Let's Make Robots!

Microcontroller Recomendations

Hey all,

Which microcontrollers to you recomend? Which are best for beginers ( and the bank:-)? Thanks for the help.

Floyd

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Geir Andersen's picture

I would like to throw .NET Micro Framework into this mix but as the question is;

Which microcontrollers to you recomend? Which are best for beginers ( and the bank:-)? Thanks for the help.

I would defiantly go for the PICAXE. They are cheap with a free programming IDE. It gives the user a great start into the bits and bytes of a microcontroller, and its dead easy to program. Start with that!

rogue's picture

Below is an easy tutorial for getting started with AVRs.  Plus, avrfreaks.net is a huge resource full of totorials and forums on how to code Atmel AVR microcontrollers.

http://imakeprojects.com/Projects/avr-tutorial/

These are cheap MCUs and have very good documentation.  You can get a programmer from Pololu.com for $20 which can also act as a slow oscilloscope and a USB to serial (RS232) adapter.

You can code in C programming language, something that is worth getting used to now, hopefully you aren't intimidated by it.  I think PicAxes use Basic programming language (someone please confirm what it uses if you know) and even some free flowchart, more visual programming software suites.

You can visit my channel on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/OITRC which has links in the description to a sourceforge page to download the AVR code used in the video.  This may help you get a feel for the C code used in AVRs and help you feel more or less comfortable with the idea of programming in C.

Cheers!

Both! looks like a arduino but it is a picaxe!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320600025363

 

Nebster's picture

Has anyone actually owned both of the boards and can make a resonable conclution which one they would prefer if they were a beginner. I started with the Arduino, im fine with it, i think Gui-bot made a start here for the Arduino,
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/2164

TofuRobot's picture

I think we might have a war between the PICAXE and Arduino. lolz

I personally like the PICAXE.

It's easy to program and versatile.

voodoobot's picture

I wouldn't call it a war...just different opinions...

Man! All these freaking comments in my Inbox is like making me Mental. It's like Mario, Duino and Luigi.

You Stupid Duino!

Pic Atmel Duino,  Pic Atmel!  No. Not Caramel, Atmel Duino!

Chris the Carpenter's picture

You know, this Floyd guy has not responded to his own post yet. That's awesome!