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MicroBlocks

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Joined: 12/05/2012
Location: Thailand
Posts: 2209

Posted: 09:20pm 04 Jul 2013

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I have been approached to also include a PICAXE controller module in the line of Blox.
This will be a great addition and another confirmation that i am going in the right direction with my Blox.

I have used picaxe microcontrollers very often and they are wonderful easy to use.
The small ones tothe big ones all have their value.
The Blox are centered around I2C as a way of communicating between blocks and all of the PICAXE chips can do that. Some have good slave mode capabilities making them very suitable to make your own via I2C controllable blox.

Before i start designing a blox for this series i would like to ask which of the PICAXE chips you are using and for what kind of projects.

I like the ones that have some more memory to be able to write larger programs. The number of IO is not that important as with the Blox concept you simply can add as many as you want.

Which one is your favorite?

Microblocks. Build with logic.

Grogster

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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9066

Posted: 07:20pm 05 Jul 2013

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I still use a lot of PICAXE's, but for more intensive things especially where some kind of VDU is needed, I now opt for the MM, simply because of all the neat things it can do all in the one package.

As for PICAXE chips, they are all good, and the M2 series are probably my favorites due to their faster default speed, and larger memory.

Even the 8-pin DIL or SMD M2 series has 2K of memory.

I myself, use the 08M2, 14M2, 18M2, 28X2 and 40X2 chips.

I am not sure that I have ever had a "Favorite" one in the past - I just choose the one that had the features I needed at the time, for a given application. Having said that, I would have to admit to "Standardizing" all my PICAXE projects nowadays on the the 18M2 SMD chip, just so I don't need to stock different chips for different things. If you don't need all the I/O pins on the 18M2, I just tie those pins to deck(ground) with a 10k. Better to have spare I/O pins and not need them, then to need them and not have them!

I suppose if you wanted to cover all your bases, and NOT have to design more then one blox unit, I would definitely suggest the 40X2 chip in SMD package, naturally. The 40X2 has flexible external crystal oscillator or resonator options for clock speed, 4KB of memory, and plenty of I/O(for a PICAXE), and use of the 40X2 would cover ALL of the subordinate chips, in that the 40X2 can do anything the lesser chips can.

My two cents.

Edited by Grogster 2013-07-07

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