PICnDuino - Dual Microcontroller Development Platform

[KedasProbe]

Looks interesting to play with for a low price  (and free shipping)
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1411349329/picnduino-dual-microcontroller-development-platfor

Edit: an ARM version cost you twice as much http://outbreak.co/galago#specs

[poptones]

Ayup, I still don't get it. What purpose does the 18F serve? For the same money I can use two nanos and I don't have to keep switching dev environments.

[8086]

Really do not get the point of this. Very badly thought out, possibly not thought out at all. 

[RCMR]

Really do not get the point of this. Very badly thought out, possibly not thought out at all. 

Didn't you see the LED's blinking on the breadboard?

How cool is that?

Woohoo...

This thing is great!

(removes tongue from cheek) 

[Harvs]

I doubt it's any worse than most of the "ardiuno" linage of kick starter projects. I've just come to the conclusion that I'll never understand, similar to I don't understand why some people will spend $100 and a full day having their hair done.

But hey, if some people get enjoyment out of it, and they don't hurt anyone in the process, good on them.

Let's face it, most people that hang out in this forum were never going to be the type that this is targeted at.  )

[Mechatrommer]

you can put your stupiduino in kickstarter and get backed up. people loooove stupiduino!

[KedasProbe]

Ayup, I still don't get it. What purpose does the 18F serve? For the same money I can use two nanos and I don't have to keep switching dev environments.

a Nano cost about 40 Euro this cost 13 Euro.
It's obviously for people who want to start trying things. (not development)
I decided to focus on ARM only anyway, so if cheap evaluation boards weren't around I would have bought the galago. Besides knowing myself I need a FPU 

[bradsprojects]

Hi everyone, I'm Brad the maker of the PICnDuino.

The PICnDuino certainly is not for everyone. However I think you would all agree that when someone wants to get into the world of microcontroller programming, they have to start somewhere. I know when I started back in 2007 I was searching all over the internet as to which microcontroller I should go with. I ended up buying both an Atmega and a PIC and experimented with both. The PICnDuino is mainly aimed at people just like this - they can get two microcontrollers in one device without the need for a dedicated programmer. The software is free to download and with their inbuilt code examples, it makes it quite easy for the very beginner to get started.

I am sure (just like me) that these people will find they prefer one microcontroller over the other and will then head down that path.

[T4P]

With 8$ boards from ST why would you want to compete against a already flooded market with chock full of useless duinos?
As well as 14$ Cortex-M4F boards from ST

[Mechatrommer]

"tea for pee"! go to US and put your ARMpiTuino in Kickstarter! jk.

[poptones]

a Nano cost about 40 Euro this cost 13 Euro

When I go to ebay.co.uk they're £7.99. When I go to ebay.gr they seem to be about 14 euros and that's buying them from a UK seller (I don't speak greek therefore can't search in greek). Here in the states I can buy ten of them for less than a hundred bucks. One of my customers asked me about getting kits for his classes, I don't think I can buy the parts for them for that.

What a coincidence the fellow behind this widget and I seem to share a first name.

[ptricks]

This is a bad idea. Digilent already tried this with the chipkit products, and it hasn't done well. Part of the problem is a PIC is not an AVR, yeah that seems simple to understand but it needs to be considered before anything else.  A lot of the arduino stuff doesn't translate well to the PIC and you usually end up with more code in the libraries just to make it work with arduino sketches, bigger programs, more flash usage.

What needs to happen is something similar to the arduino interface and boards but done for the PIC and not to be compatible with arduino in any way. It needs to build its own platform just like the arduino did. I know people will complain, arduino has shields you could use if you make it formatted like arduino !The shields are part of the problem. The pin layout isn't standard, the way the pins are grouped  isn't optimal for the PIC and the shields often require libraries that don't work with PIC without a lot of extra code.  Piggybacking on the arduino is not the way to get people started with PIC.

[Achilles]

This is a bad idea. Digilent already tried this with the chipkit products, and it hasn't done well. Part of the problem is a PIC is not an AVR, yeah that seems simple to understand but it needs to be considered before anything else.  A lot of the arduino stuff doesn't translate well to the PIC and you usually end up with more code in the libraries just to make it work with arduino sketches, bigger programs, more flash usage.

What needs to happen is something similar to the arduino interface and boards but done for the PIC and not to be compatible with arduino in any way. It needs to build its own platform just like the arduino did. I know people will complain, arduino has shields you could use if you make it formatted like arduino !The shields are part of the problem. The pin layout isn't standard, the way the pins are grouped  isn't optimal for the PIC and the shields often require libraries that don't work with PIC without a lot of extra code.  Piggybacking on the arduino is not the way to get people started with PIC.

Like Pinguino? http://www.pinguino.cc/

No, honstly, I don't see any need of all that stuff. If somebody wants to build sth. and doesn't want to care about electronics and microcontrollers (and learning C and assembler all that stuff), Arduino is fine.
Plug it in, there is plenty of code and a quite big community to ask. If you want to dig in deeper, why not directly start with a PIC development platform and MikroC or MPLab or whatever you prefer.

[Simon]

i DON'T KNOW THE DETAIL BUT THIS ALL LOOKS PATHETIC AND VERY POLITICALLY CORRECT, CATER TO THEM ALL (RELIGIONS)

[bradsprojects]

Hi again everyone,

I have just made an auto-uploader program that makes the PICnDuino compatible with any PIC based IDE. E.G. MPLAB, MikroC, Swordfish etc...

You just write your code with your favourite IDE, click compile and then the auto-uploader takes care of sending it to the device - no programmer required.