So I’d like to move away from Ardunio for a product I’m working on. I basically need a few atmel’s to be able to talk to each other, have 2 input sensors (one analog, 1 digital), and 3 PWM pins. I’ve been using Ardunio’s but I feel like I should be able to make this cheaper if I were to do something from scratching and spending 2-3$ on an atmel and some cap/resistors, but I have no idea how to go about putting it together. I’d probably stick with a DIP package. Any pointers to choosing which Atmel works best and what external parts are needed to get it up and running?
Looked at these ?
http://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy.html
can use Arduino C++ or plain C in Atmel Studio or whatever.
teensys aren’t cheaper. (ok they are, but not too much cheaper)
Look at moderndevice.com RBBB. At $13 each, you can still use your arduino sw, and the hw is already designed.
Also you can mod the kits quite a bit, and since he posts the design, you can study it and see how to make your own even more barebones setup.
Check some sites for atmel parts (atmel is one), read the data sheets.
a quick look by me sees the the Attiny series only has 2 PWMs, and the AtMega8 has 3 pwms…so start looking at the atmega8. Hes a twist, the DIP part is $4.50 while the SMD part is $1.90.
RBB is nice, but is big, DIP chip, and has no integral USB
Just about any of teh AVR chips are usable. The Arduino makes a nice development board, and if you use 328’s it makes a nice platform to load and test from. I have used my Arduino to program ATMega328 and ATtiny2313 chips with the Arduino as ISP and programmed with Arduino Sketchs as well as some code developed in AVRStudio4 (5 is just too slow). There are lots of chips in the family and they don’t require much support circuitry to function.
The biggest issue will be the amount of memory that you have to work with, and are you better off going for a bigger chip or several smaller chips.
Get the datasheets from Atmel (pdf’s) and look them over and then buy a few chips and learn to program them using ArduinoISP and see what you can develop.
You can get the schematics for the Arduino boards and use them as a template. If you don’t care about serial/USB/bootloader, you only need about five or six components, really only a couple bypass caps if you are happy with the internal oscillator options. Oh, and definitely check out the datasheets. They are your friends!
You can buy a ATMega328p and use it straight out the package. You don’t need any crystals or anything. You might need a 10k resistor to pull up the reset pin and a 100nf between 5v and reset of the arduino to disable the reset function of the arduino (acting as an ISP programmer).
Overall that is all you need to get everything up and running.