it was very simple, like 5 lines of code), I would have to set the fuses and all that other overhead PICs require that Arduino takes care of. Once running, I would then have to make a board to have it standalone and I would have to provide an on-board power supply or converter. With the Arduino I downloaded the short program through USB, took the unit (with little breadboard on top) to another location, provided 12 volts from a Walwart and voila! There it goes. I added an I2C display later, again something that took very little time despite not using I2C before.

My current project uses 7-16 bit I2C expanders lighting 110 RGB LEDs. Each LED is addressable. Using the UNO there are only 5 wires interfacing to my project: 3 PWM DIO (so I can fade any light using PWM) for the RGB, and 2 wires for I2C, clock and data. I made a low power "model" that the UNO was quite capable of driving. I'm up to 16 pages of code to display the various patterns and have TONS of space left.

I've been using Arduino for over a year and have not had to update anything. It is very stable. When there is an update to a library, it's usually for more functionality (eg the Wire library for I2C and the Ultrasonic library for the SR04) than for bug fixes.

Having said that, the Arduino IDE is a bunch of crap! Little functionality. No debugger, I can't even PRINT my code. For that I have to cut and paste into Notepad++. The compiler is 10x SLOWER than the PBP compiler. THIS is why I was hoping I could use PBP, to eliminate those disadvantages. I'm sure Dave Taylor (MELabs) could have come up with something.

I've got 3 robots using Arduinos, and my desk has 3 Arduinos connected to 3 MORE projects. No more waiting for PCB to be made and discover the mistakes I made making them. Create something with Arduino and use the board in final stage.

The photo I attached shows a breadboard of the I2C interfaces for my display. The green board is one I had made. Yes, I had to make a board, but not the controller, seen at bottom right (Arduino UNO).

[lester]

I think that you are all missing one very important point.

Arduino and the Pi, have brought into our world a whole demographic of new users, ranging from Chefs to gardeners including artists and clothing designers.

the ease of use and the fact that they can reuse code without having to learn has opened the door

I see the downside, but I also think its great that a 60 year old lady gardener not too far from me, has built her own temp and humidity monitor for her green house. Never wrote a line of code, but built it from a Pi and a then looked at Arduino.

we never saw that from PIC basic of any flavor.

its a good thing to bring in new people from new areas. It reflects the real world fact that electronics now penetrates all areas of our lives. It is no longer a niche area for geeks like me , hobbyists and seasoned professionals ( like me also). personally I think its great that we are seeing these new entrants, even though they are learning the ropes Backwards. By that I mean they buy a Pi, they load someone elses code and make a project, then it sparks their interest and they learn a little electronics.

I dont care how they learn, just so long as it sparks interest and they begin on the road to becoming an electronics hobbyist.

Just think about it, she is 60 years old ( maybe older) she knows no electronics, but she is now one of us !

[richard]

Arduino and the Pi, have brought into our world a whole demographic of new users

not to mention a vast array of cheap "Arduino compatible" sensors/modules in a breadboard friendly form, making it easy to hook up something up
to test our wildest ideas with no immediate need for a dedicated pcb and better still there is a easy to tap knowledge base for all of them.

no matter what platform you choose the pi/Arduino movement is a boon for all electronics enthusiasts

[Art]

I’m quite pissed. At least one mod or admin will have to know why, and the commonality of what has gone missing.
Unless you want to be stuck with decade old stuff, different ways of doing things (or knowing what PBP does) are more important than they ever were.
I haven’t needed it myself for a very long time & I won’t be back.

[Ioannis]

So, C it is?

Ioannis

[Scampy]

Out of the blue I receive a notification to this thread, I totally forgot I had still set alerts to this board. Its a shame to see so many of the old members departing (by that I mean long serving rather than age ). But I personally feel that PBBpro missed the boat long ago, and as such people have had no choice but to migrate over to other platforms, be that MikroBASIC, or C, or moving away from PICs altogether and opting for an AVR based platforms in order to keep up with technology.

Some of you may remember (around 10 years ago) that with the help of Darrel (god rest his soul) and Henrik I developed a multi-channel thermostat for my reptiles using PID routines. A few years later I wanted to take it further and use cheap colour TFT screens, and give it more functionality, but to do so with PBP would be hard as there was no native support... PBP only supported 4 x 20 LCDs at the time, and even GLCD's were difficult unless you used 3rd party serial devices between the PIC and the screen, but then it was still mono and limited in fonts and styles.

I migrated over to Arduino for my hobby projects, and soon had a version of the above project ported to an Adriuno mega, using a 320 x 240 TFT with "official" library file (like and include file) that had simple commands like tft.print to write to the screen. Granted my code was clunky and didn't follow traditional C styling, but it worked. I was recently mentored by a chap on the other side of the world who took my code and mentored me whilst we completely re-wrote the code, steering me away form the normal BASIC structure I was still used to. The bottom line is that I have now taken the project to the next level. Its more compact, efficient, and now does 8 channels simultaneously on a device that is running at less than half the clock speed of the PIC I used to use.

If PBP had been developed (either by the owners, contracted Mel, Darrel and others, or went open sourced) to keep pace with technology (I mentioned TFT's but other devices like Ethernet, WiFi, and a host of sensors like GPS, pressure and altitude were lacking) then I probably would have stayed with PBP. I do miss the way the forum functioned, and mostly everyone would fall over backwards to help even with the most basic of issues, but then if the product doesn't keep pace then there is nothing to keep them here.

Art mate, sorry to see you go... good luck in whatever platform you have chosen

[Demon]

Sorry, you folks are stuck with me lurking.