I'd like to PIC your brain

[roedj]

Kevin,

First of all, I really enjoyed our talks about micro controllers at Carmel. But I'd like to learn more about the PIC family.

Please tell me what development tools you use and what version of PIC you're partial to these days.

I'm still investigating the Parallax propeller but I'm coming to believe it may be massive overkill for the task at hand.

What I'm looking to do is to have a micro controller(s) between the receiver and the servos to act as a "crew". I would still use your products as some of the inputs to the "crew".

Any help or direction you can provide would be most helpful.

Screw KISS!

Dan

[KevinMc]

Hi Dan!

Tech talk at the shows is always a great way to spend the time and get some new ideas, not to mention find out what's important to the people who are using my stuff so I always consider it time well spent.

I'm not using anything particularly elabourate for a development suite - Microchip's MP Lab development environment with a PICkit programmer is all you really need. If you're partial to programming in C instead of Assembly I highly recommend Hi Tech C, which acts as a plug-in from within MP Lab.

As for your comment about the Parallax propellor being "overkill" I'd suggest there's no such thing! My choice for devices is generally driven by package size, but given that constraint I'll take as much computing power as I can get within a given package. Propellor's offer some really uniqu features and opportunities no otherwise available in other single parts, although I can't say I've started into anything so complicated yet that I've been driven to use one.

With respect to your "crew", do you want to have a single board that's monitoring all the channels or individual boards for each channel? If you want "all-in-one" board then the propellor may be the best way to go - In my experience PICs are great for dealing with 2 or 3 channels at most. (Granted, since you know precisely what your applications will be you may be able to make some assumptions I cannot that will extend how many channels you can cover with a single PIC.)

Finally, for the specific devices I use I have to confess to being a bit of a PIC whore - I'll use any part that best fits the particular application I'm working on. I've used: PIC10F200, PIC10F206, PIC12F675, PIC12F683, PIC16F688 and PIC16F690. For general purpose playing around I'd get hold of a PIC16F690, or if you're not space constrained consider one of the PIC18F line.

[roedj]

Kevin,

Thanks for the info. Stay tuned.

Dan

P.S. I'd still be very interested in that proportional piston controller when it''s done.