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JovianPyx
Joined: Nov 20, 2007
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 Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:21 am Post subject:
PIC/Microcontroller Development Board Suggestions Please... |
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I am embarking on a synthesizer related project which will need PICs or microcontrollers with LOTS of GPIO pins. I'd like to do some experiments with a development board that has access to all or most of the GPIO pins on the PIC or other microcontroller. I need logic pins, not analog, but programmable dual use is fine.
I'm not at all stuck on PICs, other GPIO pin heavy parts are fine.
I've worked with PICs (small ones) years ago, so I'm familiar with programming them (assembly), so I have no need of C compilers or BASIC.
Speed is not a big deal, it will not be doing DSP or anything time critical.
And of course, I'd like a good price. The board doesn't need to have a lot of peripheral devices (or any at all) - because I intend to add that part myself as the experiments progress.
Really, a bare bones in circuit programmable board with only the basic support circuitry, programming connector and a connector for the GPIO pins would be the best.
I'm especially interested in boards people here use and like.
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FPGA, dsPIC and Fatman Synth Stuff
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State Machine
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JovianPyx
Joined: Nov 20, 2007
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| Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:22 pm Post subject:
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Nice selection, there are smaller / less expensive ones that might also do the job, the one above is very nice, but pricey with the programmer (being more expensive than the controller).
Thank you, I need to look at them all now. 
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FPGA, dsPIC and Fatman Synth Stuff
Time flies like a banana.
Fruit flies when you're having fun.
BTW, Do these genes make my ass look fat?
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State Machine
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Rinxai
Joined: May 26, 2007
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Location: Flat Top Mountain
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 2:49 pm Post subject:
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For a board such as you describe, my way would be to fire up Eagle freeware, create a schematic and board layout, spit the design out the laser printer, and use the toner transfer method to arrive at an etched board ready for drilling and populating. The whole process can consume a fair bit of time, depending mainly on layout complexity and number of parts.
Otherwise highly recommend having a look at Sparkfun Electronics extensive range of products under Development Tools for a potential solution. |
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State Machine
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| Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:31 pm Post subject:
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| Quote: | | Otherwise highly recommend having a look at Sparkfun Electronics extensive range of products under Development Tools for a potential solution. |
Yes, they are also very good. Fantastic selection of development boards !
Bill |
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Dragon's Lair
Joined: Dec 29, 2006
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State Machine
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| Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject:
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| Quote: | | just made my own board, this is the prototype, I am going to do a few more with proper silkscreening to designate the components, there is a full description on my website, click on "Pic Workstation" |
Very nice Dragon Plenty of switches, pots, LCD Display, LED's, hell even MIDI connectors !! Looks like a handy development platform 
Bill |
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JovianPyx
Joined: Nov 20, 2007
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Location: West Red Spot, Jupiter
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:07 am Post subject:
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Thanks to all.
For what it's worth, I purchased a PIC18F8720 controller board from Futurlec. 70 I/O pins will be more than enough for my purpose and the PIC is plenty fast enough. I also had to purchase a programmer for it too, but that wasn't very expensive.
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FPGA, dsPIC and Fatman Synth Stuff
Time flies like a banana.
Fruit flies when you're having fun.
BTW, Do these genes make my ass look fat?
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State Machine
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject:
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| Quote: | For what it's worth, I purchased a PIC18F8720 controller board from Futurlec. 70 I/O pins will be more than enough for my purpose and the PIC is plenty fast enough. I also had to purchase a programmer for it too, but that wasn't very expensive.
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Good choice Scott. The "8720" is a nice chip with plenty of I/O as you state. I think the board comes with the 10MHz crystal so just enable the x4 PLL and your good to 10 MIPS ! The only thing about the Futurlec board documentation, having just got my 18F458 controller a couple of days ago, is that it's like good Chinese translated to very bad English. If you are familiar with the material though, you should be able to get through it. The board quality is very good.
Also, I purchased a bunch of the 10 position IDC connectors and 10 meters of multi color ribbon cable to make my own cables for their boards. I found a decent IDC connector press on Ebay for about $20.00 that's works just fine. It's much cheaper to make you own cables. Here is a sample of my cable ends .........
The Futurlec part number is:
IDCC10 - 10 Contact IDC Socket Connector
MCCABLE10 Multicolor Ribbon Cable - 10 core
Bill
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Last edited by State Machine on Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:13 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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JovianPyx
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:09 pm Post subject:
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This board has a 6 MHz xtal... With the 4x PLL deal, equivalent of running it at 24 MHz - looking at the datasheet for the PIC, it looks like most instructions (including the hardware 8x8 multiply) execute in one cycle - wouldn't that mean that for the most part, it runs at 24 MIPS or nearly 24 MIPS ?
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FPGA, dsPIC and Fatman Synth Stuff
Time flies like a banana.
Fruit flies when you're having fun.
BTW, Do these genes make my ass look fat?
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State Machine
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:19 pm Post subject:
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| Quote: | | This board has a 6 MHz xtal... With the 4x PLL deal, equivalent of running it at 24 MHz - looking at the datasheet for the PIC, it looks like most instructions (including the hardware 8x8 multiply) execute in one cycle - wouldn't that mean that for the most part, it runs at 24 MIPS or nearly 24 MIPS ? |
Scott, actually, 6 MIPS. Each instruction executes every 4 oscillator clocks. It would be (6 MHz x 4)/4 if you enable the HS-4xPLL. The 4 cancels of course. The MCU has no pipeline for instruction parallelism. There is, however, an instruction pre-fetch that takes place during one of those 4 clock cycles. If you want 10 MIPS, you must install a 10 MHz crystal and enable the PLL. If greater performance is needed, you may opt for the 24F 16-Bit MCU's or the DSPic series but this may be too late.
What is the application?
Bill |
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State Machine
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State Machine
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JovianPyx
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:50 pm Post subject:
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| State Machine wrote: | Multiplier specifications for 18F family devices ........ just click on it to read it clearly
Bill |
Ah, I see. 1 cycle for unsigned, 6 cycles for signed. (8x8). Interesting that they call it a "single cycle multiply"... You need to use more than one instruction for a signed multiply, so the multiply instruction itself is 1 cycle, it needs other code to extend it beyond unsigned....
However, that's of very little importance. This board will control an LCD display and a bunch of rotary encoders for a synth. That's all just simple logic computations. Kinda of a shame it has so much program memory, I won't be using much of it for this application.
_________________
FPGA, dsPIC and Fatman Synth Stuff
Time flies like a banana.
Fruit flies when you're having fun.
BTW, Do these genes make my ass look fat?
corruptio optimi pessima
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State Machine
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| Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:30 pm Post subject:
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| Quote: | However, that's of very little importance. This board will control an LCD display and a bunch of rotary encoders for a synth. That's all just simple logic computations. Kinda of a shame it has so much program memory, I won't be using much of it for this application.
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OK, yes, then you should be all set with this controller to do those tasks ... Now I see why you wanted all the I/O. I just got a bunch of rotary encoders myself to play around with. Thanks 
Bill |
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You might want to check this out. I am not sure if you can get USB connected ICD2 programmers any cheaper. 
