Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
Use for a (very) cheap or low spec microcontroller
romhunter:
I'm just asking if anyone know anything to do with those (very) cheap micro that got absolutely next to no peripheral? I'm just looking for idea, since I'm so bored working on the large 64 pins ones (heck, I don't even use past 10 or 20 pins of those).
I mean the barebone one, like PIC10F200? ATTiny4? Padauk (god, OTP with strange C)? 89S52? What are they good for?
Any suggestion is welcome!
JPortici:
reprogrammable glue logic, "intelligent" ADC, UART multiplexer are three things i've used super simple MCUs for
reprogrammable glue logic:
-customer has lots of black boxes that do something
-customer wants the output to behave differently (inver in certain conditions)
-could be done with a couple of gates max, but i know that the customer will have different requirements on the next order and even different on the following one
So one modification, change the firmware accordingly
Intelligent ADC:
channel scan, filtering, SMB, internal diagnostic or things like that
UART multiplexer:
one full duplex stream (remote) that goes to different units. remote send a special command to change the mux selection
mariush:
noise generators,
motion sensors (for example detect if door opens by contacts being separated or infrared beam being broken) ,
on/off/wakeup controllers (hold button x seconds to turn on or off main device or a relay),
switch between battery and dc input, enable charging of battery when dc input plugged in
if it has adc with internal reference, maybe battery monitor ex chip reads battery voltage and lights up 1 to 4 leds, or blinks color of a led (red. yellow, green) or beeps every n minutes if battery goes below some threshold.
replacement for old chips that are no longer made (like let's say 4 bit or 8 bit input to 7 segment hex digit),
conversion between interfaces for example convert some proprietary display stuff to 4bit/8 bit lcd display (2x16 / 4x20)
DaJMasta:
Basic programmable timer circuits and things too - stuff you could do with analog, but you save on some passives (more like saving on production time) and can reconfigure in software as needed. A lot of small electronic toys have a micro in them for blinking lights, making a sound, running a motor for 10s, etc. because it's actually cheaper to do and easier to reconfigure than making equivalent basic analog circuits.
chickenHeadKnob:
--- Quote from: DaJMasta on March 12, 2019, 09:58:54 pm ---Basic programmable timer circuits and things too - stuff you could do with analog, but you save on some passives (more like saving on production time) and can reconfigure in software as needed. A lot of small electronic toys have a micro in them for blinking lights, making a sound, running a motor for 10s, etc. because it's actually cheaper to do and easier to reconfigure than making equivalent basic analog circuits.
--- End quote ---
^ This
Jportici gives many good ideas, but the one area where a single chip micro realty improves on the "old ways" is for those applications which used to be implemented with a 555 timer + some logic. Back in the 1970's micro's were too expensive and new, so glitchy 555 timer circuits abounded. I hate these with a passion! With even the simplest micro you can code rather comprehensive state machines that take into account the variability in the analog world. Tempco's, key debouncing, elimination of trimpots and manual calibration, ect. can be done in software. And accomplished at automated test time in production, rather than require manual setting.
It helps of course if the micro has PWM and an ADC, and possibly some comparator pins - not a stretch as these features are now basic on some of the simplest micros
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