Before I leave - another observation I have is that for many other blog sites, I find g+ is eating them up. Many people like the ease of getting their tech community stuff in one place rather than site hopping as is the case for sites like this. Not sure what can be done about that - but one should certainly be aware of the competition.
Nemos - I haven't used AutoCAD in twenty years. There are a few inexpensive CAD alternatives, but I still have the issue of getting the structure fabricated up.
I don't have a lot of mechanical design and assembly expertise. I don't think that would be too much of an issue if I had access to a CNC machine or some sort of machine tool. I just don't have any way of working on metal and plastic othar than a simple drill and saw.
Nemos - Pretty much all of what I've done so far is available in many places as open source. The difficult parts (for me, at least) will be the mechanical side and once I start using an Android tablet for control.
Nemos - The robot is going a lot slower than I had hopes (naturally). Rather than just building it, I've been exploring and writing about so many different subjects I spend a lot less time on the robot than I would like.
Rich, Antedeluvian - I see designs that are obviously put together by seasoned professionals, but I also see a fair number of designs put together by people (even from very large companies) that look more like high-school projects than the work of someone in a multi-billion dollar corporation.
Guys, I am going to have to break off a bit early. My 90y0 mother has been visiting for the Holidays and I need to take her to the airport. Don't let my departure stop you, though, cuz I will come back to the archive to see what else you have said.
Dimonic - The IoT is a reall good example of that MCU expert vs non-expert issue. It's a new subject to just about everyone and it's an opportunity to follow the standards.
That line between pro and amatuer or non-MCU person vs MCU person is an area I find interesting. I think MCUs are a technology where the skill set using them varies in a very wide range.
This is true, but is MCC aimed at (or will be aimed at) this demographic? What say you, Rich?
@Rich, I think humidity, temperature etc. sensors. For example there is wide range of temperature sensors (Pt100, K type etc.) and each needs different interface.
That line between pro and amatuer or non-MCU person vs MCU person is an area I find interesting. I think MCUs are a technology where the skill set using them varies in a very wide range.
Any posts which can facilitate professionals of any stripe get into MCUs and make practical use of them would probably find an audience, but especially at the edges - boundaries of design, which (in my experience) take the most time to code and test.
Nemos, actually I cut my MCU teeth on the Motorola 6800 when it had just doubled its clock rate from 500 kHz to 1 MHz. It's just that I have been a journalist instead of a designer for the last quarter century. So, broad understanding but lacking in fine details.
Rich, Dimonic - The story I see in my day job often enough is that of a non-electronic or software engineer being tasked with putting an MCU onto some device, like a mecahnical engineer needing to put some form of control or monitoring on a mechanical switch. Those folks are both seasoned professionals and MCU rookies.
@duane - agreed, and there are always reasons to use certain devices. I would venture to say that projects becoming part of the IoT are probably new projects which have the freedom to choose 32 bit devices though. My concern is that people will create their own protocols with these 32 bit devices out of a lack of knowledge of what is already out there for Internet communication abd control.
Dimonic - I would agree with you in concept. However, there are a lot of reasons keeping a lot of people using legacy devices. Cost-wise, there certainly isn't any reason to not use a 32 bit MCU. A lot of folks still aren't doing that though.
DSPs? Hmmmm. we certainly could include some discussion of digital signal processing. The 8-bit folks won't find it too helpful, but it is becoming increasingly important to 32-bits. I'll add it to the list.
@rich - I totally get that, and I don't think a few beginner tutorials would scare off the professionals, especially if they were at the "edges" of MCU stuff, where MCU people are often beginners too.
@duane at the risk of causing upset - with the price and size of silicon dropping so rapidly, I am willing to bet that using more horsepower is cheaper (in the long run) than writing more (and redundant) code to make feeble devices work.
@Rich - certainly for me. I have directed a few Maker types here, and they have told me that the site did not seem all that helpful as a resource for people coming from that (mostly Arduino) community.
@duane, a way to generalize your suggestion would be to include tips on how to determine where the code needs to change. How to do the identification you mention
David - An example might be: Here's the basic code to set up a Microchip PIC as an SPI slave. Identify which lines of code may change from PIC varient to varient. Here's the same for an AVR and ehre's the same for an ARM.
That level of detail might start to seem like "doing someone's homework" for them, but it's such a common question out on the Internet at large.
@jh the best way to start for me is to go via arduino, all the other alternatives are at professional level thing that makes the learning process more difficult for a beginner
JK - Part of the problem that I've found with code examples like I2C or SPI is that most of them that the actual implementation on different MCUs can be so different that generic is difficult to do.
Certainly, though, running through the idosyncracies of various implementations would be helpful, or maybe examples that would duplicat the same functionality in several different MCUs.
#jk, my problem with offering that level of detail is finding folks who can provide it. I have been an engineer, but not done design for decades, so I am not the right candidate.
At my workplace, we are experimenting with a RESTful http server model to control our GPR module (and display its data in a browser interface) in real time.
Rich - I like the direction you've been taking in regards to security. It's an area that I need to learn more about and the security discussions have been very enlightening.
Rich - One example might be accessing the SMbus/I2C connector that exsists on many PC motherboards (or at least it used to). Another might be using Python (or some other light weight language) to access data I/O from a serial port or USB.
Little attention seems to be paid to information protocols. Now that MVUs no longer exist in a vaccuum, we need to use standards for information flow to monitor and control devices. Some discussion of this would be in order, I think,
I'd like to have a series on adding wireless Internet connectivity to any small device. It's been discussed a lot before, but I think it still needs more coverage. I'd include IpV6 too.
@duanebenson and of course information on how to monitor/control your internet enabled device from your mobile device (hope this doesn't double post - my last one just dissapeared).
@ad, other site editors have set up independent file hosting sites using available free services. I will try to set up a site for MCC if folks think it will be valuable. It won't be here on this site, though. Sigh. I will also ask our tech department if they can arrange something here, but I am not hopeful.
@AD, you can link to YouTube in any of your posts - blog or comment. We can also host our own videos, but not sure that is available on this site due to sponsor limitations
@david, you looking for an overview of avaialble applications, or info on how to create them? What kinds of applications? Or are you looking for guidelines on how to choose an MCU for a Java/Android application?
I would like to see a slight addition in presentations. I don't think our "package" precludes it. It would be nice to have some avi files as part of a blog showing how things work etc. as a movie. I think I have seen something like this in Rich's blogs but no other. I have an idea for one on what I have done in Android. Is it possible Rich?
David , the open source movement or in other words the make movements is booming so the coming days,year we will see a lot of projects on this subject,
I've recently discovered that I can check out e-books from my local library. Basically I "buy" the book at no cost and it just stops being useable after the check-out period. The Library might have rights to five copies of a given book so if five are in use, I'll have to wait for someone else to give it up or their borrow term to expire.
I think will be a great year, (in creativity terms) at least for my part I will try, I had discovered something fantastic , you can purchase ebooks from amazon for free ;)
January is a good time to plan for the year. So, come help plan the year's activities on Microcontroller Central. We will be talking about what we did here this last year, and what we would like to see in the coming year.
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