Is Arduino Due coming?

Graynomad:
I guess it's hard to orphan 500+ existing shields, but if some/many/most of them won't work anyway it doesn't matter.

Exactly. No-one is going to "throw out" their old shields just because they've bought a Due, anymore than they'll throw out their Unos and Megas. Why would they? The AVR product line still has a future, and the the ARM products complement rather than replace these products. Even if Arduino never made another AVR-based board, the old 8-bit AVR Arduino "ecosystem" would now continue indefinitely under its own momentum.

The problem with the IOREF pin approach is that adds complexity (and therefore cost) to any shield design that wants to use this technique. Cheaper and simpler to design an AVR 5v version and a separate ARM 3v3 version, if needed (I suspect many if not most shields will be suited for either AVR or ARM rather than for both). The fact that a lot of people are going to be buying shields designed for AVRs and finding they don't work for the "Due" is going to cause endless aggravation that could have been avoided, I suspect. I hope I'm wrong.

The reason I believe this is an opportunity lost is that, while anyone can design a dervative board with an alternate header layout, only Arduino is in a position to set a new "standard" layout by simply releasing a new product. So no, remedying the "lack of vision" is not quite that simple.

This is encouraging. Could I suggest soliciting some feedback from the user base before settling on a final design? Who knows, you might end up with something even better. :wink:

But in reality how much shield re-use will there really be? (I'm guessing not much)
There are many things that will prevent existing shields from being used.

  • 5v outputs driving the Arduino input pins
  • depending on certain alternate being functions on certain pins
  • Current demand on Arduino output pins
    being some of the biggest issues.

Normally when electrically damaging incompatibilities exist,
connectors/pinouts/headers are changed to ensure that such devices
are never allowed to be connected to each other.

Just my opinion but preserving the existing header layout is creating a much
bigger problem than it is trying to solve.
It now makes the selection of which shield to buy/use no longer simple as there
will be shields that will plug into the DUE that can damage it.
Not good for newbies and less technical users who will tend to have the view
that "if it fits" it must be ok.

Making the board 5v tolerant would have made the it way too expensive.

Ah. Finally, A definite answer on the 5v tolerant question.

Too expensive for whom? The naive user that blows up his DUE or schools that have
students blowing up DUE boards when trying to use an incompatible shield may not
think the money saved for this lack of protection on DUE was worth it.

There are other 32 bit MCUs out there that are 5v tolerant that would not
have incurred the additional cost that might have been better suited
for this type of environment.

--- bill

Making the board 5v tolerant would have made the it way too expensive.

Too expensive for whom?

Too expensive for what the developers want to sell it for.

Yet another article about the arrival DUE on Monday:

An audio library for the Due is also being released, coupling onto the Due’s ability for wav file playback.

I got super excited when I saw this.

Due retail packaging sighted by ?@HamburgMakers:

A5kCKDjCYAMQKub.jpg

Only one more sleep :slight_smile:


Rob

And so the shield compatibility problem begins. Note the first sentence in the below, does that sound like a beginner might think any present should he might own will work ok with the new Due? Later it tries to explain that all shields may not indeed work with a Due or some can even cause damage, but it's certainly not a crystal clear to this reader what is trying to be explained. However this a article from Wired so not sure if the source is from Arduino or just the writers attempt at an explanation? Anyone ever see an official arduino R3 spec? I don't recall seeing one published, although I'm assuming they means new shields should have that mating connector pin and read the voltage present on the new IOref pin to determine is it's a 3.3vdc signal meaning the controller the shield is attached to is operating at that voltage. Older controllers will not have that pin so no voltage will be sensed by a connected shield board.

The Due will continue to work with all Arduino shields — add-on boards and circuitry like motion sensors and LED light arrays — that conform to the official Arduino Revision 3 layout. However, the Due operates at 3.3V whereas AVR-based Arduinos operate at 5V, meaning some third-party shields that don’t follow the R3 specs to the letter may not be compatible, depending on their voltages. It also means those looking to use the Due in existing applications should adjust their voltage or risk damaging their board.

And so the shield compatibility problem begins.

Yep, we live in interesting times.

Brace yourself for a lot of "Is my Due bricked?, all I did was plug in the XYZ shield and now nothing works" questions.

Anyone ever see an official arduino R3 spec?

Someone just asked that on another thread, I said I don't think such a thing exists, at least not available to the public. Who needs documentation when you have the source code and the Eagle design files right :slight_smile:

All the Arduino stuff really should be properly documented. I volunteer someone else to do it.


Rob

Graynomad:

And so the shield compatibility problem begins.

Yep, we live in interesting times.

Brace yourself for a lot of "Is my Due bricked?, all I did was plug in the XYZ shield and now nothing works" questions.

Anyone ever see an official arduino R3 spec?

Someone just asked that on another thread, I said I don't think such a thing exists, at least not available to the public. Who needs documentation when you have the source code and the Eagle design files right :slight_smile:

All the Arduino stuff really should be properly documented. I volunteer someone else to do it.


Rob

Well from the official Uno Rev3 board discription there is this section:

Revision 3 of the board has the following new features:
1.0 pinout: added SDA and SCL pins that are near to the AREF pin and two other new pins placed near to the RESET pin, the IOREF that allow the shields to adapt to the voltage provided from the board. In future, shields will be compatible both with the board that use the AVR, which operate with 5V and with the Arduino Due that operate with 3.3V. The second one is a not connected pin, that is reserved for future purposes.

But again I don't think that is a easy for beginners to understand statement/specification, and therefore the burden now falls on the shield manufacture to now state which arduino boards their shields will work with and which might damage a Due board. People selling Due boards may also have to be pretty specific about what shield types can or cannot be connected to the Due. I would not be happy with the arduino folks if I was in the shield selling business. There are going to unhappy sellers of both shields and Due boards facing newby customers asking for refund or replacements on their newly purchased Due boards.

Lefty

Well from the official Uno Rev3 board discription there is this section:

That's the sort of thing I refer to, it's not a spec, it's a general description.

pins that are near to the AREF pin
Where?

the IOREF that allow the shields to adapt to the voltage provided from the board
How?

AFAIK the only drawings that show the shield dimensions are those produced by users (myself included).

As I said in the other thread, nobody is getting paid to do proper documentation and few people have the time so I guess it will never happen.


Rob

If I was selling shields, I'd be placing big disclaimers on my webpages for each shield

This is a 5V shield! Will NOT work with an Arduino DUE! Tested to work with Arduino Uno, Mega1280, Mega2560, and Leonardo. Connecting this shield to your Due may result in damage to your shield and/or your Due, and will void your warranty!

That should reduce the number of credit card chargebacks by at least 10%. Who needs IOREF? :wink:

More seriously, plugging a board designed for 5V onto a 3.3V board will most likely result in the shield simply not working due to undervoltage, rather than actually harming either the shield or Due. The exception might be the IO shields that require higher current and have their own power in connector, and are designed to supply power via backfeed to dev boards on the Vcc pin. Unless it turns out the Due has some built in protection like a zener circuit or something, the result could be smoky.

Any other specific failure modes anyone can think of?

Edit: OK, just thought of another one myself. If a AVR designed shield tries to draw more current on an IO pin (up to 40mA) than the Due is rated for, more smoke.

Prima facie it would appear the Due itself is much more likely to be damaged than the 5V shield.

Many shields, sensor boards, and external i/o boards that I've seen use
active components that tie into the +5v power pin for their power.
If the +5v power pin on DUE is still +5v (the pictures I've seen so far have it labeled as +5v),
then that means all kinds of shields and devices have the potential to create problems for DUE.

For example, those shields that use +5v and drive any outputs back to
the MCU pins, those outputs will usually be +5v which will be too high for the DUE.

Then there are many devices like TTL Async serial devices, SPI, and I2c devices that also
use 5v for their circuitry and will drive +5v back to MCU input pins.
Then there are sensors, like the popular HC-SR04 ultrasonic ping sensor,
and a slew of "electronic brick" sensors and i/o boards that use +5v input voltage and drive
output pins at that voltage.

Then there are passive shields that do no harm by themselves like the "Sensor Shield" but then
depending on what is hooked up to it, it has the potential to do harm because the voltage
provided to each of the sensor headers and connectors is +5v.
In that case, whose at fault?
The sensor in some cases could have run at 3.3v but the shield provided +5v,
however the +5v came from the DUE and the DUE can not handle the 5v inputs.

Even some passive shields have a pullup on the RESET line back to +5v.
(Not sure if that would be an issue for DUE)

So it isn't just 5V shields that will have issues and the potential to blow up DUE pins.

--- bill

Hmmm, release must be imminent. Geez, wake up Italy... :stuck_out_tongue:
I'm quite interested to see the new IDE and code base.

As for the shield problem, plenty of hardware/software nerds here, why not start a community developed voltage tolerant shield just for plugging any voltage shields in, maybe add a few lasers too.

08:45 in Europe.
http://www.arduino.cc/ shows a picture of an Uno and some four-day-old twitter feed.

Hi,

Waiting, waiting, waiting ...

EDIT: I wonder if we will have to wait until the US is up and about ?

Duane B

@Arduino "Should go online on the different websites this morning"

due-tweet.png

I just checked RS
nothing :frowning:
Best regards
Jantje

Jantje:
I just checked RS
nothing :frowning:
Best regards
Jantje

Hi

I found him there:

http://www.homotix.it/index.cfm?Page=Catalogo&IdCatProdotto=139&IdSchedaProdotto=2245

Now, I have a vision, many people all over the world scratching on there desk's even if there high on valium, and waiting for the Arduino Due, at the same time Massimo Banzi is stroking a nealy dead cat (from the endles stroke) and the tells his numbero Uno let them wait till afternoon, then a scary laugh is filling the room, and in some edge someone is playing an sad melody on his violine.

I hope nobody is killing me for this some sort of irony mixed up bad humor. I think Mr. Banzi and his team did a great work with the arduino and the boards it's really incredible how they put the word usability near to microcontroller, and now with the possibility to use an ARM for cool stuff on the horizon there will be the next level of fun. Thank you Mr. Banzi and of course his team.

Markus