thinking about Xmega support ;)

[ronco]

Hi,

i know that the XMegas are still the same AVR's .. but on drugs ..

there is a arduino IDE port that supports some xmegas https://github.com/akafugu/Xmegaduino (it supports also the ATmegas)

the advantages of some Xmegas would be:

- up to 32Mhz
- up to 384kB flash
- up to 16kB s ram
- partially 16bit

i think it would be something like 3-4times faster then the 8bit/16Mhz variantes we use..

the most of them have enough 16bit timers and comperators..

so even if dongs wont like it this may be a alternative to the stm32 .. and it would be much simpler to support because it is an AVR and there is an arduino IDE for it

what do you think?

regards Felix

[Sebbi]

Or .... do something radical and support Raspberry Pi or even better (because it is a lot faster and not that much more expensive): http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/ ... 3999328931

A $129 Cortex A9 quadcore board at 1.4 GHz with multiple USB hubs to connect gadgets to, sd card slot for the os (android/ubuntu), hdmi out and a fast gpu to use your copter as media center / gaming console while not flying and a GPIO port with lots of PWM/ADC, 8x I2C, 4x UART, 3x SPI now THAT would be what I call "on drugs" *g*

[Kayle]

Hi,

I like the idea to fly with an atxmega32a4 because i have a lot of them

Kay

[gompf-2]

Hi,
I started a port a while ago and some details are quite different between Mega/Xmega.
I managed to partly adapt akafugus XMegaduino to ATxmega128A3 and made some progress with 2.0 code but than switched to gcc with arduino libs to track problems, iirc millis/micros etc adapted to the Xmega timers:
RC-input is easy, translate ISR handling
buffered hardware-PWM is very easy on Xmega.
serial is easy, just translate some registers.
I2C error handling: some silicon bugs in my revision, didn´t manage to get safe I2C error handling on XMega, bus freezes from time to time if I unplug/replug sensors
ee2 handling is different (page mode) and buggy in my silicon revision. Didn´t get it to work properly.
At the end I had a look at boards like the naze32 or the other STMs and decides that they are so more powerful that it´s worthless to invest more time when even "Arduino" skips the Xmega and goes for faster devices (due).
Waiting for my RasPi now . I´m quite sure I´m not able to get a RasPi flying but I like the dream of using cheap high quality HD-USB cams; I´ll end up with a USB-Camserver with some I2C sensors and wait for the "Multiwii deamon package" for ubuntu

[Sebbi]

Ubuntu has no support for the RasPi, but I'm waiting with you for the MultiWii Debian package

[alexia]

i think it will be better to help dong to improve his smt32 code.

[gompf-2]

For sure, just kidding.

[Sebbi]

Well it could be nice to use an inexpensive board such as the RasPi for OSD or navigation or as a webcam server in the air. One could use a normal 8bit µC to keep the copter in the air and for manual control and have inexpensive linux pc for more advanced stuff (e.g. use multiple webcams with computer vision to have a very precise "optical flow" sensor, or give the copter not only waypoints, but complete routes with dynamic camera angles and yaw movement during the flight, etc ... possibilites are endless)