Q: Best Microcontroller for this job

[--|--]

Hello i was looking at using a atmel 8515 or a pic (not sure which variant
yet) for a project.

The microcontroller will be connected to a max186 for analog aquisitions
which will be stored in an eeprom, also looking at a keypad ,lcd,x10 and
serial pc interface to configure the unit and download data from the
eeprom..

one of my concerns on the 8515 is the price @10$ but i can use gcc, i don't
want to get into assembly so i'd be looking at c / basic options for the pic
(lowest cost possible <g>)

Any suggestions?

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Hello i was looking at using a atmel 8515 or a pic (not sure which variant
yet) for a project.

The microcontroller will be connected to a max186 for analog aquisitions
which will be stored in an eeprom, also looking at a keypad ,lcd,x10 and
serial pc interface to configure the unit and download data from the
eeprom..

one of my concerns on the 8515 is the price @10$ but i can use gcc, i don't
want to get into assembly so i'd be looking at c / basic options for the pic
(lowest cost possible <g>)

Any suggestions?

TI MSP430? Can have the 12-bit ADC on-chip.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Rolavine]

Subject: Re: Q: Best Microcontroller for this job

From: Spehro Pefhany SpehroPefhany <[email protected] >
Date: 1/26/2004 3:58 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: <[email protected]>



TI MSP430? Can have the 12-bit ADC on-chip.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--

Good one, you can get 16 bits with the Pic mixed signal controller, but it's
sucessive approximation conversion, slow but good with noise.

Rocky
Still making gizmos for clients who pay.

 

[Wouter van Ooijen]

Hello i was looking at using a atmel 8515 or a pic (not sure which variant

yet) for a project.

Unless you are aiming at high-volume production (in which case you
should look wider than just 8515 and PIC): why bother about a few $?
My first advice for a PIC/uC newbie is to choose a chip for which you
can get help, that is far more valuable than the few $ price
difference between het varous uC's.

PS don't take me wrong, I am a convinced PIC user. But I am not
convinecd other people are wrong when they use AVR, 8051 or whatever.




Wouter van Ooijen

-- ------------------------------------
http://www.voti.nl
PICmicro chips, programmers, consulting

 

[Viron Papadopoulos]

Hi Chris,
I think you can use Z8 encore microcontroller from zilog.
It has 8 channel ADC , uart, 64Kb flash, price from 4$ to 12$,
evaluation kit(C compiler & debug included) 30$.
Check www.zilog.com site for further info.
You can find price info at www.digikey.com and www.mouser.com

Regards.
Viron Papadopoulos.

 

[Mike V.]

Hello i was looking at using a atmel 8515 or a pic (not sure which variant
yet) for a project.

The microcontroller will be connected to a max186 for analog aquisitions
which will be stored in an eeprom, also looking at a keypad ,lcd,x10 and
serial pc interface to configure the unit and download data from the
eeprom..

The PICDEM Plus (or is that the PICDEM-2 Plus?) development kit has
the following:
* serial eeprom
* LCD
* MAX232 serial interface

Then connect the Max186 to the SPI of the PIC.

Then again, pretty much any microcontroller family you mentioned can
do what you want. I don't know how much more powerful is the MAX186,
but haven't you considered using internal eeproms and a/d channels
that these microcontrollers have?

 

[Rolavine]

<snip
but i can use gcc, i don't

I tried to use gcc for Atmel about 2 years ago and gave up after a few hours.
Has anyone in this group actually used this product sucessfully to make a
'product'?

Rocky

One thing I found out back then was that GCC did not talk advantage of the
AVR's fast execution times when you use the register stack. At that time GCC
moved all operands into fixed registers, did the operation and moved them back
to memory.

Rocky
"still making gizmos for clients that pay"