RE: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: Laser mouse based DRO - Stand Alone ?

Hi Dave,

Plenty of chips out there, and each one has it's benefits. I'm of course
biased, as I have access to them at work now. I've done a lot of the "old
school" micros, from Intel and Motorola.

There is a plethora of info on the PICs (of course I notice them the most),
and they are easy to get started with. There is a lot of competition out
there! Yes, MicroChip is competitive now more then ever.

Hi-Tech's ANSI compiler is quite good, as well as the MicroChip compiler,
I'm told. I found it very comfortable moving over from Microsoft and
Borland compilers (16 bit world).

In general, one can choose a chip (I almost said "pic" a chip), and run with
it. I'm sure there are also lists on Yahoo and elsewhere for other chips as
well.

I'd suggest finding a "kit" or project that want that uses a chip you'd like
to learn. And jump in!

A lot of little stepper and DRO projects can be done with a PIC or other
suitable micro. EDM could use one to read current in the electrode, and
adjust the Z height, for example. Spindle tachs, feed rate calculators,
smart coolant controls, boiler controls, the list goes on!

And I don't really mean to champion one processor over another; I'd like to
try them all! However, I find I can get deeper into a particular subject
(or processor) if I limit the scope of my study.

The U.S. Digital chip could be used, or just use 8 input lines of a PIC or
other suitable processor! A "state machine" in the code extracts the
motion, a LCD display presents it. Watch this space!

Alan KM6VV

> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of David A. Frantz
> Subject: Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: Laser mouse based DRO - Stand Alone ?
>
> "I do believe that MicroChip goes all the way out to make it easy to try
> PICs."
>
> Hi Alan;
>
> I've just recently started reading up on the PIC due to all the buzz
> about the hardware. Frankly I'm less than impressed with what I know
> at the moment about the chips. I'm left with the impression that
> microchip would have to go all out to convince people to go with their
> hardware.
>
> It is nice that the chips have good compiler support as at the assembly
> level the chips look to be a bit difficult. I'm also of the opinion
> that any thing less that trivial usage would be better done today on a
> 16 bit or 32 bit platform, especially if good compiler support is
> wanted. With some of the ARM devices costs can be very manageable.
>
> Granted this may not be the case for volume manufacturing, but for home
> built / limited production hardware there can be huge benefit in easier
> software development. What everyone here needs though is a chip of
> any sort with the hardware uilt in to do the job in question. That is
> a chip with 3 or 4 quadrature input ports would be ideal.
> Unfortunately most of what I've found so far are chips with just one
> input port.
>
>
> Thanks
> dave
>
>
> KM6VV wrote:
>
> >Hi Steve,
> >
> >The AVRs are interesting chips! Inexpensive, very powerful, compilers
> >available. We considered it on a project that's starting, but limited
> time,
> >familiarity with PICs and their compilers dictated that we continue to
> use a pic
> >for this project as well.
> >
> >Yeah, there are some peculiar instructions in the PIC instruction set,
> but I'm
> >normally writing in C, so I don't mind!
> >
> >I do believe that MicroChip goes all the way out to make it easy to try
> PICs.
> >
> >The Tach Jr. kit is based on an Atmel chip.
> >
> > http://dsgnspec.0catch.com/
> >
> >Small package, tach works good for spindles!
> >
> >Alan KM6VV
> >