Good day Freaks,
Its all catching up with me, and I just must learn C and micros!
Having done some electronics training four or more ears ago most is gone, there was a bit of PLC stuff (I thought ladder logic was clunky and stupid, but boy was it easy to do process control!!), and six months assembly on the HC11, but transistor biasing -- all gone.
What I am going to do (try implies failure) is build a charge and load controller for our fantastic wind turbines. I would like to have 3-phase active rectification on the front end, and PWM to multiple outputs. In/out will need voltage and curent detection. I see this as being a pretty simple board with 10 or so fets and no transistors. I spent a week looking for w-phase zero crossing circuits to copy, or an active rectifyer controller IC but no luck...
SO
I must start at the very beginning and do what Ive wanted to do for many years now, and get my own Micro development gear.
Thus the noob question:
Given my short term goal, is this a feasible first or second project given that I know no C, am not afraid to get dirty, and a fairly tight budget (hence its been four years to actually doing it)
I was recommended to get a butteryfly to start with and move on from there.
It looks like ICD is really very useful, but do I 'need' it at this stage? and is it posible in a linux envionment?
Ime sure these are illegal questions, but what programmer is the best option. It seems I can get dragons and stk500's locally. but they are more than I will be allowed to spend I think (busy family of three hungry girls competing for funds with daddy).
Then theres C.
There are a few books in the Uni Library that looked alright.
Embedded C programming and the Atmel AVR
AVR : an introductory course
Programming and customizing the AVR microcontroller
AVR RISC microcontroller handbook
Is there one amongs these that would suit the complete c and atmel n00b. Smileys book looks like the way to go, but I have the others available.
The greatest challenge is persistant time and support. I feel that if I go ahead with this that I will need your support. In what way can I rely on you all for help. I dont want to be a total leecher, just an almost total leecher ;)
Anyway, ime unformed. Mould me into an ass kicking micro engineer!
tia
Jasper