arduino is for idiots / General Science and Electronics / Forums

Forums

4hv.org :: Forums :: General Science and Electronics

« Previous topic | Next topic »

arduino is for idiots

first previous 2 3 4 5 next

Move Thread

LAN_403

lightlinked

Mon Nov 05 2012, 07:09PM

Registered Member #2087 Joined: Tue Apr 21 2009, 08:32AM
Location:
Posts: 115

Arduino is great because of the community that backs it with libraries for everything you can imagine. Sometimes the Arduino abstraction gets in the way but at that point you just start writing C for it and setting registers directly like a real world engineer would. Its just an AVR that is convenient to use.
The down side, besides the hipsters, would be that as an entry point alot of new users are just uneducated about basic electronics. Trying to teach "artists" how to use it in college was painful since they can just blow stuff up, and their Mac Book, real easy without knowing the fundamentals.
It all depends on who is making stuff with it, how much skill they have.
My fav thing is not having to bust out the ISP dongle
BTW it, the AVR, has a comparator on board which can trig an interrupt, i've used it. The hipsters just use the ADC and don't even think about how many clock cycles that takes

Patrick

Mon Nov 05 2012, 08:23PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

lightlinked wrote ...

The hipsters just use the ADC and don't even think about how many clock cycles that takes

BINGO!

When steve aks what bad practices, that was the example i was thinking of. Or the "we need to change the count intererupt." instead of setting the timers right, lets just use a decrementing loop counter, from 9 million.

those kinds of things i see all the time, but in arduinos defense that would be true of the other MC's too, Arduino just has alot of users, and therefore a large fraction are dangerous noobs.

2Spoons

Mon Nov 05 2012, 09:32PM

Registered Member #2939 Joined: Fri Jun 25 2010, 04:25AM
Location:
Posts: 615

Right now, at work, an arduino is running a 3d printer two desks away from me.
We also use them in our factory jigs for aligning and focusing the cameras we use to make touchscreens. Why? Simple convenience! Sure we could devote a couple of engineers to designing and coding proprietary hardware, but that resource is better used designing product. Arduino is cheaper, faster, simpler for building production tooling.

IamSmooth

Tue Nov 06 2012, 04:25AM

Registered Member #190 Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 12:00AM
Location:
Posts: 1567

Microwatt wrote ...

IamSmooth wrote ...

Microwatt wrote ...

what sort of complex projects have you seen done with a shitino? I went to my local hackers space and everybody was doing an arduino project. I think it makes electronics too user friendly.

12kw induction heater, self-locking resonance
Capable of levitating aluminum, steel and copper. Capable of serving as a furnace for a blacksmith who needs to uniformly heat pieces of steel as small as a knife to as large as a full-sized sword. This project required a microprocessor. If you look at the schematics at the end of the tutorial you can see how it was worked into the project. There are YouTube links so you can see it in action.

12kw??
you brits have it easy.

I'm not British.

macona

Tue Nov 06 2012, 08:42AM

Registered Member #3272 Joined: Mon Oct 04 2010, 11:40PM
Location: Beaverton, OR
Posts: 101

I ended up using one (Actually a Teensy) to read the log/lin output of the cold cathode vacuum gauge on my residual gas analyzer and display it on a VFD. Also has setpoints to turn off valves when the pressure gets too high as well as remote control of the turbo and roughing pumps:

Used another one to control a plasma light source that had a serial interface with an odd 57k-7-E-1 serial interface. Gives me control at the lamp using an encoder, pushbutton, and another small VFD display.

Conundrum

Tue Nov 06 2012, 07:30PM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061

Interesting.
Visual Basic is a lot easier to code than assembler, and at least you can see where the mistakes are.
It may not be code efficient but with $1 micros now having 32K+ or RAM and 100K of program memory it is a non problem.

Killa-X

Tue Nov 06 2012, 08:52PM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

You have more control over things, in some cases, using the raw chip, instead if arduino. Pesonally I don't like them, I far rather prefer AVR studio C coding even if its slightly longer, when you understand it, things are very easy. People to me, get arduino because "I want to run a LCD, so I need to buy this shield and use this code" okay, sure...easy lazy way out. Did I find it hard to code a 128x128 rgb screen? Nope...not at all.

Each to their own though, it's usually north worth arguing over what's better as every person has their own views.. Life :)

Patrick

Tue Nov 06 2012, 11:40PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

the idea of "shields" does worry me, as it adds a layer of unnessacary abstraction. Radio Shack sells several of them.

macona

Wed Nov 07 2012, 09:53AM

Registered Member #3272 Joined: Mon Oct 04 2010, 11:40PM
Location: Beaverton, OR
Posts: 101

Shields are great. Arduino and shields are like and erector set or 80/20 for microcontrollers. Sure, there are cheaper and better ways to build something but for someone who does not have a lot of tools it sure beats not building it.

You can get things that would be difficult to interface simply because of the package of the component. Say, for example. a zigbee radio, they use a 2mm leg pitch. That means you cant use generic perfboard nor breadboards without some sort of adapter cards or flying leads. Plus you have someone that has done the hard work and created a library to talk to the component. Makes life easier.

I dont get what the issue with it is. Arduino is just dumbed down C. Most of the same commands are there even if they are undocumented. You have to remember who it was designed for, it was not for people that have a lot of electronics background.

For a neat little board look at the Teensy 3.0. A guy I know designed and built them. Arm Cortex and real cheap, $19.

ShawnLG

Wed Nov 07 2012, 07:21PM

Registered Member #286 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:52AM
Location:
Posts: 399

Real men play with real microcontrollers. I am working on interfacing a ps/2 keyboard to an 80C85 CPU. Then an LCD and other peripherals.

first previous 2 3 4 5 next

Moderator(s): Chris Russell, Noelle, Alex, Tesladownunder, Dave Marshall, Dave Billington, Bjørn, Steve Conner, Wolfram, Kizmo, Mads Barnkob