Re: [time-nuts] Good (cheap) PIC chip choice for project?
Having used PICs since 1990, I've designed them into projects rather
than getting a board like a Parallax or Arduino (either of which are far
more expensive than the chip and the few components required to make it
work) and then shoehorning someone else's board into my project.
Since the late 90's, I've used the PICC compiler (by CCS) which - once
you know it - can produce reasonably tight code that is can also be
fast: I've done a number of audio DSP projects on 16F platforms -
mostly in "C" - and had plenty of horsepower. A bit expensive, but I
updated only every 4-7 years and with as many projects that I've done (I
have used rails of the things with personal/amateur/work projects as
well as some commercial prototypes) the time/power is worth the cost.
The PICs that I use the most are the 12F683 - an 8-pin device with 10
bits of A/D and a 10 bit PWM: With a 20 MHz xtal, I've done audio DSP
with this. As it turns out, a great many projects require <=6 pins (the
PIC using an internal R/C clock - 1 of the pins is input-only) and this
will do the trick.
The other one that I use is the 16F88 - It has the A/D, PWM as well as
I2C/SCL and USARTs and internal clocks - an 18 pin device, 16 of which
can be used for I/O (1 of those only does "I"). With more RAM/Program
memory, one can do more DSP than with the '683...
For more horsepower I'll often use the 18F2620/18F4620's - 28/40 pin
devices (respectively) and these have more I/O and peripherals. There's
are close cousins of this that also has hardware-based USB (I don't
recall the number of an example, however...)
I've yet to do anything with the 24F and dsPICs, but maybe, the next
time I update the compiler...
73,
Clint
KA7OEI
Hi
One of the original starting points was a free tool chain. Paying major money for a compiler is moving a bit far from that. You would have to do a lot of home projects to justify that cost.
Bob
On May 25, 2013, at 10:17 PM, Clint Turner turner@ussc.com wrote:
Having used PICs since 1990, I've designed them into projects rather than getting a board like a Parallax or Arduino (either of which are far more expensive than the chip and the few components required to make it work) and then shoehorning someone else's board into my project.
Since the late 90's, I've used the PICC compiler (by CCS) which - once you know it - can produce reasonably tight code that is can also be fast: I've done a number of audio DSP projects on 16F platforms - mostly in "C" - and had plenty of horsepower. A bit expensive, but I updated only every 4-7 years and with as many projects that I've done (I have used rails of the things with personal/amateur/work projects as well as some commercial prototypes) the time/power is worth the cost.
The PICs that I use the most are the 12F683 - an 8-pin device with 10 bits of A/D and a 10 bit PWM: With a 20 MHz xtal, I've done audio DSP with this. As it turns out, a great many projects require <=6 pins (the PIC using an internal R/C clock - 1 of the pins is input-only) and this will do the trick.
The other one that I use is the 16F88 - It has the A/D, PWM as well as I2C/SCL and USARTs and internal clocks - an 18 pin device, 16 of which can be used for I/O (1 of those only does "I"). With more RAM/Program memory, one can do more DSP than with the '683...
For more horsepower I'll often use the 18F2620/18F4620's - 28/40 pin devices (respectively) and these have more I/O and peripherals. There's are close cousins of this that also has hardware-based USB (I don't recall the number of an example, however...)
I've yet to do anything with the 24F and dsPICs, but maybe, the next time I update the compiler...
73,
Clint
KA7OEI
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On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 4:50 AM, Bob Camp lists@rtty.us wrote:
Hi
One of the original starting points was a free tool chain. Paying major
money for a compiler is moving a bit far from that. You would have to do a
lot of home projects to justify that cost.
Indeed. I wouldn't pay commercial prices for a PIC C compiler for home
projects. The 'Lite' version of SourceBoost that I actually bought is a
whopping $5 and in spite of its RAM/ROM limitations, it's been good enough
for me. If I ever sell a product that uses it, I'd need the commercial
version at $150 - fair enough IMO.
Orin.
Probably, one of the best advantages of AVR over PIC is that with avr you
can use the GCC compiler. Gcc of course is the compiler used "everywhere"
and supports real ANSI C and has a good optimizer and it's free. So if
you use AVR you can port most C code you find that was written for UNIX
directly to the AVR
As was said early in this thread, if you want to write in C, AVR is
designed from the ground up for C. The PIC is older and has a very simple
assembly language that is easy to learn. But the PIC C compilers are
either expensive or crippled.
The good thing about using gcc is that it also runs on the PC or Mac OS X
so you can write test cases and run the code on your desktop. I lie to
unit test the software in the larger computer using data from files to
fully exercise the code before downloading it to the chip. Using the same
compiler for the PC/Mac and the chip makes this easier.
On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 10:34 AM, Orin Eman orin.eman@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 4:50 AM, Bob Camp lists@rtty.us wrote:
Hi
One of the original starting points was a free tool chain. Paying major
money for a compiler is moving a bit far from that. You would have to do
a
lot of home projects to justify that cost.
Indeed. I wouldn't pay commercial prices for a PIC C compiler for home
projects. The 'Lite' version of SourceBoost that I actually bought is a
whopping $5 and in spite of its RAM/ROM limitations, it's been good enough
for me. If I ever sell a product that uses it, I'd need the commercial
version at $150 - fair enough IMO.
Orin.
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--
Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California
In message CABbxVHvP0JmXo=ObnZUmtTH=7-OHixSWixa0hY3sVgo4Gqdegw@mail.gmail.com
, Chris Albertson writes:
Probably, one of the best advantages of AVR over PIC is that with avr you
can use the GCC compiler.
I recently had enough of all the trouble with both AVR and PIC chips
and went ARM, which gives you way better C-language support than
either has ever done.
My current preference for random hacks is this one:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/ARM/NXP/LPC-P1343/
This one has the neat feature that the "firmware-load mode" gives
you are 32KB "USB-stick" with a single file called "firmware.bin"
which means that even your grandmother can figure out how to
update the firmware if need be...
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Hi
Actually GCC does support some of the PICs. I'd prefer to go with a >= PIC24 and run the "free" version of the Microchip compiler rather than GCC in this case. The optimization isn't quite as neat in the free Microchip compiler, but the price is right and the thing does work.
Bob
On May 26, 2013, at 3:19 PM, Chris Albertson albertson.chris@gmail.com wrote:
Probably, one of the best advantages of AVR over PIC is that with avr you
can use the GCC compiler. Gcc of course is the compiler used "everywhere"
and supports real ANSI C and has a good optimizer and it's free. So if
you use AVR you can port most C code you find that was written for UNIX
directly to the AVR
As was said early in this thread, if you want to write in C, AVR is
designed from the ground up for C. The PIC is older and has a very simple
assembly language that is easy to learn. But the PIC C compilers are
either expensive or crippled.
The good thing about using gcc is that it also runs on the PC or Mac OS X
so you can write test cases and run the code on your desktop. I lie to
unit test the software in the larger computer using data from files to
fully exercise the code before downloading it to the chip. Using the same
compiler for the PC/Mac and the chip makes this easier.
On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 10:34 AM, Orin Eman orin.eman@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 4:50 AM, Bob Camp lists@rtty.us wrote:
Hi
One of the original starting points was a free tool chain. Paying major
money for a compiler is moving a bit far from that. You would have to do
a
lot of home projects to justify that cost.
Indeed. I wouldn't pay commercial prices for a PIC C compiler for home
projects. The 'Lite' version of SourceBoost that I actually bought is a
whopping $5 and in spite of its RAM/ROM limitations, it's been good enough
for me. If I ever sell a product that uses it, I'd need the commercial
version at $150 - fair enough IMO.
Orin.
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--
Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California
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Hi
It is interesting how the various outfits sneak around the flash loader issue on their low end boards. Some of the dual CPU approaches I've seen actually have as much horsepower in the loader CPU as they do in the target. I'm not complaining about getting 2 usable cpu's for a bit over $10….
Bob
On May 26, 2013, at 3:47 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp phk@phk.freebsd.dk wrote:
In message CABbxVHvP0JmXo=ObnZUmtTH=7-OHixSWixa0hY3sVgo4Gqdegw@mail.gmail.com
, Chris Albertson writes:
Probably, one of the best advantages of AVR over PIC is that with avr you
can use the GCC compiler.
I recently had enough of all the trouble with both AVR and PIC chips
and went ARM, which gives you way better C-language support than
either has ever done.
My current preference for random hacks is this one:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/ARM/NXP/LPC-P1343/
This one has the neat feature that the "firmware-load mode" gives
you are 32KB "USB-stick" with a single file called "firmware.bin"
which means that even your grandmother can figure out how to
update the firmware if need be...
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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and follow the instructions there.
For some of the TI and NXP boards I have seen, the debug chip is clearly bigger than the target, probably due to the fact that the debut chip has USB and USB is typically only supported in the bigger chips.
Didier
Bob Camp lists@rtty.us wrote:
Hi
It is interesting how the various outfits sneak around the flash loader
issue on their low end boards. Some of the dual CPU approaches I've
seen actually have as much horsepower in the loader CPU as they do in
the target. I'm not complaining about getting 2 usable cpu's for a bit
over $10….
Bob
On May 26, 2013, at 3:47 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp phk@phk.freebsd.dk
wrote:
In message
, Chris Albertson writes:
Probably, one of the best advantages of AVR over PIC is that with
avr you
can use the GCC compiler.
I recently had enough of all the trouble with both AVR and PIC chips
and went ARM, which gives you way better C-language support than
either has ever done.
My current preference for random hacks is this one:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/ARM/NXP/LPC-P1343/
This one has the neat feature that the "firmware-load mode" gives
you are 32KB "USB-stick" with a single file called "firmware.bin"
which means that even your grandmother can figure out how to
update the firmware if need be...
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by
incompetence.
and follow the instructions there.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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and follow the instructions there.
--
Sent from my Motorola Droid Razr 4G LTE wireless tracker while I do other things.
In message EED8CC97-4C42-4EED-93FA-B520730516B3@rtty.us, Bob Camp writes:
It is interesting how the various outfits sneak around the flash loader issue
on their low end boards. Some of the dual CPU approaches I've seen actually
have as much horsepower in the loader CPU as they do in the target. I'm
not complaining about getting 2 usable cpu's for a bit over $10=85.
In this case it's the same single chip doing the work. You can even
access the subroutines from your own code, in case you want to implement
a FAT-disk on the USB port.
I generally use the USB port as a serial ("CDC") device though.
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.