Should I bother with basic stamp?

[hosh]

New to micro controllers but use pico and some other basic PLC's.
But I am now at a point where I want to build my ideas.
Not just hack other stuff or use pre-made options.

Should I start with basic stamp or
get my money back and jump strait into pics?

Thanks for any responses and the great info and ideas I've gotten from this site.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Can you get your money back?

 

[hosh]

Radio shack. Just picked it up today. I still got the receipt and its not opened.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Well there are plenty of options, if BASIC is your thing take a look at Swordfish BASIC SE which can handily outrun any BASIC Stamp. You'll need a programmer like the PICkit2 and a demo board or my Junebug kit which has both the programmer & a demo board / tutor
Do a forum search for "Junebug" and see if this is more what you're after. Probably cheaper than the Stamp kit too.
Course that's my opinion.

 

[3v0]

I agree with Bill. Take it back. For the $80 you can get setup with a programmer and a target.

 

[hosh]

I've been looking at your junebug and was thinking it was prob more what i want and need. I knew I'll be moving to pics later either way i went.

I've been wanting to build many ideas. But the one that finally made me jump is Persistence of vision and I also want to build an LED display.

Although my original idea needs some modification because 13,824 RGB LED's (24"x36" @ 4 LED's an inch) is a bit much to tackle this early in the game.

 

[3v0]

I think the Junebug would do just fine for you. You can play with the onboard 18F1320 to get your feet wet and move on from there. You also have access to both free C and Basic compilers.

I am surprised to see the basic stamp at Radio Shack. I was under the impression that all they wanted to sell was consumer electronics.

 

[hosh]

They still have a very small area of what they used to be.

They even have bread boards and blank circuit boards.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

I've been looking at your junebug and was thinking it was prob more what i want and need. I knew I'll be moving to pics later either way i went.

I've been wanting to build many ideas. But the one that finally made me jump is Persistence of vision and I also want to build an LED display.

Although my original idea needs some modification because 13,824 RGB LED's (24"x36" @ 4 LED's an inch) is a bit much to tackle this early in the game.

13,824 RGB LEDs that's a joke right. To run that many LEDs is much more work than you can imagine. Lets see 96 * 144 LEDs * 1 colour is 8.64 AMPs per row when running them at 60ma or so, a resonable refresh might be 1:8 so you'll need 12 * 8.64 AMPs = 103AMPs add to that the RGB element for 103 * 3 = 309 AMP power supply. That's just for the supply. The row & column drivers are another nightmare. Big color LED signs are very expensive for a reason.

On the other hand if it's a joke you got me.

 

[parts-man73]

This fall, Radio Shack just added a new line of Sensors(also from Parallax) to the inventory at most stores. I recently purchased a dual axis accelerometer there. They also have ultrasonic distance sensors, PIR and RFID sensors. They are supposed to be expanding the selection in their parts drawers as well.

I don't buy much from them, but it's handy to buy local if you are out of a part and you don't want to want 3-5 days for mail order....

Brian

 

[hosh]

This fall, Radio Shack just added a new line of Sensors(also from Parallax) to the inventory at most stores. I recently purchased a dual axis accelerometer there. They also have ultrasonic distance sensors, PIR and RFID sensors. They are supposed to be expanding the selection in their parts drawers as well.

I don't buy much from them, but it's handy to buy local if you are out of a part and you don't want to want 3-5 days for mail order....

Brian

I saw those today. The RFID tags really caught my interest.

I usually try to get to Affiliated Electronics for most things, but they don't carry micro controllers and only have a few vellman kits that I think qualify as NOS

I wasn't kidding about the leds. I didn't realize at the time how complex it was or the number it would take until i did some math and saw the numbers. At that point I new I needed to change tactics, then I saw what it takes to control a 4x4 panel and went into brain overload thinking about the control scheme that scale would take. Much less the programming.

Now I'm thinking about POV for my display. Only 144 LEDs and timing.

Although I will be taking the basic stamp kit back and looks like I will be ordering a Junebug soon.

Thanks for the advice and guidance. Till tomorrow.

 

[futz]

Saw this on BoingBoing today. Does 625 LEDs with an AVR controller. A kit is $80. Bare board $50.

Schematic

It's no 13000+ LEDs, but might be worth a look.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

I've looked at the schematic and don't quite understand the method used for the column driver. Is it a static display like a light bright? I understand the LEDs are not soldered in.
Nice looking kit. 625 is plenty of LEDs, My LED kit (on the shelf at the moment has a mere 140)

 

[futz]

Is it a static display like a light bright?

I believe that's the idea. Simple that way. Just plug in LEDs where you want light, in the colors you want. Change whenever you want.

Of course that's no fun for guys like us. But it is hackable.

 

[hosh]

Definitely a light bright. But I like the power method. 60 hz is pretty much not noticeable to most people. 50 hz is. I have driven several LEDs on ac. So if you keep a 60 hz or higher pulse rate it would look like they were all on and yet save power.

I will stew on this for controlling many LEDs at once. The timing will take forever to work out but the effect could be cool.

I guess I can let this brew in the background while I learn from junebug.
I just ordered an assembled kit. I know I'm lazy and impatient to start when I get it.

By the way I get my LEDs from Ebay seller besthongkong if I want more than a couple. Good prices on super brites and he ships fast.
(edit: just looked at digikey - will be ordering from there for LEDs in the future)

 

[donniedj]

"Should I bother with basic stamp?"

My answer is no.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

I remember in the early Stamp days the testiomonials from just about every source. I had a couple of Stamps when ages back but they are so slow and expensive, also the code is not designed for anything much more complex then a state machine. I still like BASIC for quick code and love the Swordfish BASIC for PICS. When I need tight mustitasking code I'll write it in assembler and I'm still learning C.
With a proper PIC programmer you have a lot of options and cheap PICs to work with.

 

[Hero999]

I've heard about BASIC stamp, are they what I thought they are, just a ROM with a BASIC interpreter?

I don't see the point, interpreters are good for rapid delvelopment (where code changes frequently) but they're slow. From what I gather microcontrollers are slow to start off with and once the code is flased, it isn't chaged very often, if at all. A BASIC interpreter would just slow the already slow CPU down even more and ofer no benifit.

If you want BASIC, then I don't see why you can't get a compiler that converts the program to machine code before programming the chip.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Yes a BASIC Stamp is just an ancient 16F57 with eeprom and a P-code interpreter. Has a built in eeprom loader and simple serial port. They are popular in some magazines like Nuts & Volts.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Yes a BASIC Stamp is just an ancient 16F57 with eeprom and a P-code interpreter.

You mean 16C57, not F57

They are very clever though, just way too expensive and slow - bear in mind, at the time the STAMP came out there were no BASIC compilers, and all tools were DOS only. WinPicProg was the worlds first Windows PIC programmer software, a long time before MicroChip released any Windows tools.

One reason I don't use simulators is when I started it was a DOS tool, and you wouldn't believe how horrible it was!