Best cheap MCU for LED project

[jason3w]

Hey Guys,
Just looking for some advice on the best MCU to use in a simple LED project.
The unit is powered by 3 x LR44 and with cycle through 4 modes.
Flashing RGB
Flashing RB
Flashing BG
Slow fading between RGB
and Press and hold to turn off.

Using a single 5mm RGB LED.

The main thing is price as we are going to make lots of these
Like 10000 units to start with.

So the price is a pretty large consideration. So thinking lowest cost for the functions required.

Any tips would be excellent.

Thanks heaps
Jason

 

[BobK]

I know only PIC microcontrollers, so I can give you info only about them, there may be others that are cheaper.

So you need 1 input and 3 outputs. A 6 pin PIC could do the job. Partly it depends on how good a programmer you are.

The PIC10F series are 6 pin PICS and range from $0.31 o $0.39 volume pricing.

I think I could cram the entire code into even the smallest one, PIC10F200 but it would be a challenge with 256 instructions and 16 bytes of RAM. The higher end ones have better instruction set and 512 instruction memory and 64 bytes of RAM. I am certain I could code it for that one.

If I were you, I would attempt to code it and see which one is needed.

Bob

 

[jason3w]

Hey Bob,
Thanks for the quick reply. I think it's a good idea to write the software to see which size we need. Thanks for the good advice!
Jason