Re: microcontroller programming -- how to begin

On Thu, 25 May 2006 18:38:53 GMT, Ignoramus5457
<ignoramus5457@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I am not too worried that I have to use BASIC. How do people write
these things in general? Do they have a main loop and a state machine?

What about timings, looks like this C280 does not have a built in
timer. And yet sometimes I need to do things for a certain time (such
as open gas valve before starting TIG welding), but they can be
interrupted, by, say, releasing foot pedal.

Am I stuck with having to use a counter sensor and external
oscillator?


Have you looked at the manual?

It's an odd beastie. I never heard of ladder logic before, but seems to
be a combinational logic on inputs that happens in realtime. Equivalent
to stringing a bunch of switches in series/parallel strings.

On its basic-language side it has OnTimer() which lets you set an
interrupt period down to 20 mS. I would think this should be enough for
your interval issues.

You need to download their development environment to program the thing.

Doesn't seem like it has much memory, but hopefully enough for your
welder needs. Has built-in AD and DA and PWM so that's helpful.

I probably would have done it with a PIC or something, but I've done
that before so I know where to start.

Good luck.

.