**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Thu Mar 12 02:59:58 2015 **** BEGIN LOGGING AT Thu Mar 12 05:03:11 2015 **** BEGIN LOGGING AT Thu Mar 12 07:25:15 2015 Mar 12 17:04:58 Hey there. Any tips on what chip I would use for a 2 key HID keyboard? I'm currently looking at the EFM8UB1 from silicon labs, as it's dirt cheap Mar 12 17:18:06 Dumle29: I'd pick something more common and supported by free software toolchain. Mar 12 17:18:45 Dumle29: you can probably get some stupid old attiny cheaper. Or smart new stm32f0 for about the same price. Mar 12 17:22:06 PaulFertser: 0.8USD in one off quantiy? Mar 12 17:22:17 Dumle29: http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?k=attiny25&mnonly=0&newproducts=0&ColumnSort=1000011&page=1&stock=0&pbfree=0&rohs=0&quantity=&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=25 Mar 12 17:22:56 Dumle29: if you're buying just one, it doesn't matter if it's 0.5$ or 2$, really. Mar 12 17:23:15 PaulFertser: Yeah I considered just going with an ATTiny85 and VUSB, but is that robust enough? Does the software implemented USB work well enough? Mar 12 17:23:42 Dumle29: I think it does, what specific usecase do you have in mind? Mar 12 17:23:44 PaulFertser: Yeah I know for prototyping it doesn't really matter. It was more of an indication of what the price was at the most expensive (1 off quantity) Mar 12 17:23:56 PaulFertser: 2 key keyboard, so not demanding at all Mar 12 17:23:57 Dumle29: e.g. USBasp programmers use vusb and are sold in thousands. Mar 12 17:24:25 I do not like AVR at all, I really recommend to not use it for just about anything. Mar 12 17:24:29 Okay that seals it for me. Especially because I already have a layout with that chip in my CAD package Mar 12 17:24:49 PaulFertser: What do you have against AVR? Mar 12 17:25:35 If you care to educate yourself, better get something cortex-m-based, it's modern, cheap, has decent debug facilities, and nicely supported by free software. AVRs are old, atmegas cost _more_ than, say, stm32s being 10x less powerful etc. Mar 12 17:26:07 PaulFertser: Well true, but a cortex m chip for a 2 key keyboard is a bit excessive Mar 12 17:26:42 Also I will now stop pinging you, as that seems a bit excessive in this crowded channel :P Mar 12 17:27:51 I'll be back in 10-15 minutes, something came up. Mar 12 17:27:57 Dumle29: if you're into embedded, it's better to have tools and skills handy. You just do not know how much time was saved by using modern chips and OpenOCD ;) Mar 12 17:34:11 Dumle29: you'll also have more possibilities to extend your device, if needed. Mar 12 18:15:58 PaulFertser: Never heard of OpenOCD, it seems interesting :) Mar 12 18:16:11 PaulFertser: What exactly is it? :P Mar 12 18:27:43 Dumle29: if you read README of 0.8.0 or current version, you'll see. Mar 12 18:28:08 PaulFertser: Will do. I'm also currently taking a look at the mchck Mar 12 18:28:09 Dumle29: I'm mean it would be silly of me to try to rephrase what I've already wrote there. Mar 12 18:28:20 PaulFertser: Oh it's yours :P Mar 12 18:28:39 Dumle29: no, not really. I've just helped here and there. Mar 12 18:28:44 ah :) Mar 12 18:30:22 Dumle29: (mchck) I prefer libopencm3 or probably stm32plus, ChibiOS/RT etc. Mar 12 18:31:33 PaulFertser: Thing is, starting off from the mchck point, would leave it compatible with KLL that has been recently developed. (Keyboard Layout Language) Mar 12 18:34:30 Dumle29: Kinetis parts seem to be popular in the industry but not so well received among the free software community. If you're looking for something with radio, nRF51 is nice. Mar 12 18:35:24 Dumle29: but that mcchk looks cool too! Mar 12 18:35:48 PaulFertser: Ah kinetis the freenode chip. Now to be clear. I've only dealth with AVR chips, ever. As it left me with the comfort of being able to crawl back to arduino if I couldn't get something to work Mar 12 18:36:41 I'm a bit tired... Freenode -> freescale* Mar 12 18:37:17 Dumle29: for an easy entrance to the modern microcontroller world I'd suggest you choose among different stm32 discovery boards. They have on board programmer that you can use to flash and debug external targets too. Mar 12 18:37:59 PaulFertser: Hmm. Thing is I'm saving up for moving out, and starting UNI, so it sorta has to be cheap :/ Mar 12 18:38:53 Dumle29: they're 10-20$ usually. Including the debug adapter. Mar 12 18:39:42 Okay I can see the K20 freescale MCUs aren't that popular. Couldn't google myself to the datasheet. had to go to their site... Mar 12 18:40:19 PaulFertser: For trying a abit of USB applications, what STM32 board would you recommend? Mar 12 18:41:59 I kinda want to move away from arduino, as I feel it's a bit too much support wheels than I'm comfortable with, so the STM32 Nucleo is probably not a good idea right? Mar 12 18:43:32 Dumle29: stm32 nucleo is as good (or better since they have a newer stlink) as discovery, it just lacks any additional peripherals. But if you have some arduino shields, you can attach that, afaict. Mar 12 18:44:27 PaulFertser: I don't have any arduino shields. Only arduino thing I have is a nano I bought to support them. The rest arduino related has been on boards I made for personal uses. Mar 12 18:45:19 Dumle29: I see. If you do not need any magnetometer, display and such on board, just the controller + stlink, nucleo is a nice choice. Mar 12 18:45:51 Well if the discovery is just 10-20$, then I don't see a reason to not get those instead. Mar 12 18:48:17 There're more expensive discoveries, but they have a big display. Mar 12 18:50:18 yeah I won't need that. I have some HD44780 displays if I really want to drive some sort of display Mar 12 18:51:14 Now I'm still a but confused, there's 13 different bords, and it seems the major difference is the chip they are based on. I guess I'll go by price, and check out the ones I like the price of Mar 12 18:53:18 Odd that the board with USB capabilities doesn't support HID (although I'm sure you could program it to do that yourself) Mar 12 18:53:23 There're some controller family comparison charts on st.com. Mar 12 18:53:45 HID is a pure software thing, no need to mention it if the cpu supports usb device. Mar 12 18:53:57 Ah ok :) Mar 12 18:54:34 It's just that they mention that it suports 3 different interfaces over USB. VCP, Mass storage, and Debug port Mar 12 18:54:51 They talk about stlink-v2-1 here. Mar 12 18:55:01 It exposes all of them at the same time. Mar 12 18:55:07 You sure? http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/LN1848/PF260318 Mar 12 18:55:17 I'd probably suggest http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/LN1848/PF259724 if you plan to use f0 with usb in the future. Mar 12 18:55:18 Other boards with STLinkv2 doesn't mention it Mar 12 18:56:13 stlinkv2 has only debug interface, stlink-v2-1 (as found on nucleo and newer discos) has uart exposed as an ACM device plus mass storage for reflashing without additional software. Mar 12 18:56:39 PaulFertser: Ahh, that makes sense :) Mar 12 18:57:22 They could really use some noob friendly product names for their discovery series Mar 12 18:57:26 :/ Mar 12 18:58:40 This is more cool imho: http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/LN1848/PF254044 . It has Cortex-M4F (hardware floating point), stm32f3 with integrated comparators and other analog stuff, and 3d accelerometer, magnetometer + hyro on board. USB device interface too. Mar 12 19:00:04 Hmm I'm interested in the sensitivity of the magnetometer. Mar 12 19:00:19 Or L0 disco if you want to play with low power controller and an e-ink display. Mar 12 19:00:46 Had some issues with a LIS3MDL that I tried to get working, but failed (well I can read temperature and stuff, but it seems I messed up some registers that I shouldn't have, and all readings return 0) Mar 12 19:02:21 I used that f3 board to get all the readings. Was reliably detecting a tin can when I was holding it closer than a 1m or so. Mar 12 19:02:31 For real data just read the datasheet ;) Mar 12 19:03:06 Will do :) I'm trying to replace some crazy sensitive reed switches that a friends boss uses in a product of his, and it's crazy Mar 12 19:03:37 He can't get a hold of the reed switches anymore, so he's looking for alternatives, and the LIS3MDL looke promising with the 4 mGauss range. Mar 12 19:05:00 Yeah this is a +-1.3 gauss minimum scale, probably not sensitive enough Mar 12 19:06:38 yeah I'm a tard. That's not milli gauss. I'm looking for something around 0.5 gauss performance. That chips should do great :P Mar 12 19:08:36 or was it 5 gauss? Shit it's been a while since I dealt with those numbers. Getting the STM32F3 board you linked :) Mar 12 19:13:04 And element 14 only sells to companies. What Mar 12 19:14:20 You gotta be shitting me. 20EUR shipping from mouser. Mar 12 19:15:10 So I can get that at 30$ delivered. That's the absolute cheapest. Shipping is 12$ the cheapest place I could find. Oh well. I guess that's the site then Mar 12 19:29:05 Okay. getting it on ebay. That above mentioned company won't ship to common folk like me either -_- Mar 12 19:32:16 :( **** ENDING LOGGING AT Fri Mar 13 02:59:59 2015