new user to micro controller

[imtiazgul]

hello i wanna go in this field , and i dont knwo how to start on with . plz give me some refrences from which i can start inthe field of micro controler.

 

[williB]

this is a good place to start..

I would suggest a hands on approach.. ie make or buy a pic programmer...there are tons of sites around with programmers..
in fact Nigel has a site with a software program to program pics...as well as examples and cool stuff to add on to your project..

 

[DirtyLude]

Quite frankly as great as the PICs are, to any new microcontroller hobbyist I would recommend the Zilogs z8Encore. For $40.00 you get the development board, a full working IDE with C compiler and assembler, and the in circuit programmer. Everything you need. The in circuit programming has very fast load times, one wire in circuit debugging in both C and assembler. It's just far easier and hassle free to start, then starting off with PICs.

I've programmed a few PICs, and I have a couple programmers here, but I just cannot make myself twiddle with assembler when I want to do something simple and fast. Trying to start out on the PICs with cheap programmers almost turned me away from uC's all together.

The real disadvantage you would have is that the z8Encore is a very new chip compared to the PIC, and doesn't have near the amount of free support and guides out there. There is user support though, and any questions a new user might have can certainly be answered.

Of course for commercial use is a different matter.

 

[williB]

Quite frankly as great as the PICs are, to any new microcontroller hobbyist I would recommend the Zilogs z8Encore.

Sacreligious !!

lol just kidding..
Dirtylude speaks the truth.. i had a heck of a time getting mine programed but i did learn a lot in the process..

 

[Exo]

Quite frankly as great as the PICs are, to any new microcontroller hobbyist I would recommend the Zilogs z8Encore.

The support base for pic's on the net, made by other hobbyiests, is a lot bigger for pic's.
I would say it's easyer to start with pic's because almost any problem you'll encounter is already solved by someone else and can be found on the net.

you can always migrate once you get the hang of it.

 

[DirtyLude]

The support base for pic's on the net, made by other hobbyiests, is a lot bigger for pic's.
I would say it's easyer to start with pic's because almost any problem you'll encounter is already solved by someone else and can be found on the net.

you can always migrate once you get the hang of it.

Starting with a microcontroller isn't a matter of serious problems that can only be resolved by a large user base. Other than the programming itself, there's not much to a project with a PIC uC that's specific to a PIC project.

There are many hobbyist sites with projects out there for the PIC, and pretty much all of them can be transfered hardware wise easily to any other controller with little actual electrical theory knowledge.

Personally, I have little actual electical theory behind me, and I just took this up in my spare time to play around. I managed to run with the z8 far better than I did with the PIC. I've gone through a few projects now and I don't have to worry about cheap programmers that don't handle all chips, transfering chips from programmer to project, 2 to 4 minute load times for programs.

The Zilog site has plenty of example programs and application papers, and though there's not a large user base, it's not that hard to get your questions answered.

Actually another disadvantage to the eZ8 is that it's a 3.3v chip. It's 5 volt tolerant, so you can use 5v peripherals with pull-ups. It's not so much of an issue lately, as more peripheral chips are coming in 3.3v versions.

 

[amady]

hello i wanna go in this field , and i dont knwo how to start on with . plz give me some refrences from which i can start inthe field of micro controler.

This is a good site:

**broken link removed**


This is a good programmer:

**broken link removed**

**broken link removed**

Both programmer i was setup and it work!


For burning process:

 

[bonxer]

I was looking at the Z8 Encore development kit for $40 and it looks pretty schweet. The only issue I see is that the chip included is surface mount soldered. If I wanted to do a project using another Z8 Enhanced 40 pin DIP, would I have to buy/make an additional programmer, or could the header pins on this board allow for this external programming? "Read the data sheets." There's like 50 different sheets. I was just wondering, because if I would need an additional programmer to program any other chips, I would rather just go ahead and make/buy such a programmer instead of getting the $40 preview first.

Also, I was wondering about programming speed. I have an Epic Plus parallel programmer for PICs, and it programs a PIC with 4K+ of code in a matter of a few seconds, while some friends have a serial JDM-style thinger that takes 2-3 minutes. Is the slowness inherent to all serial programmers, including this Z8 development kit, or is it just the cheapy JDM that's slow?

 

[DirtyLude]

Really, the programmer is just the data cable. All programming of the chips is in circuit, it's just so easy and fast it's difficult to justify making up a socket programmer at all.

The development board is programmed through the debug interface on the board. You can reprogram / debug that chip as many times as you want without removing it. If you don't want the development board, and just wat the progamming cable, you can buy the cable seperately for $20.00 and it comes with the development environment. Updates to the IDE/compiler/assembler are available from the Zilog site with registration.

I wrote a little page on setting up the 40pin dip on a breadboard a long while ago. I need to update this page with the projects I've completed to date.

**broken link removed**

I haven't bought a DIP chip in a long time, though. I mainly use SMD now. As an easy example you can see the simple little lightshow board I made up with a 4k 20pin chip. The first 4 pictures are the one I made for my computer with an I2C connection on it. The last 2 pictures is a simpler version that I'm putting in my sons halloween costume. WIth both of them, you can see the 3 pin header on the top of the board. That's the programming header. It's not a bootloader or anything like that. It's power, ground, and 1 wire debug/programming interface, with no other passives. It's fast. It's comparible to the load times you mentioned, 2 seconds for an 8k chip, 4 or 5 seconds for a 64k chip. It gives you full debug ability in C, breaks, watches, steps... One slightly annoying thing is that this one wire debug/programming pin can only be used as that. You can't reassign it as GPIO or anything else.

**broken link removed**

Here's a fan controller, temp monitor I started on for my external PC watercooling project. The first few pictures. Same thing, I just have the 3 pin header on it for programming, debugging. Actually the last picture you can see the test breadboard setup I was using to try and figure out the final hardware design. The grey box with the beige cable in the back right of that last picture is actually the latest programming cable that ships with the kits.

**broken link removed**

 

[williB]

64k chip.

Hmmm
in that last pic ..behind the fan.. what is that ?..with 00F0 in green LED's ..
oh nice enclosure ...
that thing with the antenna looking thingy on it is the temp sensor/fan motor controller board..?

 

[DirtyLude]

That was my attempt at using PWM to control a fan and reading the Tach at the same time. It's difficult, since the fan and the tach share the same ground. Turn off the power to the fan and you turn off the power to the tach. There's a thread in the projects forum where I was asking about it. I managed to get it working, unless the fan is going very fast, or slow. The readings just go all over, then. The F0 is the PWM value I was driving that fan at, out of FF (255), and the 1522 is the tach value, which was correct in this case.

In the end I just got tired of fiddling with it, and finally resorted to a seperate fan controller chip. The Analog Devices ADT7460, which is controlled through I2C. I'm making a seperate "daughter" board for the ADT7460.

The thing with the antenna looking thing is the fan controller / temp sensor. The black box on it is a relay I'm using to turn on the dual DC pumps. The antenna looking thing is actually an antenna. I'm making a seperate box with 7 segment LED's that will sit on my desk and display the temps and fan speeds.

 

[pirate959]

stick with zilog, they are by far the most affordable to atart out with. also there is a lot of performence.