Hi there, long time lurker. I'm looking to update my hobby designs from the 328 and the AVR DU family has caught my eye. I like that it has native USB support.
Not seeing a lot of chatter about it, though. Has anyone here used it in the Arduino IDE yet?
anyone here used it
Which "it" did you have in mind? Do any breakout boards with an AVR DU MCU exist that look interesting?
Is C/C++ code available to handle serial port/native USB communications with a PC?
Arduino core support and board definitions are required for the IDE.
Got a link to a board?
Here's the evaluation board - https://www.microchip.com/en-us/development-tool/ev59f82a
SpenceKonde's Github link has a great deal of info and Arduino support for the AVR Dx series. There's references to the DU series throughout, but when it was written, it was before the DU release last year. I'm still wading through the info and digesting. Not sure about the usb code availability.
The AVR64DU32 Curiosity Nano User Guide makes it clear that this board is for exploring the features of that particular processor in the context of the Microchip development environment, which is primarily an assembly language IDE with debugger. C coding is an option with two rather limited C/C++ compilers (or an expensive, professional C language IDE).
If Arduino support for the processor is not fully implemented, you are stuck with the above until someone decides to take the time to do that.
Microchip certainly won't, as they are not very interested in the hobby community.
Can't see how those pins strips are going to get soldered through the holes with them being staggered like that? One would presumably have to solder them to the cutouts along the edge which is kind of novel.....
yeah that is interesting! While searching about more, I came across this post, which has photos of the DA series Curiosity board, and claims to have friction fit headers. I guess the staggered pins allow the header to be pushed in and stay put without soldering (but of course you can solder them for permanent connection).
Coincidentally, the original post in the link above is from forum member @DrAzzy , who maintains the SpenceKonde Github repos I linked in post #3!
From the user guide PDF:
The edge connector footprint on the AVR64DU32 Curiosity Nano has a staggered design where each hole is shifted 8 mils (~0.2 mm) off-center. The hole shift allows using regular 100 mil pin headers without soldering on the board. The pin-headers can be used in applications like pin sockets and prototyping boards without issues once they are firmly in place.