Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

With all of the talk of microcontrollers going on atm in a few different threads i thought i would try and collate it all for anyone interested in playing with them. Try and give the pros and cons of each etc to help people make a choice. I know there is alot on google already, but for totally new comers it might help and get the ball rolling. I will try and update this top post as people have input to try and minimise the amount of trawling to get the info.

PICAxe

Pros

Easy to learn

Cheap

Begginer development boards available

Large user base and forum

Do not need to purchase a programmer. One can easily be made.

Can use the Arduino 'shields' with a http://www.picaxe.com/docs/axe401.pdf

Cons

Limited to smaller projects, with out programming/electronics trickery

Arduino

Pros

Large user base and forums

Cheap

Begginer development boards available

Open source mentality with large code library, making it easy to find existing code and hardware

Many 'shields' available, making expansion and additions easier

Capable of handling larger projects than PICAxe

Cons

Steeper learning curve that PICAxe

PIC

Pros

Cons


Parallax Propeller

Pros

Capable of running 8 tasks simultaneously using 8 cores

Can do alot of work, including colour displays etc

Smaller user base, but excellent forum

Cons

Requires more hardware than other options

Probably overkill for most AP requirements

More expensive that other options

Realistically, for most of the AP projects, PICAxe or Arduino would be more than capable.

I will update this list as people suggest stuff and if no one finds it usefull will just get it deleted.

It seems the fatal flaw in my plan is not being able to edit...

Once someone has read your post, you cannot edit it....

In your "Pros" for PICAxe you say a programming cable can easily be made, I don't think that's true, those programming cables have some Harry Potter stuff going on inside them, usually another PIC to handle the USB->PIC Harry Potterness.

The PIC section has no pros or cons, so I'll try to give some.
Perhaps slightly harder to learn than PICAxe, requires knowledge of C, though I think there is a PIC-Basic plugin for MP-LAB (not sure if it's still alive though)
Massive user base, I'd say almost without doubt, biggest user base of any MC ever...
From Wiki
"Microchip announced on September 2011 the shipment of its ten billionth PIC processor"
Very cheap - 16F84 is around 0.3USD

Cons...
Can't really think of any off hand, the family go from 6 pin 256 word devices, right up to 32MHz DSP devices.

Hmm ok thanks Dui. I accidentally submitted it instead of previewing, then i edited it and added in a fair bit more info and research which failed to submit I had added a fair bit of info to the PIC and more to the others as well PIC has certainly been a massively successful MC.

With the picaxe, a few years ago when i was using them, if you had a serial port it was just a few resistors and a capacitor to program. It must have changed since then...

The PICAxe is a PIC with some code built in to hide the nasty bits.
Bonus is, it makes it easier to write code for them pBASIC I think it's called.
Drawback is you lose some code space.

When PC's had RS-232 Ports, and Centronics ports, programming all PIC's and PICAxes was easy.
My last 2 PC's have neither, just 150 USB Ports.
That means Harry Potter has to be in the cable somewhere.
As BW said, you can get a Chinese one for about $2, so I don't think it's an issue.

yep PICAXE cable has some electronics in the USB to stereo plug cord. I Think all it does is turn it into whatever a serial plug does. The PC serial plug to stereo version, I think is made by cutting off one end of a serial cord and attatching a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack.

I think.

And bigger projects are easy enough to make with with the bigger chips, or using the i2c system that I am totally un-familiar with, but that I understand lets you add EEPROM, task specific chips etc. All controlled by 3 or 4 commands that deal with serial comms between the chips. From what little I've read it's a very simple line of code that allows connection and expansion.

All the later chips have psudo multitasking of up to 4 streams of code that works by each task running 1 line of code in turn. I use this in the demand fish feeder code to have one section of code waiting for inputs for adjustments, with another reporting current status, and a third going about it's normal operation of feeding the fish. I think there is also a global interrupt but I haven't used it.

The psudo multitasking is simply done by writing code between ...

Start1: 'or Main:
'first task
End

Start2:
'second task
End

Fair point Dui. It has been a while since i used them. It seems most platforms have some sort of specific programming cable.

Although i am yet to see a PC with no serial! Laptops yes, but not PC's. You learn something new every day...

BW, by larger project i ment along the lines of adding a screen, reading your sensors and processing the data, transmitting it etc. For example, with the propeller you could run a large dot matrix screen in one core (or you could run a colour VGA screen, although that might need more than 1 core), read and process your sensors in another and still have 6 cores free to do other things. That simply would not be possible with the picaxe without adding significant cost to hardware. In my experience anyway.

I use ASUS motherboards in my PC's and sadly they don't have RS232 or Centronics (printer) ports anymore.
But a USB to serial cable was just a few $'s.

For home projects, I've never really seen the point of adding VGA displays etc. etc. to embedded systems, PC's are much better at doing that kind of thing, I connect the embedded project to the PC via serial (or now USB) and let the PC do the hard stuff

Would be nice to sit in a bar, flop out your Samsung Galaxy S2 and reconfigure your AP system 10,000km away though

+1 mate. Something on my mind as well and was one of the things discussed in another thread somewhere.

I agree with the VGA for an embedded system such as this, but a small screen for easy checking and configuring locally is definately handy.

All this talk and i havnt even got my own system running yet... Just a few more hours till i start building though

Honestly, if you're not au feit with micros, I'd recommend looking into programmable relays, or if you have the cash, investing in a plc. That's what I've done, though it's yet to be implemented.

If you have the cash you could also implement a scada system but where is the fun in that?

PLC is definately a way to go though if you have the cash and the inclination.

Scada is a windows app. Costs only your time. It is to me a negligible part of my system that will come because why not, it's no effort.

Huh? I guess you are not talking about the widely used "supervisory control and data acquisition" (SCADA)

Which is a system similar to PLCs used for well supervisory control and data acquisition !

Of course I am. I write Scada apps as part of my job.
We don't use platforms like Citect or wonderware, theyre too heavy, limited and expensive. We write our own drivers and Scada platforms.
My latest project is making Scada in Ajax http. So you can look at it in any device, PDA or pc without needing special software.
Scada is said to be expensive and difficult, but that's a massive scam so you spend thousands on something that doesn't work without you having a hired "programmer"
Forgive my derision, but it's just an overhyped HMI. It does look good and flashy though.

and the cost is proprtional to the size of the system? The more you add the more it costs.

As cool as it would be there is a certain amount of '*sigh*' factor to it. Especially for BYAP!