USB 32-bit Whacker - PIC development platform

[helgrind]

Hi Dave,

Am loving your blogs - what about this as a review >>> http://www.schmalzhaus.com/UBW32/

This is a small footprint PIC32 development board - with a PIC32MX460F512L running at 80 megs with 512 flash and 32 ram!
It has its own USB bootloader with quick and dirty serial IO control if needed (of all its 78 I/O pins!)

Whats more - it's only $40 from Sparkfun! http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8971

Would love to see what you think of it as a higher end dev tool.

Thanks,

Laurence

[migsantiago]

this is cool. a competetor for Arduino MEGA. they should give it a name, Picuino MEGA! i'll wait until its in ebay and will look into more details of it. certain things i need to clarify which are not indicated in the links:

1) exactly how many analog inputs its capable of.
2) does it have a windows dll driver? like FTDI, so i can make a PC program to connect to it instead of just command console?
3) USB dataspeed capability? the real thing, not from the datasheet.

1) You can read the PIC32MX460F512L datasheet.

2) It's a USB device, it can behave as any USB class as you want it to. Microchip includes drivers for the most common classes in its Microchip Applications Library.

http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=2680&dDocName=en547784

3) The real speed depends on your programming skills. It can transfer up to 12Mbps (Full speed) but those 12Mbps include overhead data and can't be achieved if the bus is being used by other devices.

I don't think it's an Arduino competitor since Arduinos use wrapped libraries that can be used by any novice programmer. This PIC has to be programmed using C32, which requires some prior knowledge to be used.

[GeoffS]

I'm using a Bitwhacker as a simple way to do  I/O to multiple switches, similar to what you could do on a parallel interface - if your PC/laptop has one..

There's a similar board used for arcade simulators.

Sure an Arudino could do the job but it's a bit of overkill for the job plus the Bitwhacker has been around for a few years.

[migsantiago]

hmm. the code example from the microchip site seems to be more advanced. not for novice i think. and i think its more powerful but need more learning to be done.
maybe its not targetted to hobbiest community just as easy as the Arduino is.
@mig: my #2 question is regarding PC Application, not program that we put in mcu. from the link you provided, all the bunch of codes that need to be burnt in mcu i think. With Arduino which uses FTDI chip, all i need is to install the FTDI API (CDM? and ftd2xx.dll) into my Windows system. and then create a Windows Program to send/receive data/command to/from Atmel chip.

ps: i'm downloading the so called "Microchip Applications Library". dont know what will be the inside of it. hope i got some *.dll, *.sys, or *.drv files. 78% downloaded, 25 minutes to go.

From the point of view of the PC you have different ways to obtain and send data from/to the PIC.

- HID Class
Drivers required: NONE.
Library required: You can use and HIDLibrary downloadable from here http://labs.mikeobrien.net/Document.aspx?id=hidlibrary

- RS232 virtual COM (CDC Class)
Drivers required: .INF included in Microchip App Lib.
Library required: NONE, just use Visual Basic, C++ or C# to read a COM port.

- Generic Bulk mode.
Drivers required: .INF included in Microchip App Lib.
Library required: mpusbapi.dll included in MAL. Usable in Visual Studio with specific imports. Hard to use without a decent tutorial.

- Mass Storage Device Class
Drivers required: NONE.
Library required: NONE. Windows manages the drive automatically.

I really enjoy the HID Class since my clients don't need to install drivers and I have written an HID library which I've optimized for my PICs. I can transfer up to 64kB/s of data (512kbps) without problems using a PIC18 @ 12MIPS.

If you're a hobbist, I don't recommend that you use PIC24 or better, just stick with Arduinos.