I was a basic stamp2 guy, I planned on using the Propeller for my next big robot, but instead of learning spin, I might as well learn whatever arduino uses, besides Arduinos have ADC’s which I need and are fully compatible with Pixy, which I already bought.
Question, what’s the best (or really good) arduino for Phydo:
(Large, at least 6 servos, plus dc motors, at least 8 adc, tons of I/O, voice, speech, vision, etc)
I was thinking Mega 2560 R3, (but not if it’s going to be obsolete next month which usually happens to me)
You could use a series of You could use a series of specialty Arduino clones or small aduinos coupled to a few sensors or motors.
The biggest problem with Arduinos, IMHO, is that most only have 2 external interrupt lines. When I need more I use an ARM based solution like the Teensy 3.1.
Specialty Arduinos are things like the Dagu Spider controller (control lots of servos) or the TRex controller which is a very hefty motor driver coupled with an Arduino clone.
I would use a small Linux board, such as a RasPi or ODroid having the brains and using I2C or SPI to talk with the Arduinos that control sensor. You could either use polling or interrupts to allow the slaves to tell the main processor it’s got data. Interrupts would be how I’d go,
You can pick up a mega for $10 or less on eBay learning to use it wouldn’t be a bad idea. The Teensy that was mentioned would be a good call. The software stack that comes with the Teensy is made to be as compatible as can be with arduino.
Arduino Mega 2560 will stay for a while. It’s just easy to program with, China clones are priced right. There are some cool ARM boards like Leaflab maple mini clones or the ESP8266, which are faster, cheaper and offer special things, but are harder to program for a beginner.
If you need slightly more If you need slightly more processing power, you may want to take a look at the Teensy 3.1. It can be programmed with the (modified) Arduino IDE using the same language, but has loads of digital and analog pins, loads of processing power and even a DAC for the sound.
If you want vision, however, I would really think about the small computer boards, such as Raspberry Pi, Beglebone Black or Odroid. Microcontrollers usually don’t have the processing power for this kind of task.
Thanks you guys have given Thanks you guys have given me a lot to think about.
I already have the Propeller, I like the parallel processors. I was going nuts looking for a multi channel adc I can use.
I already have Emic2 and a LCD and sensors from Parallax
I already have the Pixy, (and envious how arduino can use it with a few lines of code).
EasyVR2 went obsolete before I was ready to buy it. VR3 is lookin’ good.
I still need a serial servo controller for at least 8 servos
BTW, I’m well aware Phydo is going to be an annoying pet that will not be worth the trouble to have it running all day. I have no illusions of it hosting a talk show or something, so an 8-bit processor is okay (not great)
I need tons of memory, tons of I/O lines and fast as possible.
I looked into the Due. It I looked into the Due. It said inputting 5 V would damage the board. And a lot of the sensors I’m using give 5V outputs and I’m going to be working on this for a while (years), so it’s only at matter of time before I destroy that board.
There’s no clear advantage for using the Arduino, so, I’m staying with Propeller. I’m going to have to use a shift-in chip for the line following circuit board that I bought (it uses 9 pins) and shift-out for all the display leds and an ADC. That’s a lot of extra work for me.
Thanks guys for your help
