Ok here we will be able to discuss the Bot Boarduino project, upload files, whatever we need. 
Sounds Great.
Jim I totally understand the desire of saving the $2 per board. As Mike mentioned this could make or break the profitability of the product in this price range. As I said I believe the 640 would be totally sufficient. I was just wondering if having a different processor than the 1280 used in the Mega would cause any marketing issue. But as you said the great thing is they are totally pin compatible, so you can decide that at the last moment.
I guess my only real question is how far are you along? The next question which is more to myself is if I should get started now. Maybe purchase:
Ardino Mega: $65 (spark fun is out of stock)
Ardino Mega shield:
lots of male plugs to generate servo connections.
some power connectors
???
And start to experiment. Or is there a better shield to start playing with?
Again this looks like it should be lots of fun.
Kurt
Any thoughts yet about mapping between Arduino pins and BB functions? The luxury of all those pins might make for some difficult decisions.
Will the BB layout closely match the current BotBoard, or will you try to put in some more I/O to take advantage of the additional processor pins?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Mike
Hi guys, we are basically just getting started.
Kurt, I have already decided to use the 1280 if at all possible. I think it’s a little too early to start writing code, but there may be an advantage to having real hardware to experiment with. It’s your call.
Mike, I have started to piece the mechanical aspect together and it looks like the layout MUST be completely different than the current Bot Board. In fact I’m not completely sure the required 3 x 4 I/O configuration will fit anywhere without being under any added shields. One of those, sounded like a good idea things. Perhaps the I/O will need to be on right angle headers. I’m not sure what the solution is, but I hope we can find one.
Goals:
Retain the 3" x 2.3" overall size. (4 x 0.125" holes spaced in 0.15" from each edge)
Retain the Arduino header form factor.
Retain the ability to install servos directly.
I’m no longer confident it can be done.
I think if we were to move the 3 x 4 I/O stuff closer to the edge of the board it might just fit… I will draw up something and post it here.
Question, how are the arduino folks handling the additional I/O for the mega. Are they expanding the shield I/O format?
answered my own question, and now I understand Kurts statements from before. The mega is longer…
There is no way to do it. Well it looks like this is a dead end.
Hopefully not beating a dead horse, but when I said:
I was wondering if a board like: nkcelectronics.com/seeeduino … mbled.html
Would do the trick?
Kurt
Hey guys.
Kurte- I’d suggest sticking with the arduino IDE and bootloaders on this. While I use AVR studio a bit myself, on projects like these I try to stick within the realm of what the customers will also be using. It also proves to get you familiar with the software.
The BBDuino will use an identical Arduino Mega bootloader for full compatibility here.
The reference design Mega from Arduino is a bit bulky, I’m actually going for a smaller formfactor than that for the base BBDuino board (The Seeeduino Mega is what I’m using for a reference, as well as prototyping here with one). I should be able to get a good amount finished up this weekend and at least have some layouts/renders to get feedback on. Based on my progress so far, I still think it’s possible to cram all of the I/O-Power-Ground header stacks on a BBDuino Shield. I’m elbow deep in Eagle CAD as we speak, should have something to show for it on Sunday or Monday.
I should have checked in here over the weekend. This is a great idea. I’m even ok with using their format for the pinouts. A sort of back handed standard may be born. 
And any standard shield can still be used. Cool!
We have about as open a company as there could ever be. But this one must not even be hinted at. I don’t want this getting out there at all.
BotBoarduino is done. Working on the BotBoarduino shield now, this one is proving to be pretty tricky… caught a nasty bug so I have been working on this from bed all weekend. Oof.
Sounds great. - As I mentioned before, I have my first board to play with now. Will keep my work on it top secret!
Hope you feel better!
Kurt
Just to give you an idea of what kind of rat’s nest we’re dealing with here, here is the initial BotBoarduino PCB layout. Still tweaking a few details and moving the right side headers around a bit, but it’s more or less finished. The BotBoarduino shield is a bit simpler, but fitting everything together in a reasonable fashion is proving to be a tad tricky.
Jim, this is why I said it’d be ‘a little’ more complex when we moved up from the originally proposed 28 pin ATMega328 LOL.
Whoa!!! I’m actually tearing up a little… Just a little! 
I’m still working on it steadily. Made a couple major changes to the main botboarduino to make things layout better, also identified a couple of potential problems with the 3.3v option and corrected that. Getting everything to fit on the shield is also a major challenge, but Made massive progress on it in the last few weeks.
I apologize that this has taken me longer than expected, but this is a project I’m working on in my spare time- which is scarce with a 50+ hour workweek and a 3 year old and wife at home
All that said, I’m having a friend look over the project and if all checks out, I’ll be sending out for the first prototypes!
Two major issues with what Dale said:
The basic atom tends to be considerably more expensive than the atmegas, without the plethora of supporting hardware I/O. He’s talking about making a normal arduino, which can be had for as cheap as $25- his version would be what, $60+? At what benefit to the users?
Secondly, unless he can make it run as a native arduino platform (he can’t) he’s already lost a huge chunk of his potential customer base. Few things here: it wouldn’t work in the arduino IDE which a lot of people are very comfortable with. Arduino c isn’t straight up c either, it’s a flavor of c with c++ libraries and extensions- without that it’s a moot point. I know from personal experience, even a board like the arbotix- which IS arduino-compatible but requires customization to the arduino IDE and addiional libraries has had some issues being accepted by the arduino community and scares a lot of potential users off due to it’s increased complexity. Were using the fact that the botboarduino is entirely arduino compliant as leverage to help us tap into this market- which is literally a multi-million dollar one and still growing.
I know this is very business-hat of me, but these are important factors with new product integration.
I’m not going to do anything with Basic Micro concerning anything Arduino. I have literally kept them alive for the last 10 years while they ignored the Atoms. I wish them no harm! But I want to remove my company from being under the thumb of someone who may decide to make a printer instead of robot controllers next year! To be clear I do not plan to remove any Atoms or ARC-32’s or anything from the site as long as they are available. I merely want an Atom 28 replacement that the Arduino community will accept.
I don’t think you have much to worry about anyway, simply compiling the libraries to something that works on the Basic Atom Pro is nowhere near enough. Given their entirely different architecture, they won’t be able to make it Arduino-IDE/language compatible, so it’s a moot point.
Yeah, the issue is this:
Having dealt with a plethora of Arduino users over the last year and a half, this would not fly. Seriously, they’re like Mac users. 
It may look like a Mac, it may feel like a Mac, but if it’s not actually a Mac, no thanks.
Example? We sell the more expensive Arduino brand name board 10:1 over the ‘freeduino’ version made by Seeedstudio, even though technically the Seeedstudio one has better features and is $7-8 less. You want to keep things as close to Arduino as possible. I’d almost suggest going as far as blue PCB, as silly as that sounds.
I’m having a chat with Dale today. I have already given them free reign to provide the electronics we use in our kits. They will provide the tutorials and we will create kits based on their electronics. But at the same time I’m opening the doors for anyone to do the same thing. We have a place on the forum for tutorials. Lynxmotion will again be the open source servo based robotic supply store it used to be. I just do not like the concept of being secretive. lol