I've finally started working of my first robot, and I'm not sure if i should use my arduino nano or something else
I want my robot to be expandabe, and so far it has an LCD, 2 stepper motors (wheels) and a servo claw.
Because I want it to exspand as my knowlage grows, I think i'm going to want more IO pins than I've got... So I'm wondering wether to use my arduino, and I2C to a second chip, or to find myself a board with more IO's.
The Arduino Nano is good if The Arduino Nano is good if you have a breadboard so you can easily wire sensors and motors to your robot. Basically it’s pretty much just a small (physically) Arduino.
Just learn how to use the Arduino well and put it into a robot using the same skills as doing projects with LEDs and switches.
And eventually you may find And eventually you may find that you need a larger processor if you go that way. Then get something. As time goes on, the processors get cheaper. So use what you have for now and let later take care of itself.
An expansion shield has pins layed out with 5v gnd and IO, usually with a battery override for giving current(arduino can’t give more than 0,5A). It should be useful for robots, as you can plug a battery and use servos without frying arduino and most sensors need + ground and io/analog, so most of the time you don’t even need a breadboard.
Then you can try to make your own nano expansion shield:)
To get more IO there are shifters which are cheap and use serial communication. And ARMs start getting cheaper and cheaper!
True true, one day I may want a more powerful processor, but 2 things on that frount:
1- Thats why I want to set board type now, so if/when I want to upgrade, I can just grab a bigger version thats pin (and preferably hex) compatible
2- connecting multiple chips (atmega328p-pu for example) would let me unload processing tasks onto other chips, which would certainly do all that I need it to for now
Why? Most of the processors Why? Most of the processors that were out when I first built robots are gone. The boards don’t have any replacements.
Please, don’t over plan this. An Arduino Nano will be able to control a robot without much problem. A couple years from now they may have been forgotten.
If you try to plan for the future too much you’ll never get anything done NOW.
If this is your first robot, you don’t even know if you’ll enjoy the hobby. Therefore build with what you have now. If you enjoy this, take apart you first bot and build another with many of the same parts.
An arduino nano can drive 6 motors or servos using timers, drive a i2c display use up to 6 analog sensors, one hardware serial port and up to 4 software serial communications(but uses a timer and 2 pin each). The harder limit on arduino is the 0,5A 5v voltage regulator, but it’s partially solved if you use an extension shield. Arduino has also 2interrupt ports, which can be use for fast IO communication, input and other. Clones can be so cheap that it’s cheaper to buy two or three nanos than a atmega2560.
Attiny are even cheaper and can work on lesser tasks on parallel.
On the top of the gamma there are SoC that can run a whole operative system; with these you can command all the arduino you want or directly all kind of hardware, set them to work in parallel or homebrew what 40years ago was like a supercomputer.
