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 Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 12:01 AM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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Just FYI, lots of Butterflies still available from DigiKey, Mouser, and elsewhere - with reasonable shipping charges - and with a $5 USB to RS232 converter they also work with USB. I imagine once the Xplained board gets out to the distributors the shipping charges will fall.
Smiley |
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FREE TUTORIAL: 'Quick Start Guide for Using the WinAVR C Compiler with ATMEL's AVR Butterfly' AVAILABLE AT: http://www.smileymicros.com
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 02:10 AM |
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Joined: Oct 30, 2008
Posts: 333
Location: Minnesota, USA
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 02:56 AM |
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Joined: Dec 29, 2010
Posts: 466
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smileymicros wrote:
Just FYI, lots of Butterflies still available from DigiKey, Mouser, and elsewhere - with reasonable shipping charges - and with a $5 USB to RS232 converter they also work with USB. I imagine once the Xplained board gets out to the distributors the shipping charges will fall.
Smiley
I think most of us who have overlooked the butterfly processor are more interested in the xmega specific features like event system, higher processing speed, 12 bit ADC, and DMA controller.
Did I mention the event system? Using it you can cascade two 16 bit timers into 32 bits! how cool is that? So much can be done with the event system once properly understood.
I think most of us who will be getting these boards will be getting them because we want a ( hopefully ) mature product.
It's going to be my first xmega experience and looking forward to it.
too bad for the segmented LCD controller. It sucks! |
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 04:22 AM |
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Joined: May 28, 2006
Posts: 716
Location: Toronto, Canada
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Quote:
It's a segmented glass controller. When's the last time (in 5 years say?) that a hoobyist ever bothered with segmented glass when they can just use an HD44780 type character display or a KS0108/T6963 GLCD?
They are used even today and will be used in the future for their very low current consumption and when the amount of information displayed is not high. For example when the power supply is a battery: clocks, metering, medical equipment ..
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I would prefer the T6963C LCDs since they can do both graphics and text
You could prefer even an HD color display. Any extra IC you add, will increase the overall power consumption.
Think about a clock, you have to update the LCD once in one second or minute. So you go to sleep, and keep running the LCD and RTC. With an external controller, you have to communicate with it at least.
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But you're right about the integrated LCD controller, why create such a mediocre controller?!? Even the AVR butterfly has a better controller. Why not upgrade instead of downgrade? It seems like Atmel should have integrated the controller from the butterfly and not do a segmented controller.
Did you read the datasheet ?
George. |
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www.sofgel.ro bootloader for mega and xmega
www.elsofgel.com XME development board
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 09:47 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62299
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Does anyone know where I can buy xmega chips with USB on it?
$10 at Gabotronics (he bought all the available stock!)
http://www.gabotronics.com/microcontrol ... oducts.htm
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Did I mention the event system? Using it you can cascade two 16 bit timers into 32 bits! how cool is that? So much can be done with the event system once properly understood.
Amazing until you consider that $1-$2 Cortex M0 and M3 processors come stuffed full of 32 bit timers. |
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 11:45 AM |
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Joined: Jan 26, 2004
Posts: 119
Location: Hjallerup, Denmark
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MarioRivas wrote:
Also, where can I get a schematic/reference design for these XMEGA-B1 Xplained boards?
Answer from Atmel support:
Quote:
The schematics should be available on the web along with the hardware users guide, but I could not find it either. I've contacted the people responsible to get it published on the web as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.
There will be an update to AVR Studio 5 and ASF in the near future, but we don't have an exact date yet. For the examples, they will be available in ASF 2.8 which is in the process of being released in next week.
You can download the updates for ASF and the device support packages here:
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?source=cms&tool_id=17212
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 12:04 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62299
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
The schematics should be available on the web along with the hardware users guide, but I could not find it either. I've contacted the people responsible to get it published on the web as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Someone from Atmel posted this:
http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name ... 960#884960
(not sure why they chose that (the wrong) thread?) |
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 04:56 PM |
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Joined: Oct 30, 2008
Posts: 333
Location: Minnesota, USA
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 06:01 PM |
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Joined: Dec 29, 2010
Posts: 466
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Hi guys, I was looking at the schematic for the XMEGA-B1 reference board (thank you clawson). The board's ADC peripherals use an internal reference voltage, which is promising.
However, the datasheet appears to be incomplete. No recommended design was given for using the xmega128B1 with an external voltage source.
Things I like about the board:
-I appreciate that flash surface mounts were left for AT45DB or AT25DF (notice this chips are 64MB, not 8MB). No sense in adding unneeded costs to the board. Although, it would have been awesome had this been a foot print for SRAM instead of flash (you can never have enough SRAM IMHO).
-Whats the deal with all those missing by pass caps? (C11,C14,C17,C24,C29,C30)
-max GPIO pins current is 20mA, which is better than UC3C (though not as high as 40mA Atmegas)
-PortG and PortM are not thrown out because they're currently used by the pitiful LCD (which I'm going to yank out when my board arrives).
I can't wait to get my board, first thing I'm going to do is get rid of the stock 8Mhz crystal and overclock the cpu. I want to see if I can reach the 64Mhz some of the other board members have accomplished with their newer usb xmegas -although I don't understand how it was possible to scope the internal clock since these parts do not give you the option to throw out the internal clock like the atmegas. I will be happy if I can attain a stable 55Mhz.
Asides from the disappointment of the LCD controller, I will be happy!
Also, GordonFreeman, most suppliers are not going to stock them until mid December. Gabotronics was the early bird of the group. He horded his parts from http://www.arrownac.com/, I believe. |
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 07:28 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62299
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 07:42 PM |
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Joined: Aug 04, 2004
Posts: 1822
Location: Davie, FL
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It's an Xmega, you shouldn't have to change the crystal to overclock it, just change the PLL settings. (though I don't know what the limits are with what you can do there).
Also is that LCD worse than what comes on the Butterfly? |
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Posted: Oct 26, 2011 - 08:08 PM |
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Joined: Dec 08, 2004
Posts: 4719
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
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MarioRivas wrote:
It seems like it is indeed missing EBI (external bus interface), but to be honest, most people don't used it anyways - GPIOs are the preferred method to interface with srams, flash etc.
Speak for yourself. In applications where an external RAM is necessary, I want to be able to treat it as MEMORY. I just want to be able to point a pointer at it and de-reference to my heart's content. I don't want to have to bother with invoking helper routines that manually twiddle GPIO pins high and low each time I attempt to transfer any data back and forth.
And if you're talking about needing very high capacity RAM -- where it would likely be implemented as SDRAM -- I wouldn't even want to start thinking about manually implementing the necessary refresh cycles as a software process twiddling GPIO pins.
The current project-of-the-day on my plate, involving an ATxmega128A1, actually uses 6 of the 8 USARTs, all 4 DMA channels, most (maybe all -- I'd have to check) of the 16-bit timers, 2 separate chip selects on the EBI (one for an SRAM and another for a memory-mapped CPLD), both of the DACs, and at least 5 of the event system channels.
Clearly, these new chips wouldn't have had any impact whatsoever on our part selection decision process for this project. These devises just aren't targeted at this sort of project -- but then again, that's the reason why the XMEGA A series also exists.
That being said, in applications where (for example) the internal RAM is adequate, I would appreciate a chip that omits (for example) the EBI, provided that chip comes with a correspondingly reduced price tag. |
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Posted: Oct 27, 2011 - 02:37 AM |
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Joined: Dec 29, 2010
Posts: 466
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Hi guys, I just downloaded Studio 5 along all updates including the one for the LCD xmegas.
After installing, I went to open an Example Project in the program manager and can't find any example projects for Xmega B1 Xplained board.
Where can I find the projects?
Should I start a new thread for this? |
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Posted: Oct 27, 2011 - 09:35 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62299
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
After installing, I went to open an Example Project in the program manager and can't find any example projects for Xmega B1 Xplained board.
If it was only announced on Monday why would an AS5/ASF dating from > 6 months ago know about it? There was a recent update to ASF - maybe that had something added in anticipation but I imagine you'll have to wait for this "real soon now" update to AS5/ASF that has been promised. |
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Posted: Oct 27, 2011 - 11:32 AM |
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Joined: Jul 10, 2006
Posts: 78
Location: Switzerland
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| Sorry I misread your message, if you have installed all the updates, then I don't know what you could do...maybe wait 1 or 2 weeks for the next release of ASF / Studio 5 (that is if the rumors are true). |
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Posted: Oct 27, 2011 - 03:57 PM |
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Joined: Dec 29, 2010
Posts: 466
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These chips seem to have the same USB registers as the other recently released "U" xmegas. The latest updates to AS5 have several usb examples using these newer "U" xmegas, so those examples are useful.
However, ADC registers on the "U" xmegas are very different from the LCD xmegas. I won't be able to use the listed examples and, like clawson said, hopefully atmel will release the xmega128B1 examples soon. |
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Posted: Oct 27, 2011 - 03:59 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62299
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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| Probably tomorrow in fact - see post by "sma" in the ASF forum - both standalone ASF and a package to update AS5. No sign of new AS5 just yet though. |
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Posted: Oct 27, 2011 - 11:20 PM |
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Joined: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 9827
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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Looks like ASF 2.8.1 has been released. Remember - change "software_download.php" to "software_download_splash.php" when clicking on Registration Only links to bypass the registration.
- Dean  |
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Atmel Studio 6.1 is now released, grab it here.
Report AS6/ASF bugs here.
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Posted: Oct 28, 2011 - 12:34 AM |
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Joined: Dec 29, 2010
Posts: 466
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Finally, I get those mysterious "Xmega128B1 Xplained" profiles shown in the datasheets.
This upgrade is a must for members using this board.
Also, after playing with AS5, I must say, this gui is nice with very convenient features such as instance look up of keywords from different file sources.
Atmel is indeed raising the bar when it comes to free developer tools.
BTW, it's only slow at start up. Once loaded, the program is quiet fast, except at compile (of course). I'm using Windows 7 in an old single core Celeron @ 2.2Ghz with 2 Gigs ram.
Very nice program indeed and very stable. Time to dump AS4 gentlemen.
Thank you Dean |
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Posted: Oct 28, 2011 - 03:07 AM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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abcminiuser wrote:
Looks like ASF 2.8.1 has been released. Remember - change "software_download.php" to "software_download_splash.php" when clicking on Registration Only links to bypass the registration.
- Dean
Smiley |
_________________
FREE TUTORIAL: 'Quick Start Guide for Using the WinAVR C Compiler with ATMEL's AVR Butterfly' AVAILABLE AT: http://www.smileymicros.com
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