Code Programing

Not a PLC, but an up rated small, Arduino like, processors can be found at https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy41.html They also have a great forum there, and really try to help out their customers. I bought my Teensy 4.1's there. A Teensy is an Arduino with some horsepower, and as the name suggests, it is small. They have developed a lot of libraries that work very well on their platforms. For a little less money, and a little less I/O, you can get a Teensy 4.0 for about ~$23. The owner is into audio, and PJRC offers a decent audio board and free audio design software for making your own audio applications.

A Teensy4.0 will beat the pants off of most Arduino processors for computation - but doesn't have built-in wifi, nor is it 5V tolerant. In english, that means if you hook up the I/O to +5V, even for an instant, (few nanoseconds!) you destroy the part. It uses 3.3V for it's I/O. Nonetheless, the Teensy4.X are quite attractive from an instructions per second per $ perspective. The 4.X processors do single precision floating point just as fast as fixed point or integer math. Double precision takes 2 cycles, instead of 1 for single. This may be important if your application requires a lot of floating point math, or you simply have to have your lathe spinning at 5000 RPM and not lose counts on your encoder.

FYI, that RPM limit is about what I calculated on my ELS. The limit was not the Teensy, it was the physical quadrature encoder electrical bandwidth, even if it spun faster, the output signal wouldn't change faster. My lathe can't spin at 5000 RPM, the chuck would explode. I have about a 2.5:1 safety factor on the RPM. In practice, I rarely use speeds near the chuck rating, so my safety factor is probably 5:1 or better. More than enough for hobby use.
 
I really appreciate all the responses to my question. With all your responses and doing some on-line research, I have determined that learning C or C++ is not in the cards at this point. I already have too many things on my plate for something so Indepth at this point, maybe at a later.

That being said I'm thinking about buying this Aruino kit. What do you think? Does that look like a good starter kit, or is there a better one to start with.

https://www.amazon.com/Official-Ard...2a-980f10fabccd&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_atf_m
 
Just for fun said:
I really appreciate all the responses to my question. With all your responses and doing some on-line research, I have determined that learning C or C++ is not in the cards at this point. I already have too many things on my plate for something so Indepth at this point, maybe at a later.

That being said I'm thinking about buying this Aruino kit. What do you think? Does that look like a good starter kit, or is there a better one to start with.

https://www.amazon.com/Official-Arduino-Starter-Deluxe-Bundle/dp/B00UET6VJ6/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=Dt3IM&content-id=amzn1.sym.dde481d7-92dc-42ce-a703-f1bc175e21c6:amzn1.symc.d10b1e54-47e4-4b2a-b42d-92fe6ebbe579&pf_rd_p=dde481d7-92dc-42ce-a703-f1bc175e21c6&pf_rd_r=YXKRC3TQS0FGT68QEEA6&pd_rd_wg=H9oLl&pd_rd_r=fb1620e7-3060-4ed5-ac2a-980f10fabccd&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_atf_m
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Drastically overpriced. Way over the top. Amazon pushes overpriced product, a lot.

There's nothing there that you can't buy at half the price or less. All the documentation is online and easy to find. If you want something to tinker with, I'll see if I can find something.
 
Just for fun said:
Thanks, I appreciate it.
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Here's something to get your feet wet without breaking the bank. Please note, these examples are of boards that are supported by their vendors, and not "official Arduino" boards. If you go with a good company, it is no problem. There are hundreds, if not thousands of Arduino clones.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/193 $29.95
https://www.adafruit.com/product/68. $44.95 slightly more stuff. Just starting and not sure you will continue? Buy the cheaper version and add on as needed.

Adafruit supports their offerings very well. They have tutorials, projects and stuff you can make. They cater to beginners. The tutorials show you what you need to do, from start to finish. I consider the tutorials well done.

More expensive, with a slightly different take, but also good is
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/21301 @ $99.95. Unfortunately, it appears the reviews state you need to already know some things, like getting IDE's installed, and stuff like that. So, maybe a little later. Sparkfun supports their stuff well.

Also, on Amazon there is
@ $44.99. Cannot vouch for the quality of the instructions, the hardware itself, or their libraries. Seems to be a pile of stuff included. For now, I'd skip them. Once you are more experienced, then it would be worth a try.

Your original link seemed to be a kit from Arduino itself. I'm positive it is fine, but it is rather expensive. There is nothing to prevent you from reading the original Arduino documentation at https://docs.arduino.cc/ . It is an excellent resource. Arduino sells their own stuff too, but I think you get a better value with what I showed above. Hope that helps.
 
I bought the kit you linked for my son many years ago. It's kind of nice to have everything in one place, BUT as @WobblyHand noted, you're paying a premium for all the parts AND you won't be interested in building many, if not most of the projects. Pick up a basic Arduino UNO (the 'base' model), find some tutorials online, make some LEDs flash, then dig in and start working on a project of your own - that's the best way to learn in any case.

GsT
 
GeneT45 said:
I bought the kit you linked for my son many years ago. It's kind of nice to have everything in one place, BUT as @WobblyHand noted, you're paying a premium for all the parts AND you won't be interested in building many, if not most of the projects. Pick up a basic Arduino UNO (the 'base' model), find some tutorials online, make some LEDs flash, then dig in and start working on a project of your own - that's the best way to learn in any case.

GsT
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I agree with much of what you have said. The only advantage of a small kit is one can try a couple of basic things and have the actual materials on hand as well as instructions that match. As we gain experience, we forget how perplexed we were just starting out, not knowing things we now take for granted. So there's some merit to a small kit.

It's fully expected that the kit will be outgrown, but as an inexpensive learning aid, think the lower cost one I mentioned would be worthwhile. Some of us could directly use a $1 processor and the contents of their electronics scrap bin and get to a functional project, most can't. Just starting out, a little bit of extra help is worth it. $30 is pretty good, considering all the help/tutorials that come with it.

If the OP was fully knowledgeable about this area, then obviously some cheaper offering would do to learn and he would know where to search for additional help. But the OP asked for guidance, and gave some background. My suggestions are based on that and the knowledge that not everyone takes to programming. Didn't want the OP to go whole hog on a super kit and have it not work out. Nor get frustrated with a single Arduino board and nothing else. Wouldn't want it on my conscience that I depleted someone's tooling budget or their sanity for Arduino madness!
 
I can't argue with any of that. I *do* remember how perplexed I was starting out, but things were dramatically different then. There was no internet (in a practical sense) and I didn't own a computer. Electronics information came from hobbyist books that were often over-simplified or flat-out wrong, or engineering texts which demanded math skills that were beyond me at the time. By the time Arduino came around I had a EE and a strong background in programming. It is, indeed, difficult to put myself in the shoes of someone learning today and starting with an Arduino.

I guess I overshadowed my main point which was: learn enough to get started, then start working on your own thing. You'll still have a lot to learn, but "Learning how to learn" is every bit as much a piece of the puzzle as learning how to configure a GPIO.

GsT
 
Thanks guys, I agree about the Amazon kit have lots of stuff that I would have no desire to build. Looking at the Adafruit kits I have a lot of the items in my Ham Shack from building small QRP radios and such. I like the basic kit from Adafruit to get started with, some of the stuff I have but there is several things I would need. I thought about just piece a kit together and I may still do that. You guys are definitely steering me in the right direction, and I really appreciate it.

Tim
 
Just for fun said:
I really appreciate all the responses to my question. With all your responses and doing some on-line research, I have determined that learning C or C++ is not in the cards at this point. I already have too many things on my plate for something so Indepth at this point, maybe at a later.
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Since you did programing a long time ago, you probably will get back in the groove pretty easy. @WobblyHand has great comments and suggestions but let me add one. I grew up on Fortran several decades ago. Then went through to several other languages which all become obsolete! Python is great and FreeCAD is based upon it, but incorporates lots of compiled C code which you never have to look at. This maybe what makes it so fast as an non compiled language. However, learning Python is a little tricky and installing it on your computer can be difficult. This is largely because it has sooo very many features (packages) for different applications that if you did and could install them all you would be at it for a long time and fill up your hard drive.

So I used MatLab for quite a while and got pretty good with it. Unfortunately, its availability is limited unless you have $$$ or access via some other employer or educational institution. Since it costs and is well supported, it is well written with lots of features and lots of explanation/help files. However, you can access it on line for about 20 hours a month for free. Learning a little MatLab first, with its help files, is a tool and will take you a long way in learning Python, where the support is based upon user groups and is there, but just not as handy and easy to use as MatLab. https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab-online/matlab-online-versions.html . I had a complex spread sheet which I had written and wanted to do it more mathematically. I wrote it is MatLab and then again in Python and found that the Python code process was very similar to Matlab, but took more lines of code as MatLab just had more built-in functions.

When you are ready to install Python, look to Anaconda (Conda). This is a free shell (window) that will install Python pretty much automatically for you and then provide a window to using python. It makes it a little higher level programing than Python. https://www.anaconda.com/download . After it is installed you can run python outside of the shell if you want to.

Anyway, using Anaconda will make your install process for Python much easer .... as you do not have to ask the question which of all the python packages do I need to install. It is all automated for the starter ... and then later you can add more and more features if you even need them.

Anyway, maybe these steps will help you restart.

Dave L.

PS. I am thinking about rebuilding my OS one of these days... and if I do this is how I will install Python. Yes, FreeCAD uses Python so having it installed first should help ease the FreeCAD install.
 
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