Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Chris Albertson]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 7:56 PM Dave Cole  wrote:

> I was thinking multiple RPi Picos to one RPi4, but for just one, that is
> probably the way to go.
>

The Pico is a dual-core M0.   So it is faster than I had originally
thought.   Micro-Python is ported to it so it might be very easy for many
people to program.   I'm got my name in to be notified when they are back
in stock. I still think USB is the simplest way to connect while
experimenting.

One advantage of USB is that you need USB to program the Pico.   You would
run the development system on the Pi4 and change the firmware by copying
files or drag/drop.  If the Pico is SPI connected then you need to hunt
down a USB cable then walk out to the shop to change the firmware.



> I'll try that first!
>
> The Pi Hat as the carrier board is also a good idea.
>
> On 1/21/2021 7:46 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:
> > I'd bet SPI would work well but even easier would be to connect them to
> the
> > Pi4 with USB.  Both sides have software that makes the USB look like a
> > serial port and the physical connection is done with off the shelf cable.
> >
> > I've used M0 boards this way in the past and using USB lets you also cnet
> > them to a Linux PC
> >
> > What I like about the Pico is that it can be SMT hand soldered.  I can
> make
> > a simple passive carrier board that has connectors and it is not hard to
> > hand solder 0.1 inch pitch.  The carrier board could be a Pi-hat
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 4:30 PM Dave Cole 
> wrote:
> >
> >> I wonder if these could act as SPI slaves to the RPI 4?
> >>
> >> I've been trying to buy two from Adafruit and they keep selling out and
> >> then coming back in stock, and then selling out again!
> >>
> >> Dave
> >>
> >> On 1/21/2021 6:36 PM, andy pugh wrote:
> >>> On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 21:52, Chris Albertson <
> albertson.ch...@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
>  This is an STM32 microcontroller.
> >>> Are you sure? It is an ARM Cortex M0, like the STM32, but is it made by
> >> ST?
> >>
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> >
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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Dave Cole]

I was thinking multiple RPi Picos to one RPi4, but for just one, that is 
probably the way to go.

I'll try that first!

The Pi Hat as the carrier board is also a good idea.

On 1/21/2021 7:46 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:

I'd bet SPI would work well but even easier would be to connect them to the
Pi4 with USB.  Both sides have software that makes the USB look like a
serial port and the physical connection is done with off the shelf cable.

I've used M0 boards this way in the past and using USB lets you also cnet
them to a Linux PC

What I like about the Pico is that it can be SMT hand soldered.  I can make
a simple passive carrier board that has connectors and it is not hard to
hand solder 0.1 inch pitch.  The carrier board could be a Pi-hat

On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 4:30 PM Dave Cole  wrote:


I wonder if these could act as SPI slaves to the RPI 4?

I've been trying to buy two from Adafruit and they keep selling out and
then coming back in stock, and then selling out again!

Dave

On 1/21/2021 6:36 PM, andy pugh wrote:

On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 21:52, Chris Albertson 

wrote:

This is an STM32 microcontroller.

Are you sure? It is an ARM Cortex M0, like the STM32, but is it made by

ST?

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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Chris Albertson]

I'd bet SPI would work well but even easier would be to connect them to the
Pi4 with USB.  Both sides have software that makes the USB look like a
serial port and the physical connection is done with off the shelf cable.

I've used M0 boards this way in the past and using USB lets you also cnet
them to a Linux PC

What I like about the Pico is that it can be SMT hand soldered.  I can make
a simple passive carrier board that has connectors and it is not hard to
hand solder 0.1 inch pitch.  The carrier board could be a Pi-hat

On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 4:30 PM Dave Cole  wrote:

> I wonder if these could act as SPI slaves to the RPI 4?
>
> I've been trying to buy two from Adafruit and they keep selling out and
> then coming back in stock, and then selling out again!
>
> Dave
>
> On 1/21/2021 6:36 PM, andy pugh wrote:
> > On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 21:52, Chris Albertson 
> wrote:
> >
> >> This is an STM32 microcontroller.
> > Are you sure? It is an ARM Cortex M0, like the STM32, but is it made by
> ST?
> >
>
>
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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Dave Cole]

Sparkfun had them in stock.

On 1/21/2021 7:30 PM, Dave Cole wrote:

I wonder if these could act as SPI slaves to the RPI 4?

I've been trying to buy two from Adafruit and they keep selling out 
and then coming back in stock, and then selling out again!


Dave

On 1/21/2021 6:36 PM, andy pugh wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 21:52, Chris Albertson 
 wrote:



This is an STM32 microcontroller.
Are you sure? It is an ARM Cortex M0, like the STM32, but is it made 
by ST?





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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Chris Albertson]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 3:39 PM andy pugh  wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 21:52, Chris Albertson 
> wrote:
>
> Are you sure? It is an ARM Cortex M0, like the STM32, but is it made by ST?
>

Sorry,  It is much better than that.  My mistake.

It is a RP2040 microcontroller chip designed by Raspberry Pi in the UK
Dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ processor, flexible clock running up to 133 MHz






>
> --
> atp
> "A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
> designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
> lunatics."
> — George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912
>
>
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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Dave Cole]

I wonder if these could act as SPI slaves to the RPI 4?

I've been trying to buy two from Adafruit and they keep selling out and 
then coming back in stock, and then selling out again!


Dave

On 1/21/2021 6:36 PM, andy pugh wrote:

On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 21:52, Chris Albertson  wrote:


This is an STM32 microcontroller.

Are you sure? It is an ARM Cortex M0, like the STM32, but is it made by ST?




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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[andy pugh]

On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 21:52, Chris Albertson  wrote:

> This is an STM32 microcontroller.

Are you sure? It is an ARM Cortex M0, like the STM32, but is it made by ST?

-- 
atp
"A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is
designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and
lunatics."
— George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912


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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Chris Albertson]

To answer some questions I looked it up...

This is an STM32 microcontroller.   The firmware makes it enumerate to a
PC/Mac/Linux machine as a USB storage device.   You program this this be
drag-and-drop the binary file to the storage.   (or do a "cp" from
the command line)

What software environment?   You seem to have a wide choice.   The Arduino
IDE could work or you could use Gcc from the command line or STM' "STM
Cube" but my favorite is Mbed from ARM. Some of the RTOS' would work
too, like FreeRTOS.

Supported input power 1.8–5.5V DC.  Most pins are "5 volt tolerant" some
are 3.3 volt only.

This is basically a replacement fro the $3 "Blue pill" but I think this is
done better and has MUCH better documentation.   Read everything here
https://datasheets.raspberrypi.org/pico/pico_datasheet.pdf

What to do with these?   I'm thinking they will have much more use on robot
projects then on machine tool projects.But in the machine tool world
they could be sued are a kind of "standard" that performs the same
functions we see done by Mesa cards today but at a much lower cost.At
$4 we can afford to place one on each axis.

My experience with the M0 is that it is powerful enough to run PID
controllers for two motors with the encoders are running at about 10,000
less per second and the motors are being controlled with PWM. You can
to up to ~10 Mhz pule rates if you use the built-in hardware quadrature
decoders.  These do the encoder reading in hardware and a re much faster
than software interrupts.   But I think the M0 has only one channel of this.

The main advantage of these vs. others is (1) good documentation, (2)
trusted source, (3) low cost.

About the cost.  $4 is low but look also at the Raspberry Pi Zero.  It
costs only $5 and runs Linux.  It is dramatically more powerful then this
"pico" but Linux is just poor at "real-time" and the Pico is outstandingly
good at "real-time".So they are complementary.It would be fun to
build a $9 robot controller using both.   I think I will.


On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 8:04 AM Matthew Herd  wrote:

> Agreed.  It looks promising, but no more so than a "Blue Pill" or similar
> boards.  Also, what voltages does it operate on?  I wasn’t able to find
> that in the literature but I didn’t dig into their documentation that
> deeply.  Nonetheless, it seems like info that should be part of the specs.
>
> > On Jan 21, 2021, at 10:41 AM, Jon Elson  wrote:
> >
> > On 01/21/2021 02:43 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
> >> For you people out there who use an Arduino or RPi to communicate with
> >> parts of the machine (tool changers, doors etc). Here's a cute and
> really
> >> low priced alternative.
> >> https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-pico/
> >>
> >>
> > The blurb is pretty sketchy on details.  What is the programming
> environment like?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Jon
> >
> >
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>
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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Kirk Wallace]

I haven't been too keen on the Raspberry Pi products due to being 
partially closed source. It looks like that issue has been addressed. 
I'll be watching this space.



http://linuxgizmos.com/raspberry-pi-goes-mcu-with-open-spec-pico/




On 1/21/21 12:43 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:

For you people out there who use an Arduino or RPi to communicate with
parts of the machine (tool changers, doors etc). Here's a cute and really
low priced alternative.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-pico/

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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[John Dammeyer]

> From: Sven Wesley [mailto:svenne.d...@gmail.com]
> Den tors 21 jan. 2021 kl 17:51 skrev John Dammeyer :
> 
> > No CAN bus port.  No USB port.
> >
> > I guess it depends on how deep one wants to go into C programming as to
> > what you might choose for independently controlled things like a tool
> > changer.  I have PIC32 development boards and processors that support
> > quadrature encoders.  Same dsPIC series with quadrature and CAN bus.
> >
> > The latest interesting and although a lot more money is:
> > https://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-F28379D
> >
> > With dual processors and a lot of other pretty cool features this could be
> > made into a wicked pendant.
> >
> > John Dammeyer
> >
> 
> You load the code over USB. The Pico doc has code examples for REPL over
> USB, UART, I2C and SPI.
> *3.2. UART*
> *USB  serial  is  available  from  MicroPython,  but  the  REPL  is  also
>  available  over  UART0  by  default.*
> Isn't that USB communication?

Stand corrected.  Only looked at the pin definitions.  Not the board itself and 
there is a USB cable plugged into it.  



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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Sven Wesley]

Den tors 21 jan. 2021 kl 17:51 skrev John Dammeyer :

> No CAN bus port.  No USB port.
>
> I guess it depends on how deep one wants to go into C programming as to
> what you might choose for independently controlled things like a tool
> changer.  I have PIC32 development boards and processors that support
> quadrature encoders.  Same dsPIC series with quadrature and CAN bus.
>
> The latest interesting and although a lot more money is:
> https://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-F28379D
>
> With dual processors and a lot of other pretty cool features this could be
> made into a wicked pendant.
>
> John Dammeyer
>

You load the code over USB. The Pico doc has code examples for REPL over
USB, UART, I2C and SPI.
*3.2. UART*
*USB  serial  is  available  from  MicroPython,  but  the  REPL  is  also
 available  over  UART0  by  default.*
Isn't that USB communication?

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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Matthew Herd]

Just looked again and can confirm it’s in one of their spec listings 
(1.8-5.5V), but not in another one.

> On Jan 21, 2021, at 11:41 AM, Dave Cole  wrote:
> 
> It has some interesting sub processors to handle I/O.   Reminds me of the sub 
> processors on the Beagle Board Black.
> https://hackspace.raspberrypi.org/articles/what-is-programmable-i-o-on-raspberry-pi-pico
> 
> Here are some docs:
> https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/pico/getting-started/
> 
> It has a lot in a very small package for $4.00
> 
> Dave
> 
> On 1/21/2021 10:41 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
>> On 01/21/2021 02:43 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
>>> For you people out there who use an Arduino or RPi to communicate with
>>> parts of the machine (tool changers, doors etc). Here's a cute and really
>>> low priced alternative.
>>> https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-pico/
>>> 
>>> 
>> The blurb is pretty sketchy on details.  What is the programming environment 
>> like?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Jon
>> 
>> 
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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Jon Elson]

On 01/21/2021 10:02 AM, Matthew Herd wrote:

Agreed.  It looks promising, but no more so than a "Blue Pill" or similar 
boards.  Also, what voltages does it operate on?  I wasn’t able to find that in the 
literature but I didn’t dig into their documentation that deeply.

3.3 - 5 V.  That WAS in the specs.

Jon


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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[John Dammeyer]

No CAN bus port.  No USB port. 

I guess it depends on how deep one wants to go into C programming as to what 
you might choose for independently controlled things like a tool changer.  I 
have PIC32 development boards and processors that support quadrature encoders.  
Same dsPIC series with quadrature and CAN bus.

The latest interesting and although a lot more money is:
https://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-F28379D

With dual processors and a lot of other pretty cool features this could be made 
into a wicked pendant. 

John Dammeyer

> -Original Message-
> From: Sven Wesley [mailto:svenne.d...@gmail.com]
> Sent: January-21-21 12:43 AM
> To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)
> Subject: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico
> 
> For you people out there who use an Arduino or RPi to communicate with
> parts of the machine (tool changers, doors etc). Here's a cute and really
> low priced alternative.
> https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-pico/
> 
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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Dave Cole]

It has some interesting sub processors to handle I/O.   Reminds me of 
the sub processors on the Beagle Board Black.

https://hackspace.raspberrypi.org/articles/what-is-programmable-i-o-on-raspberry-pi-pico

Here are some docs:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/pico/getting-started/

It has a lot in a very small package for $4.00

Dave

On 1/21/2021 10:41 AM, Jon Elson wrote:

On 01/21/2021 02:43 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:

For you people out there who use an Arduino or RPi to communicate with
parts of the machine (tool changers, doors etc). Here's a cute and 
really

low priced alternative.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-pico/


The blurb is pretty sketchy on details.  What is the programming 
environment like?


Thanks,

Jon


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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Matthew Herd]

Agreed.  It looks promising, but no more so than a "Blue Pill" or similar 
boards.  Also, what voltages does it operate on?  I wasn’t able to find that in 
the literature but I didn’t dig into their documentation that deeply.  
Nonetheless, it seems like info that should be part of the specs.

> On Jan 21, 2021, at 10:41 AM, Jon Elson  wrote:
> 
> On 01/21/2021 02:43 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:
>> For you people out there who use an Arduino or RPi to communicate with
>> parts of the machine (tool changers, doors etc). Here's a cute and really
>> low priced alternative.
>> https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-pico/
>> 
>> 
> The blurb is pretty sketchy on details.  What is the programming environment 
> like?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jon
> 
> 
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Re: [Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Jon Elson]

On 01/21/2021 02:43 AM, Sven Wesley wrote:

For you people out there who use an Arduino or RPi to communicate with
parts of the machine (tool changers, doors etc). Here's a cute and really
low priced alternative.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-pico/


The blurb is pretty sketchy on details.  What is the 
programming environment like?


Thanks,

Jon


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Re: [Emc-users] new tool editor?

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 21 January 2021 07:21:45 Gene Heskett wrote:

> Greetings all;
>
> In the night last nite, working on this make_wrench.ngc, I found a
> problem in the new too editor.
>
> One of the techniques I occasionally make use of is a .001" diameter
> tool, which I can drive around to different places on the backplot and
> get data location points from the dro to help when fine tuning gcode.
>
> But in the 2.7.15 sim axis on this machine, it got a read only belly
> ache if I tried to make the next new tool smaller than 1mm.
>
> This used to work.  I had to quit the editor and restart it 7 or 8
> times before I was able over write the too small diameter, and make it
> use a 1mm image for the tool image. I was not able to position the
> curser to enter new data until it had been restarted many times.
>
> Was I doing something wrong?
>
I must have hit a voodoo spell, or some unwritten Murphy's law. This 
morning it worked after setting a .01 tool, worked well enough to verify 
the wrench should fit the double D-flats on the ER20 motor shaft.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
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[Emc-users] new tool editor?

[Gene Heskett]

Greetings all;

In the night last nite, working on this make_wrench.ngc, I found a 
problem in the new too editor.

One of the techniques I occasionally make use of is a .001" diameter 
tool, which I can drive around to different places on the backplot and 
get data location points from the dro to help when fine tuning gcode.

But in the 2.7.15 sim axis on this machine, it got a read only belly ache 
if I tried to make the next new tool smaller than 1mm.

This used to work.  I had to quit the editor and restart it 7 or 8 times 
before I was able over write the too small diameter, and make it use a 
1mm image for the tool image. I was not able to position the curser to 
enter new data until it had been restarted many times.

Was I doing something wrong?

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 


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[Emc-users] Rpi Pico

[Sven Wesley]

For you people out there who use an Arduino or RPi to communicate with
parts of the machine (tool changers, doors etc). Here's a cute and really
low priced alternative.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-pico/

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