BasicMicroUK - Forums

Greetings All,

I was "visiting" Basic Mircos website this past Friday and noticed that a device called the Davinci Arduino is now available?

I did download the datasheet but is was for the ARC32; so I'll assume that these two devices are interchangeable with one another?

Maybe a dumb question here I was curious if this device is still programmed using BASIC and if the new device is supported within the current release of Basic Micro Studio 2.0.0.16...am looking forward to programming a Arduino using BASIC

Thanks-Brian

more likely an incorrect link.

ARC32 is $90, daVinci is what, $30?

alan KM6VV

Greetings all,

Good point Alan, that was my thought too (if the costs are correct). I would assume this new board MAY be a ARC32 "killer"?

The Da Vinci does support the control of a number of servos (like the ARC32) so maybe these boards are "pin" compatible as well as electrically compatible (note to all, I don't own a ARC32...yet).

Again waiting on some insight from the good folks at Basic Micro to respond

If nothing else I have something else to "experiment" with for the up coming Wisconsin winter.

Thanks-Brian

I believe they are still in the process of getting all of the data up here on the site.

It is my understanding is that the DaVinci is a more or less standard Arduino Duemilanove based on an Atmega328p. The main difference is that the mounting holes on it are the same as other BasicMicro and Lynxmotion circuit boards...

The other fun looking board up here is the Orion shield, which is more or less an Arc32 built as a shield. It looks like the board/shield will ship with a lot of servo support as part of the default program including 3/4DOF IK code. So it will be fun to try it out on one of my Hex robots and see how much of the program I will offload from the Arduino...

Kurt

Sorry about that. When I setup the page I duplicated the product from the ARC32 page and some of the ARC32 stuff remaind but it should be cleaned up now.

Kurt has pretty much hit it on the head. We should have a datasheet out soon but for all intents the Davinci is a regular Arduino board with our mounting holes for easier mounting.

The Davinci in combination with the Orion is nearly equivilent to the Arc32. The Arc32 still has a few more headers but with additional shiels you can bring out more stuff from the arduino so there is more felxibility with Davinici.

The Orion shield provides 24 servo lines from the AtomPro processor and passes through 8 Arduino I/O pins which can run another 8 servos so you can still handle 32 servos with it. I've written a comprehensive library for 3/4dof IK handling on the Orion but you can completely rep-lace the Orion code with your own code if you want or just modify my library. The Orion is programmed just like the ARC32/AtomPro processors. The only difference is you do need to disable serial communication on the hardware serial port of the Arduino before you can download code to the Orion shield(eg comment out the Serial.begin line on your arduino code).

The other new shields, Rover and Nomad, are a small 2 motor shield and a robot accessory shield respectively.

All three shields(orion,rover and nomad) bring out 2(3 on the nomad) user control buttons, 2 LEDs, a speaker and I/O pins in servo header format for easy connections.

The Nomad will be shipping with the Razor and Odyssey since those will be using a roboclaw for motor driving, while the Rover board will be shipping with a couple small wheeled/tracked robots we've had int he works for a while.

Just a heads-up that when I click on the link for the Data Sheet that I receive the following error (and the rest of the boards for this device also share the same error):

The requested URL /downloads/datasheets/Davinci_B0147.pdf was not found on this server

Again sorry for the "dumb question" here but will I be able to program this device with Basic Micro Studio (I am avoiding any devices that utilize C anything...just a personal choice).

Thanks-Brian

The datasheets are currently in the works so the links dont go anywhere just yet. If you have anyquestions on any of the boards just post here and I'll be happy to answer them until the datasheets are up(and after ).

The Davinci is a standard Arduino so you program it using the Arduino dev env. The onyl difference between it and a Duemilanove is the PCB mounting holes we added to make it compatible withour normal mounting patterns. The Orion shield however is a BasicAtomPro based board(like the ARC32) which is programmed in the BasicMicro Studio. You can program both boards without removing the shield or making any physical changes. The only requirement is when programming the Orion board you need to disable Serial communications on the Arduino chip by commenting out any Serial.begin() statements. Otherwise the Arduino holds the serial line which prevents programming the AtomPro on the Orion.

We will be posting Arduino libraries specific to our new boards over the next couple weeks as we get everything up on the website.

Well before I invest in this new device I'm going to ask some very basic questions as I have zero experience with Ardunios.

1) Where do you download the development tools from (an Arduino website)?
2) I will assume that we can use any standard serial programmer?

We'll start with this (maybe this can be the beginning of a FAQ)

Thanks-Brian

1. You will be able to download the dev enironment from here soon. We are still getting it all setup. Or you can just download the latest Arduino build from http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

2. No seperate programmer is required. You just power the board and plug in a usb cable.

Thanks Nathan as always for the response.

I personally am not looking forward to learning "C" as I've always had a problem with a programming language which starts off with void()

Look forward to the progress of the Arduino...maybe a FAQ that lists "this is how we do this with an Atom; this is how we do this with an Arduino" may help (like me).

Another thought...maybe someone could port Basic Micro's BASIC to to used on an Ardunio

Thanks-Brian

The description for Orion says - code available on request! Can I please get the code to see if a Davinci + Orion combo will work for a biped ? Thanks!

Any one reading this ? Any updates ?

I am reading. But can not help here...
Sorry,

Kurt

Thanks Kurt! I was hoping to see a response from someone in Basic Micro as they are the owners of their products.

Sorry we are in the final stages of releasing the code. It will probably be a couple more days then it will be available for download on the Orion Robotics website download section. I can send you the preliminary code but I need you to email me for it(nathan@basicmicro.com).