i am trying to see if i can link a uno {master} and the mega {slave} and strip the mega down to get it as fast as possible and get it to output 2 adjustable logic output signals with the lcd keypad shield one inverted one non inverted @ 100khz-400khz and feed that signal into a ir2110 half bridge driver and run my tesla coil with it? i am really new at this but i have lots of parts and i can make circuits well but my coding skills are not to hot but i am trying
mattmatthews:
i am trying to see if i can link a uno {master} and the mega {slave} and strip the mega down to get it as fast as possible
I am no expert on Telsa coils or half bridges. But I think you should explain why you want to use an uno and mega for this? Why can't the Uno do this by itself?
Also, please explain what you plan to do to "strip down" the mega, and how will this make it faster? It's not a sports car, where removing seats to reduce weight would help. Uno and Mega are both 16MHz and equally fast for most tasks. Mega has more ram memory, which helps in some situations, but not in yours, I suspect.
When you say "adjustable", do you mean frequency, or duty cycle, or both? Do you know if it is important that there is a short time gap between one signal changing and the inverted signal changing? That is often important with full bridges, to prevent a short-circuit. I suspect it will be the same for half bridges, but as I said, I'm no expert.
There are forums on buillding tesla coils which will be more helpful than arduino experts.
Alan
im sorry by stripped down i mean not having the slave do anything but direct port pwm and also maybe over clocking it to try to get more speed out of it. and i assume the lcd keypad is going to use up speed and space so thats why i was thinking that a slave\master thing might be the way to go. but as far a signal go i am ok with out a delay my bridge driver will take care of that i just need 2 signals one inverted and one 180* out @speed and i have made many tesla coils and have not seen anyone using a arduino to control it other then to just play music i thought that the arduino might be a cool driver thats why im on this arduino forum and i am just trying to see if it is feasible i dont mean to piss people off asking about tesla shit on a arduino forum also i have herd of people changing the crystal to get the pwm to go faster but i dont like the idea of that but if i have to in order to get the speed i need out of it i will
Take a deep breath and slow down.
You will actually be able to communicate with other people if you write simple sentences, using punctuation.
Otherwise we will simply assume that you are an unteachable teenager and ignore you.
What do you mean, "other than just to play music"? If you look at the systems that can play music, could you not get some ideas and fit it to your needs?
mattmatthews:
im sorry by stripped down i mean not having the slave do anything but direct port pwm and
also maybe over clocking it to try to get more speed out of it.
i assume the lcd keypad is going to use up speed and space
so thats why i was thinking that a slave\master thing might be the way to go.
but as far a signal go i am ok with out a delay my bridge driver will take care of that
i just need 2 signals one inverted and one 180* out @speed
i have made many tesla coils and have not seen anyone using a arduino to control it other then to just play music
i thought that the arduino might be a cool driver
thats why im on this arduino forum and i am just trying to see if it is feasible
i dont mean to piss people off asking about tesla shit on a arduino forum
also i have herd of people changing the crystal to get the pwm to go faster
i dont like the idea of that but if i have to in order to get the speed i need out of it i will
Sorry, I had to do it, now its readable.
Tom...
not really they are just using the arduino to interrupt the signal with audio tones i want to run the coil with the arduino frequency and pulse with but i dont know if i can get the arduino to fire fast enough to get it in resonance
mattmatthews:
one inverted one non inverted @ 100khz-400khz and feed that signal into a ir2110 half bridge driver
This can EASILY be done with a single 555 timer and an inverter. You could even use a couple of digital potentiometers (controlled by the UNO) to actively control the update frequency.
This setup implies that the Mega is not needed.
That pwm will only fire up to 1.6 khz, that might be a little slow for my needs.
the 555 timer is not a bad idea however i would need to split the output signal and have one inverted and one non inverted i will look into doing that.
thank you for your input
The PWM system on board an Arduino is separate hardware from the main processor. You set it going and update it however you want but your code cannot "slow down" or "interrupt" the PWM frequency. It will work precisely at the frequency you request, within the accuracy of the main clock crystal on the Arduino board.
You can even get into dead-time and other fine details on the PWM waveform. (Not sure about this on all Arduinos as I rarely use the old 16MHz ones myself.)
There's a zillion other microcontrollers out there already which also have hardware PWM.
The only limitation is that it all runs off the same clock crystal. So you can't get 15.999MHz on a 16MHz Arduino. But you could probably get 15.9MHz.