I ordered the nerdkit today. For trying to learn this stuff, it was a good fit for me. I plan on trying all of these kits eventually, as they seem like a good value for the fun they can provide along with education.
I looked hard at PIC as they have lots of stuff and they were the first microcontrollers I ran across years back when thinking about getting into this stuff, but then didn't.
In fact, I found more websites with tutorials on running stepper motos on PIC than any other. The only reason I didn't put them on the list was in many comparisons they kept mentioning that the AVR chips were more modern and what you learned would go longer these days. When you read the flame wars about pic vs avr it is obvious both chips have a huge fan base and great support.
Thanks for your links as they are in the UK. Here in the States, Parallax is a big company with many great PIC products.
http://www.parallax.com/
So these are worth looking too.
I ordered the nerdkit today. For trying to learn this stuff, it was a good fit for me. I plan on trying all of these kits eventually, as they seem like a good value for the fun they can provide along with education.
I was really impressed at how quickly my order came. I didn't expect it to arrive till Monday or Tuesday, but it arrived Saturday.
There is not much to it. I didn't add up the cost of the items that came with it yet, but not too much comes with it. You get an account number that allows you into a member's only area and from there you download the manual, datasheets and the programming software. There are additional explanations and projects on the website.
The 82 page manual reads like you are reading very short notes written by a very smart university student. There is minimal explanation and if I had not been reading about electronics and watching videos online, I would be totally lost. So this is really not for beginners in my opinion. I like to first read through the manual before attempting to make anything and that is the stage where I am at now.
You have about 23 pages of stuff to read before getting into putting anything together. You then get instructions on putting the kit together and running the initial test to make sure everything is working, that takes you to page 32 of the manual. The next 5 to 6 pages is troubleshooting and hooking up the usb cable.
The good thing about this kit is they do emphasize they want you to learn and to ask for help via email if you need it. Also they don't let you just plug in a usb cable, you actually have to attach each lead wire at the board side to the breadboard. This is their philosophy which is you are not just learning electronics, you are learning electronic engineering.
In watching the video tutorials on youtube, I can see the difference. Putting electronics together from schematics is what I thought it was all about, but that is just doing electronics. That in itself is pretty daunting, but it is nothing compared to engineering and designing your own circuits. For this it is all math and you have to take in to consideration all voltages, current and tolerances for each part and make sure they match up. This kit sort of encourages you by asking you to experiment on your own and to figure things out. They do have a support forum.
I will write another review after building the kit and seeing if I can program it. My recommendation, without making anything yet, is I would hold off on purchasing this kit if you are totally new to electronics. Or expect to augment this kit with lots of external reading to supplement it. Is it worth the price, I am sure over time it is. Initially I would say no, based on what you get. I say overtime because they are adding projects and do have a nice support forum and electronic newsletter and are willing to answer your emails. So that alone would be worth the cost over time.
I went back to harbor freight Friday night. I was able to find one of the knowledgeable guys there free, for a minute, so I told him about this project and that I had bought the $11 rotary tool. I told him I could only use 2 of the bits to do milling. He told me that I needed a cutting drill bit, also known as a drill saw bit or what is known as a milling bit. He showed me a 3 pack and in the pack only 1 size would fit my rotary tool. But compared to dremel and rotozip bits, this 3 pack was cheap. So I bought it and indeed the bit does make a difference.
So look for deals on these kind of bits for your rotary tool. Here is a page with a good explanation. You want one that can drill and cut.
Well, I got the nerdkit put together tonight. I was very happy after all the tedious work that it works!! Very satisfying feeling. But in doing a lot of associative extra reading and video viewing on my own to supplement this kit, I would not recommend it to any of you. I see that the arduino and pic communities have so much more to offer in a more usable manner.
I was willing to try this kit and do all the work, but I thought it would have lots of info and educational value. It does not. I am sure, as I wrote in the previous review that it probably will. But it is not there at the start when you need it.
What really surprised me besides all that the microcontroller can do is the crystal clock. It is just a quartz crystal in a tin can basically and when it gets a current it vibrates at a fixed frequence, in this case the speed of the cpu for the microcontroller. They say it can do 14 million plus operations per second. Pretty amazing.
Attached is a photo of my kit put together. I went and identified all the components.
NerdKit.jpg
It seems microcontrollers were designed for serial and parallel ports. With parallel ports you can drive motors and things from your pc without a microcontroller, the pc acts as the controller. To use USB, somewhere in the chain there is a usb to serial converter. You have to install a driver for the usb and it shows up in device manager as a serial port and in the system tray as an usb device. In my kit this usb to serial is built into the usb cable. In others, it is on the controller board somewhere. So far in the 2 programs that I uploaded to the micrcontroller, you use bitwise operations a lot and work with the registers on chip. These are programs I just copied from the manual, with no understanding yet.
I am sorry I can't share code or much detailed info as they copyrighted the material heavily. You can't share even for non-profit or educational use. Another reason I don't like this kit. Parallax(PIC) is open source as is Arduino.
Last edited by kryton9; 01-03-2012 at 21:25.
Just wanted to post that I am still researching and studying on this project. If I wanted to throw money into it, there is a lot of info on buying linear motion systems, stepper motor controllers etc. But I want to make this as low cost as possible and a real home brew project, so it is going slow, but lots of fun.
John, I am happy Athena has responded well to her physical therapy. The litegait looks like quite a machine. I am sure you are all excited she is coming home after such a long time.
I am speaking without knowing anything about your house's structure. But instead of building a platform, you might want to just go into the joists in your ceiling and rig up a support system like that. You would go into 2 joists or 3 if you want a third suspender coming down the back and have it centered above a treadmill.
I also found this. Looks like a great device for a bargain price. http://www.especialneeds.com/gross-m...rampoline.html She would not use it for bouncing of course, but for balance strength build up and exercise.
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