Moo Bunny Amiga - thread "Arduino experience?"

Arduino experience?

Direct link to this message	Arduino experience? Gregg. .. (86.148.240.192) [86.148.240.192]
	Seen a couple of references to this little gadget; anybody used it? Comments on the programming language? http://www.arduino.cc/ Thanks, Gregg
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Direct link to this message	Re: Arduino experience? Not PM ahtuos. #!/bin/sh. (82.69.171.91) [82.69.171.91]
	On Friday, Oct 9, 2009, Gregg wrote: > Seen a couple of references to this little gadget; anybody used it? It eliminates a lot of tedious interface stuff that is frustrating for hobbyist electronics. Right out of the box you've not only got a micro-controller that's already ready to be programmed over USB but also a fairly fool-proof set of power options, and all your IO pins connected and ready to go. If you've got projects you wanted to try but couldn't face trying to wire them to a PC then Arduino is definitely worth a look. If you're not much of a programmer the development environment and tutorials for that side of things are very helpful. It's probably better for the somewhat experienced hardware tinkerer who knows little about programming than for the somewhat advanced programmer who wants to learn about electronics. > Comments on the programming language? The supplied language appears to be fit for purpose. However you actually don't have to use their programming language you can just write C, there's even a suitable library of (relatively) high level functions supplied. So if you know (or are learning) C anyway, you needn't learn another language.
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Direct link to this message	Re: Arduino experience? Anon. . (75.18.204.133) [75.18.204.133]
	On Saturday, Oct 10, 2009, Not PM ahtuos wrote: > The supplied language appears to be fit for purpose. However you actually > don't have to use their programming language you can just write C, there's > even a suitable library of (relatively) high level functions supplied. So > if you know (or are learning) C anyway, you needn't learn another language. I'll add a few cents worth too. The Arduino software package is apparently a Java IDE frontend and some C++ libraries for the avr-gcc cross compiler. I've used plain old command line avr-gcc with avr-libc for professional purposes. It works very well, mostly because it is no toy hacked up version of gcc: the AVR backend isn't maintained outside the tree in some crufty patch, it's there all the time. All you have to do is grab the gcc source, compile it with the right flags, and blam, you've got an AVR cross compiler. I can't comment on the quality of the Arduino IDE and library, other than to say they seem like a good idea to me. Compiling and installing my own copy of avr-gcc and figuring out how to properly init my board, get avr-libc working, and write my own serial port IO routines just to get to the point of being able to write "hello, world" is not a problem for me, but it would be rather a steep learning curve for a lot of people. The Arduino package should get you to "hello, world" with very little effort, and if you begin to find their libraries restrictive I have no doubt that you could just extend them or use avr-libc instead without even giving up their IDE (if the IDE works for you). (All that said, if you do want to use avr-gcc and avr-libc on Windows, I recommend the WinAVR package.)
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Direct link to this message	Re: Arduino experience? Gregg. .. (86.154.167.17) [86.154.167.17]
	Thanks for the comments. One additional question : would you say the Arduino (hardware & software) are sufficiently robust and reliable for a production environment? Of course, the actual application code has to be robust too, but that is a separate problem. Gregg
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Direct link to this message	Re: Arduino experience? Anon. . (75.18.204.133) [75.18.204.133]
	On Sunday, Oct 11, 2009, Gregg wrote: > Thanks for the comments. One additional question : would you say the > Arduino (hardware & software) are sufficiently robust and reliable for a > production environment? Software: maybe. I'd feel uncomfortable giving a complete endorsement since I haven't used the Arduino package. Hardware: Hmm. I've just looked at the schematics posted for Arduino 2009 and I'm not terribly impressed. - It seems like they wanted an activity light for the SPI bus, so they just connected a LED and current limiting resistor to the SPI clock. Ugh ugh ugh. This probably works ok in a lot of circumstances, but it's just not a great idea to add a (relatively) heavy load like a LED to a clock signal, no matter how slow the clock. Not good design practice. - It has 2 power inputs: it can take +5V power from USB, or unregulated DC from a barrel connector. The circuit intended to disconnect USB bus power from the onboard +5V regulator output if the DC input is present appears to be capable of shorting the live USB bus +5V to the live +5V regulator output if the DC input is less than ~6.6V. This is a Bad Idea. - There are no protection circuits on any of the I/O pins. It's all just direct connect to the microcontroller. There are probably more things wrong with it, but it's hard to say much without knowing more about your application. Everything I've spotted could be perfectly innocuous if you used it the right way (for example, if you never, ever power it off anything but USB, the protection circuit bug I mentioned will never come into play.) > Of course, the actual application code has to be robust too, but that is a > separate problem. Yup.
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Direct link to this message	Re: Arduino experience? Gregg. .. (217.43.152.103) [217.43.152.103]
	> On Monday, Oct 12, 2009, Anon wrote: > > On Sunday, Oct 11, 2009, Gregg wrote: > > Thanks for the comments. One additional question : would you say the > > Arduino (hardware & software) are sufficiently robust and reliable for a > > production environment? > > Software: maybe. I'd feel uncomfortable giving a complete endorsement > since I haven't used the Arduino package. > > Hardware: Hmm. I've just looked at the schematics posted for Arduino 2009 > and I'm not terribly impressed. <snip useful stuff> Just what I was after - succinct, cogent, and intelligible (well, I _think_ I understand it). Thanks a lot. In summary : hardware is fine for development, needs a more robust implementation for production. I see references to Arduino "clones", so maybe some of these fix the sort of shortcomings you identified. Gregg
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Direct link to this message	Re: Arduino experience? Gregg. .. (217.43.152.103) [217.43.152.103]
	> On Monday, Oct 12, 2009, Anon wrote: > > Software: maybe. I'd feel uncomfortable giving a complete endorsement > since I haven't used the Arduino package. > > Hardware: Hmm. I've just looked at the schematics posted for Arduino 2009 > and I'm not terribly impressed. <snip> By the way, I would like to copy this to another board (with proper attribution of course); do you object? Gregg
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Direct link to this message	Re: Arduino experience? Anon. . (75.18.204.133) [75.18.204.133]
	On Monday, Oct 12, 2009, Gregg wrote: > > On Monday, Oct 12, 2009, Anon wrote: > > > > Software: maybe. I'd feel uncomfortable giving a complete endorsement > > since I haven't used the Arduino package. > > > > Hardware: Hmm. I've just looked at the schematics posted for Arduino 2009 > > and I'm not terribly impressed. > > <snip> > > By the way, I would like to copy this to another board (with proper > attribution of course); do you object? Not at all. Proper attribution is of course an interesting concept given my nom de plume. :) If it's not a private board, mind posting a link here so I can follow up if needed?
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Direct link to this message	Re: Arduino experience? Gregg. .. (217.43.152.103) [217.43.152.103]
	> On Monday, Oct 12, 2009, Anon wrote: > > On Monday, Oct 12, 2009, Gregg wrote: > > > On Monday, Oct 12, 2009, Anon wrote: > > > > > > Software: maybe. I'd feel uncomfortable giving a complete endorsement > > > since I haven't used the Arduino package. > > > > > > Hardware: Hmm. I've just looked at the schematics posted for Arduino 2009 > > > and I'm not terribly impressed. > > > > <snip> > > > > By the way, I would like to copy this to another board (with proper > > attribution of course); do you object? > > Not at all. Proper attribution is of course an interesting concept given > my nom de plume. :) The irony had not escaped me. > If it's not a private board, mind posting a link here so I can follow up if > needed? Public to read, register to write. Would you mind being patient? Unless something goes horribly wrong, I could probably let you know in a week or two. Gregg
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Direct link to this message	Re: Arduino experience? Anon. . (75.18.204.133) [75.18.204.133]
	On Monday, Oct 12, 2009, Gregg wrote: > Public to read, register to write. Would you mind being patient? Unless > something goes horribly wrong, I could probably let you know in a week or > two. Sounds good.
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