The 1284P, a sleeping beauty on a $9 UNO size board?

Roger Schaefer and I have collaborated on a new 1284P Duino board.
We thank all 1284P pioneers and advocates, westfw, Nic, ManiacBug, Steve Marple, feilipu, Freetronics, CrossRoad, Matt Hodge, OT-Hobbies and others for their hard work and contribution.

Roger is a veteran in the embedded industry.
He is an amazing Duino system developer in both hardware and software, he changed pin file, re-compiled the bootloader and wrote advanced demo programs for my Duino boards.

I am a small OEM, small, but established since 1987. I have some experience with some Freescale controllers, but new to Arduino. I am learning Arduino and will focus on Duino hardware. I can provide some low cost hardware to Arduino community now and in the future, because I buy parts in thousands and can make hardware more affordable.

I call this Duino board Sleeping Beauty, because the 1284P is a Sleeping Beauty.
My Sleeping Beauty board is fully tested by Roger Schaefer.
See all info. and schematic at his website: RasMicro.com is for sale | HugeDomains.

I also designed the Sleeping Beauty BareBone board with built-in USB interface. I can offer it for $9 without the 1284P chip, or $14 with the 1284P chip, including free shipping to a US address.

The 1284P chip is programmed with Roger Schaefer's Bootloader (flash D13), modified from the Mighty1284 optibootloader ( flash D4).

My offer will last 30 days or max. 30 units, the offer will expire whichever occurs first.
See details at www.firebirduino.com/sleeping_beauty.

My offer is not for a beginner. If you are a beginner, I strongly recommend you buy the official Arduino UNO to start your learning process.

Wayne Chu

I too have been very grateful for the effort from so many have put into bring the mega1284 to fruition for so many of us members.

My main concern is on the software support side. The ManiacBug files most of us use haven't been updated in like two years and is probably 2 or 3 IDE versions behind. For example the lack of pinMode(pin#, INPUT_PULLUP) isn't recognized and I'm sure there are other other minor things that aren't up to date. A refresh by someone good at this kind of stuff would sure be nice and of course getting the arduino developers to support the 1284P directly would be the best solution, but that is asking for too much I know. :wink:

add a link to the Goldilocks board.

your contribution is welcome !

I have been looking at embedding this chip in a project.

retrolefty:
My main concern is on the software support side. The ManiacBug files most of us use haven't been updated in like two years and is probably 2 or 3 IDE versions behind. For example the lack of pinMode(pin#, INPUT_PULLUP) isn't recognized and I'm sure there are other other minor things that aren't up to date. A refresh by someone good at this kind of stuff would sure be nice and of course getting the arduino developers to support the 1284P directly would be the best solution, but that is asking for too much I know. :wink:

Just getting started with the 1284P here, but I also noticed the lack of INPUT_PULLUP and wondered the same things. Comparing the Arduino release notes and the commits on GitHub, I came to the conclusion that the base for maniacbug's mighty-1284p repo was Arduino 1.0.

I also noticed the following in /variants/standard/pins_arduino.h, shouldn't that be 32?

#define NUM_DIGITAL_PINS 31

PS: I started a new thread to discuss updating the mighty-1284p core here.

I ordered 2 on 4/24 and they arrived today (actually, I ordered 4 thinking it was a 2-per-type max, but Wayne caught my error and dropped my order to 1 populated board and 1 uC-less populated board.

The boards arrived today, 4/29. They were well packed, and shipped with a confirmation number. PayPal keep me informed with emails from the moment I ordered to the moment they shipped.

My first impressions are very complementary: uC inserted correctly with no bent pins, board headers firmly flush with the PC board, reflow soldering very nice, good silkscreening.

I had to download two library files, the hardware core files, and an example file... 4 downloads. Not a big deal.
Installing the files in the correct locations per the webpage instructions went easy. I think a novice would have had an issue with the example files, however, since one must maintain the Arduino folder naming convention and the ZIP structure did not do that! Really, I think the example should have been in the hardware core files and properly nested. Just me.

The board uses the same USB cable that I used with my UNO. Power-up and the driver installed with no action on my part. For first time users without any Arduino boards, this is likely not going to be automatic. The amber LED on the 1284P board started to blink. I loaded and compiled and uploaded the example script. That went well and upon opening the serial monitor, the unit started to communicate serially. I ran the script with no issues. I loaded, compiled, and uploaded the blink example and that worked flawlessly.

The Sleeping Beauty is smaller in both dimensions than the Bobduino 1284 board - The Sleeping Beauty Bare Board is exactly the dimensions of the UNO. Barrel jack and USB are placed in the same locations, so one could pull an UNO out of a project enclosure and put in the Sleeping Beauty! (the usability of shields is 'iffy' so research is in order.)

There are only 2 items I wish to mention:

  1. Each board had affixed foam tape along the two long sides of the underside of the board - to avoid an electrical short if placed on a surface which is conduction conductive would be my guess. However, the foam used is the generic weather stripping used for doors and windows, I suspect. I am not big on this attachment but it may keep a newbie from frying the board within the first 60 seconds of power-on.

  2. The 16MHz crystal is in a pin socket. Great for over-clocking or even under-clocking from the 16MHz norm. However, the chip can be removed rather easily by just pulling it vertically out of the socket. Point: if you are going to use this in an area where vibration is regular, the crystal may vibrate out of the holder. I intend on using a length of copper adhesive tape looped from lower socket, over the crystal can, and back over the other side of the socket to firmly hold the crystal and provide some extra shielding for the extended leads.

I am very pleased with my two boards. I have 3 Bobduino 1284 that are faultless too, so it is beginning to look like a 1284 Summer.

Ray

Just ordered a Sleeping Beauty.
I'll be using it to test out my openGLCD library on several different IDEs, including pre 1.0 and 1.5.x
So Jack, I'll be joining you and others over in your 1284p core thread, as soon as I get the board in.

--- bill

bperrybap:
Just ordered a Sleeping Beauty.
I'll be using it to test out my openGLCD library on several different IDEs, including pre 1.0 and 1.5.x
So Jack, I'll be joining you and others over in your 1284p core thread, as soon as I get the board in.

--- bill

Bill, et al:
Is it feasible to run pre-1.0 on the 1284? We are having a discussion over on the 1284 side about 1.0.5r2 and 1.5.x as to where the effort should be places first. Nothing has been mentioned about pre-1.0 builds.
I must plead ignorance to the size of the pre-1.0 community that is still active.

I have used the Adafruit ILI934x library and text mapping is painfully slow. Anything reducing this time by 1/4 of more would be interesting. On the positive side, Lady Ada inherits from the Print class and this works as advertised; that is, getting text on the screen is very simple. Unfortunately, there is no character x,y positioning. .. only graphic, so some math is required to use text font (of which there is only one.)

Ex: The QBF - "The Quick Brown Fox..." For Serial Diags - Exhibition / Gallery - Arduino Forum

Ray

Hi Jack,

[quote author=Jack Christensen link=topic=235402.msg1694217#msg1694217 date=1398343366]

retrolefty:
I also noticed the following in /variants/standard/pins_arduino.h, shouldn't that be 32?

#define NUM_DIGITAL_PINS 31

Yes, but you will find the board files for the Sleeping Beauty here:

And if you look at pins_arduino.h line 75 it is defined as 32.

Roger

My board #2 was a Bare Bones board with no uC whereas the 1st board was complete. Today, I got around to loading the bootloader and setting the fuses.

My first few attempts were with ArduinoISP and they all "saw" the 1284P but errors occurred always after AVRDUDE was initiated from the Command Line. Trying to load the bootloader from the GUI (1.0.5r2 consistently failed.) I remembered a similar situation with the Bobduino boards I purchased last year and consulting my notes, I saw that I finally used Nick Gammon's programming sketch from here:

Loading this on my UNO that is dedicated as a programmer and editing the low-fuse from FF to F7 as called for in the boards.txt profile worked perfectly. Moving the chip from the breadboard to the Sleeping Beauty and loading the blink sketch went flawlessly.

Note: I own and use an OK MOS-40 chip inserting tool. The tool will fit the tight space on the board without issue, but I did manage to "knock" the crystal enough that it did not make connection, but a visual inspection caught this before I attempted to load a sketch. As stated earlier, having a crystal in a pin-socket is a 2-edged sword.

Both boards are fully up and running. Other than my carelessness with the crystal, the process went as well as with the Bobduino (of which I am most fond of...) I will call your attention to differences in pins_arduino.h ... the Bobduino and the Sleeping Beauty have a few differences! So, take notes.

Ray

mrburnette:

bperrybap:
Just ordered a Sleeping Beauty.
I'll be using it to test out my openGLCD library on several different IDEs, including pre 1.0 and 1.5.x
So Jack, I'll be joining you and others over in your 1284p core thread, as soon as I get the board in.

--- bill

Bill, et al:
Is it feasible to run pre-1.0 on the 1284? We are having a discussion over on the 1284 side about 1.0.5r2 and 1.5.x as to where the effort should be places first. Nothing has been mentioned about pre-1.0 builds.
I must plead ignorance to the size of the pre-1.0 community that is still active.

Ray,
I'm going to answer this question in the other thread that Jack started since it is
delving into the core discussion rather than the discussion about the sleeping Beauty.
Also, having looked at the SB core files, I already see some changes in variant files that will
potentially create some issues including break some existing code, including some
of my code.
So see you on the other side...

--- bill

mrburnette:
I will call your attention to differences in pins_arduino.h ... the Bobduino and the Sleeping Beauty have a few differences! So, take notes.

Ray

I noticed that too.
The changes in Bobduino has the potential to break some peoples code, including breaking some
of my code.
The SB core It is also missing the avr-devlopers pin mapping variant.
So I'll be joining in the discussion about these kinds of things over in Jacks 1284p thread.

update:
I was referring to differences between the Bobuino variant file in the SB core vs the maniacbug core.

--- bill

My Sleeping Beauty BB board came in today.
And as an unexpected added bonus, a PI-Duino-BB PCB was tossed in.

So far I've been unable to locate any information on this board.
I'd like to find a schematic. I'm assuming it is something similar to the
chipkit pi
http://www.element14.com/community/community/knode/dev_platforms_kits/element14_dev_kits/microchip-chipkit/chipkit_pi

Anybody have any links for information on this board?

--- bill

IMG_6692.JPG

bperrybap:
My Sleeping Beauty BB board came in today.
And as an unexpected added bonus, a PI-Duino-BB PCB was tossed in.

So far I've been unable to locate any information on this board.
I'd like to find a schematic. I'm assuming it is something similar to the
chipkit pi
http://www.element14.com/community/community/knode/dev_platforms_kits/element14_dev_kits/microchip-chipkit/chipkit_pi

Anybody have any links for information on this board?

--- bill

bill,
I got one too, and Wayne told me in an email that he was not going to release the board... Something about perception in the RPi community. No document links but Wayne has beentraveling, returning yesterday. He may put something up, unsure. Give it a few days and shoot him an email. I have no particular interest in that board but I did get two Sleeping Beauty boards to go with my three Bobduinos.

Ray

Can't imagine why there would be a perception issue.
I'm guessing that it just an i/o board - If it is and anti-Arduino thing,
you don' have to use Arduino on it.
Could be good for offloading real-time i/o.
I'm pretty interested in the board.
I'm curious what goes the 28/30 pin dip spot.
I'll send him an email.

One bummer that I just noticed on the Sleeping Beauty BB is that
I can't use the ISP port with my existing 6 pin cable.
If you have keyed idx connectors, they don't fit because the ISP pins
are too close to the 1284 and the connector key prevents the cable
from being plugged in.

--- bill

One bummer that I just noticed on the Sleeping Beauty BB is that
I can't use the ISP port with my existing 6 pin cable.
If you have keyed idx connectors, they don't fit because the ISP pins
are too close to the 1284 and the connector key prevents the cable
from being plugged in.

I took a length of Dupont female cable and made an extension adapter.

Could be good for offloading real-time i/o.
I'm pretty interested in the board.
I'm curious what goes the 28/30 pin dip spot.

It is for a Teensie ARM.

bperrybap:
Can't imagine why there would be a perception issue.
I'm guessing that it just an i/o board - If it is and anti-Arduino thing,
you don' have to use Arduino on it.
Could be good for offloading real-time i/o.
I'm pretty interested in the board.
I'm curious what goes the 28/30 pin dip spot.
I'll send him an email.

One bummer that I just noticed on the Sleeping Beauty BB is that
I can't use the ISP port with my existing 6 pin cable.
If you have keyed idx connectors, they don't fit because the ISP pins
are too close to the 1284 and the connector key prevents the cable
from being plugged in.

--- bill

I had the same problem with trying to fit the six pin IDC connector from my USBasp programmer onto the bobrino board, just too close to the 1284P DIP socket. However just a little filling on the side on the connector made it a nice snug fit, and there seemed to be plenty enough meat on the connector end not to affect the integrity of the connector.

In terms of cores. The sleeping beauty files have issues.
There are some things that are just plain broken in the sleeping beauty variant file.
I guess I'll move it into Jacks latest 1284 core and then fix it and then do a pull request.
(I'm off to talk to folks in the other thread about accepting SB support in the 1284 core).

--- bill

I've corrected the issues in the SB variant file and now have my openGLCD library
up and running on the Sleeping Beauty BB board using the latest mighty 1284 core
that is currently being updated to latest 1.0.5 core.
--- bill

I ordered two SB's with the chip, and received them; however, I also received two empty PCB's labeled PI-DUINO-BB that are clearly not the same layout as the SB. I have searched the web, and the OP's website and can find no indication of what these additional boards are. Any one have any ideas?

EDIT: Never mind, I see the earlier post where this is board for the Pi, and the designer isn't planning on supporting it...

EDIT: Never mind, I see the earlier post where this is board for the Pi, and the designer isn't planning on supporting it...

And that is a mistake based upon an email exchange with Wayne... he does intend on supporting this board and I regret that I misread/misinterpreted his email which indicated he had changed his mind on some aspects, just not production and selling of same.

Regards,

Ray