ChipKit Pi Serial Port and One Wire test

Still hasn't been added ......

And what's a 'scoket'?  And what does 'Do not populated' mean?

(ChipKit-Pi specifications, version 3.37)

Come on, chaps!

Hi Jim

I havn't looked at the element14 page on the ChipKit Pi for some while - seems to be supported even less than before - the element14 links on the description pdf dont work, but the link - element14 Technical Page (139.02KB) EN - works, and gets to a zip file with the old circuit diagram with typos from 1 Oct 2013. They never did respond to my comments.

Tony

Hello, Tony:

Nice to know there's still life out there - I was beginning to wonder.

Thanks for the info: very helpful (but I'd still like to know what a 'sokcet' is, just in case I rewire the neighbourhood by accident).

I had no trouble getting the MPIDE up and running on my RPi - it's using it which is causing all sorts of difficulties.  For example:

1.     The sketch chipKITPi_SerialTest refers to object 'Serial1' - not 'Serial', as defined in the Arduino tutorial, and there appears to be no objects 'Serial' or 'Serial0/2' in RPi's MPIDE.

2.     So how to access the RPi's UART2?

3.     Is all communication between RPi & ChipKitPi via the serial port?  (I've been able to do this successfully but I'd like access to all the RPi's GPIO pins.  I'm still working through the material you referred to but there must be an 'idiot's guide' somewhere to make life easier for beginners.  Working through the 'Examples' provided with the MPIDE software rapidly results in schizophrenia as RPi and Arduino references become entangled beyond the wildest fantasies of even qbit computing!  Could it be that that nice young lady on the video, who promises to bring high-power access to the unwashed masses, is simply not to be trusted?)

This last point is becoming a bit of an obsession: there appears to be huge gulf between the PR hype and real experience of the RPi's accessory products.  I'm spending more time sorting out the idiosyncrasies of the so-called 'support' literature than I am in sorting out my real world application.

What's the effective way of tackling this lack of user support?

Jim Gibb

P.S.: I feel better now - but it won't last.

Hi Jim

I share your feelings completely. I have just about abandoned my ChipkitPi, since the support for the bare R Pi is so much better.

I did get most of MPIDE working, but there is still a specific problem I had  - I wanted to use the ChipkitPi to be an Arduino substitute in the 'PHSNA' project - Yahoo group for 'Poor Ham's Scalar Network Analyser' which uses a cheap Chinese Direct Digital Synthesiser from eBay and an Analog Devices log power meter amp to plot frequency response of RF circuits. All controlled from an Arduino. I thought the ChipkitPi would be great to control it, having the advantage of the possibility of a nice display. The original project uses a PC to read serial data from the Arduino, but the combination of ChipkitPi and R Pi could do it all.

When I couldn't get the original element14 distribution to work on a 4GB card (too big for my specific 4GB card)), I had to build up from scratch and was appalled at the support needed by MPIDE - had to download the AVR add-ons in order for the serial programming to work, even though not using an AVR processor. Finally after much iteration with no help offered by element14 as you will see in the previous posts I got MPIDE working and managed to get various sketches working, like the one-wire thermometer. However, the pic32 doesnt seem to have the latest Arduino language support - in particular Serial.parseFloat and Serial.parseInt both of which are used in the PHSNA sketch. I have been searching on and off in the last months the websites for the ChipKit projects, but have not found an update. I asked questions about this to element14 but have had no replies. I could write my own c language support for this, I guess, but I just got disillusioned with the whole thing. Especially when Tom Herbison started the RPi_Wobbulator project (another Yahoo group)  - this uses a Microchip MCP3424 ADC i2c device driven directly by the Pi from Python with wiring Pi etc. This used basically the same parts and did the same job  as the PHSNA project but without the intermediate Arduino and its complications.

I wonder if the distributors are just making as much as they can out of the R Pi bandwagon without giving proper support - seems like that to me.

Good luck with your quest - I'm afraid I cant answer all your questions because I have given up experimenting with the Chipkit Pi for now. The only thing I know is that I had to use Serial1 rather than Serial to communicate with the Chipkit - same interface as used for programming, and it took me a while battling through the pcb layout and 'Scoket' typos to understand which pin is which wrt the normal Arduino pin layouts.

keep smiling

Tony ;-)

Hi, again Tony:

That's all rather depressing.  The ChipKITPi basic spec. looked encouraging but the lack of efficient support is downright disabling.

My experience seems to mimic yours: I'm finding it easier to access the 'real' world directly from the RPi's GPIO pins (via a Gertboard if I need protection). This has the side benefit that I don't need to rely on Python support: I favour RISC OS + BBC Basic, which is supported, in a fairly disciplined way, by Castle Technology.  And, if I do need to descend to c/c++ eventually, it still seems preferable to interface via the Gertboard as it is now well - and fairly accurately - documented.

Trouble is, I really would like to take advantage of the master/slave configurations offered by Arduino-type technology but I'm running into all sorts of set-up, configuration and application problems, with the net result, as I mentioned before, that significant attention is diverted - needlessly, in my view - away from my areas of real interest.  I suspect that you're quite right in inferring that there is a bit of an unseemly rush to both cash-in on RPi popularity AND preserve Arduino's market share.  Perhaps, now that GertDuino has appeared on the scene, I can get closer to what I want (but interfacing to the on-board Atmel still sounds rather fraught).

In all fairness, I should mention a recent counter-experience in setting up a PiFace Digital.  Started with the usual opaque (or, more accurately, non-existent) diagnostics but an (e-mail) call to element14 Technical Support quickly found the cause of my difficulties (software downloads had been re-located) and I was then able to get up and running quickly with their help.  Now I've just got to get a grip on the interface programming.......

Perhaps I can build on that experience: I told my 'helper' that I wanted to take out a season ticket!

Best of luck with your own projects - and thanks, at least, for providing an opportunity to let off steam - even if you also confirm my worst fears.

Jim Gibb.