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Any suggestions on microcontrollers? I love my pi but I've been wanting to try my hand at something a little less, desktop-like.

by burk96 7y ago

jbay808 7y ago
I love the TI launchpads. http://www.ti.com/design-resources/embedded-development/hardware-kits-boards.html#launchpad http://www.ti.com/design-resources/embedded-development/hard... Seems like the number of them has gone way up so if you don't want to waste time thinking about which one to try, here are some suggestions. Cheap and minimal ($10): http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430g2et http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430g2et High spec for things like motor control ($34): http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-F28379D http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-F28379D
- jrockway 7y ago
  I would recommend taking the path of least resistance and getting something Arduino compatible. After ignoring it for years, I tried it out last week. It is very easy to use. And the M0- and M4- based boards are very capable. The Adafruit Trinket M0 was what I needed for a recent project. It's $8 and tiny. The feather boards also look very neat, if you need BLE, the ability to stack peripherals, etc. They all integrate with Arduino so you can be up and running in a minute. (They also support Python running on the device, which is maybe even easier than Arduino.)
thedanbob 7y ago
The ESP8266 is a fantastic platform and Adafruit has some great breakout boards for it. I’ve heard good things about its successor the ESP32 as well.
Rebelgecko 7y ago
ESP8266 or the ESP32 (if you want something beefier that also has bluetooth) give fantastic bang for your buck, especially if you get them from a trustworthy-ish store on Aliexpress
Nullabillity 7y ago
STM32s have great Rust support[0] if that matters to you. Personally I strongly prefer the embedded_hal[1] and RTFM[2] APIs over the Arduino ones, although the peripheral coverage is a fair bit weaker. Their DISCOVERY kits[3] (preassembled boards that are ready to program, just like Arduinos) are ~$20, and also double as programmers if you eventually end up designing your own boards. [0]: https://docs.rust-embedded.org/discovery/index.html https://docs.rust-embedded.org/discovery/index.html [1]: https://github.com/rust-embedded/embedded-hal https://github.com/rust-embedded/embedded-hal [2]: https://github.com/japaric/cortex-m-rtfm https://github.com/japaric/cortex-m-rtfm [3]: Such as https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/stm32f3discovery.html https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/stm32f3discovery.html

Any suggestions on microcontrollers? I love my pi but I've been wanting to try my hand at something a little less, desktop-like.

by burk96 7y ago

Any suggestions on microcontrollers? I love my pi but I've been wanting to try my hand at something a little less, desktop-like.

jbay808 7y ago

I love the TI launchpads. http://www.ti.com/design-resources/embedded-development/hardware-kits-boards.html#launchpad http://www.ti.com/design-resources/embedded-development/hard... Seems like the number of them has gone way up so if you don't want to waste time thinking about which one to try, here are some suggestions. Cheap and minimal ($10): http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430g2et http://www.ti.com/tool/msp-exp430g2et High spec for things like motor control ($34): http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-F28379D http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-F28379D

jrockway 7y ago
I would recommend taking the path of least resistance and getting something Arduino compatible. After ignoring it for years, I tried it out last week. It is very easy to use. And the M0- and M4- based boards are very capable. The Adafruit Trinket M0 was what I needed for a recent project. It's $8 and tiny. The feather boards also look very neat, if you need BLE, the ability to stack peripherals, etc. They all integrate with Arduino so you can be up and running in a minute. (They also support Python running on the device, which is maybe even easier than Arduino.)

thedanbob 7y ago

The ESP8266 is a fantastic platform and Adafruit has some great breakout boards for it. I’ve heard good things about its successor the ESP32 as well.

Rebelgecko 7y ago

ESP8266 or the ESP32 (if you want something beefier that also has bluetooth) give fantastic bang for your buck, especially if you get them from a trustworthy-ish store on Aliexpress

Nullabillity 7y ago

STM32s have great Rust support[0] if that matters to you. Personally I strongly prefer the embedded_hal[1] and RTFM[2] APIs over the Arduino ones, although the peripheral coverage is a fair bit weaker. Their DISCOVERY kits[3] (preassembled boards that are ready to program, just like Arduinos) are ~$20, and also double as programmers if you eventually end up designing your own boards. [0]: https://docs.rust-embedded.org/discovery/index.html https://docs.rust-embedded.org/discovery/index.html [1]: https://github.com/rust-embedded/embedded-hal https://github.com/rust-embedded/embedded-hal [2]: https://github.com/japaric/cortex-m-rtfm https://github.com/japaric/cortex-m-rtfm [3]: Such as https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/stm32f3discovery.html https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/stm32f3discovery.html