Arduino Nano PI Main Discussion

[surfdetector]

Congrats on the publication, i am sure it will be another fine and informative read.I have not been fallowing the latest geotech projects, Is this the Voodoo?

As per post #1 above:
"The eagle-eyed amongst you will spot that the underlying architecture for the Arduino Nano PI detector is based on the Surf-PI. During the development process I took a Surf-PI longboard and connected it to an Arduino Uno. Once the detector was functioning to my satisfaction, I then connected an Arduino Nano in place of the Uno without any requirement to make any changes to the software. Finally the schematic was entered in DipTrace and a PCB layout created. Boards were then ordered from JLCPCB, and a complete Arduino Nano based PI detector was born."

[Qiaozhi]

Congrats on the publication, i am sure it will be another fine and informative read.I have not been fallowing the latest geotech projects, Is this the Voodoo?

This project is not related to the Voodoo Project, which is a Microchip-based detector with the PCB designed using Easy-PC, and the software written using mikroElektroniksa's mikroC compiler, plus it provides ferrous rejection that does not involve target conductivity.

This particular project is based around an Arduino Nano, and all the design is open-source. The PCB is designed using DipTrace, and the software is an Arduino sketch (which is C-like). This will make it more accessible to everyone.

[Tibuck19]

This particular project is based around an Arduino Nano, and all the design is open-source. The PCB is designed using DipTrace, and the software is an Arduino sketch (which is C-like). This will make it more accessible to everyone.

Oh ok, An Arduino IDE programmable detector,nice, i remember a long while ago there was talk in geotech about something like that, it is nice to see new published projects, I did buy a Surfpi board with a programmable chip from a geotech member at one point, Anyways, Only reason i asked, when i clicked the link to Andy's page the only newish board was the Voodoo and its charger board i though maybe the were related. Have you ran into any issues using the 2$ china Nano's, aka the bad clones that fail the memory test?

[Qiaozhi]

Oh ok, An Arduino IDE programmable detector,nice, i remember a long while ago there was talk in geotech about something like that, it is nice to see new published projects, I did buy a Surfpi board with a programmable chip from a geotech member at one point, Anyways, Only reason i asked, when i clicked the link to Andy's page the only newish board was the Voodoo and its charger board i though maybe the were related. Have you ran into any issues using the 2$ china Nano's, aka the bad clones that fail the memory test?

Andy has the PCBs on order, and I expect he will update the website when they arrive. He was able to replicate the project because I sent him a PCB.

The Arduino Nanos I used were from Elegoo. These boards have the CH340 chip instead of the original FT232 USB UART IC, but in programming terms these boards are 100% compatible. Linux Mint already has the correct driver loaded. However, Windows may not have this pre-installed. If so, the manufacturers will have a suitable driver on their website.

I haven't heard anything about memory problems on clone boards. Where did you hear about that?

[Tibuck19]

I haven't heard anything about memory problems on clone boards. Where did you hear about that?

Yes, i did mean the Ch340 and the 328p i had bought two dozen of them at a good price of 2$CAD each to make various little cnc projects like eggbots and small uv laser powered pcb exposures on to dry film photoresist... there were a few of the El cheapo Nano's that simply would work even though it looked like it had programed the Nano correctly, Long story short, after watching Kevin Darrah's video on testing the memory ( Video found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeDC1m7ANJI&t=158s ) it was easy to figure out what was happening with some of mine had fake chips. I ll include his Sketch to test them out.

[Qiaozhi]

Yes, i did mean the Ch340 and the 328p i had bought two dozen of them at a good price of 2$CAD each to make various little cnc projects like eggbots and small uv laser powered pcb exposures on to dry film photoresist... there were a few of the El cheapo Nano's that simply would work even though it looked like it had programed the Nano correctly, Long story short, after watching Kevin Darrah's video on testing the memory ( Video found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeDC1m7ANJI&t=158s ) it was easy to figure out what was happening with some of mine had fake chips. I ll include his Sketch to test them out.

I ran the sketch on my Arduino Nano clone and it returned the correct signature bytes. However the other "reserved" bytes were nearly all different to the ones shown in the video. I suspect these "reserved" bytes do not have any real importance anyway, as they're reserved for future use. As far as I can see, the only problem some people have is when installing the driver for the non-standard CH340 chip. Personally I haven't discovered any other issues with these clones.

Sometimes you'll see people crying help in the Arduino forums when their program starts doing wacky things that look like the memory is full, even though the code uploaded successfully to the Arduino device. This problem is caused by the memory architecture of the processor. The heap and the stack can collide in certain conditions when you get close to the maximum memory. In this case you have to use certain techniques to reorganize the code and reduce the possibility of this happening. Since the Nano does not have a lot of memory available, this can easily happen if you include some resource hungry libraries.

[Tibuck19]

I ran the sketch on my Arduino Nano clone and it returned the correct signature bytes. However the other "reserved" bytes were nearly all different to the ones shown in the video.

Indeed a well optimized code solves lots of issues, Out of the 2 dozen of the El cheapos,( which the price has double since i bought them) little less than half had the FF's like in the video and yet only a few could not run a modified version of GRBL that I use. i'm not sure if you wrote the Arduino pi sketch, it does seem will organized( im far from being an expert in IDE) and not very big at 3114 bits only around 10% of the memory, leaves a lot of room for future iterations, and good news for those on a budget, basically even the cheapest of the cheap China Nano would work just fine. I never had any issues either with the drivers, as long as the baud rate in device manager and the Ide or Xloader match bobs your uncle. Anyways, Good luck on the publication! once again i congratulate you, Just writing is a challenge for myself, lol let alone publish something, After all, Unless a modern day you know who decides to start burning books again, all publications out live their authors.Cheers

[ivconic]

https://github.com/HobbyComponents/C...aster/CH341SER

https://github.com/ExploreEmbedded/C...Serial-Drivers

[Qiaozhi]

i'm not sure if you wrote the Arduino pi sketch, it does seem will organized( im far from being an expert in IDE) and not very big at 3114 bits only around 10% of the memory, leaves a lot of room for future iterations, and good news for those on a budget, basically even the cheapest of the cheap China Nano would work just fine.

Yes, I wrote the Arduino PI sketch.

I found the Arduino environment very easy to learn when compared to Microchip PICs, and I know others have struggled to get going with PICs, which is why I put this project together in the first place. Also, I wanted to make the design data open-source so that the project would be more accessible and provide a platform from which to experiment further.

Personally I'm very pleased with how the Arduino Nano PI project has turned out.

I've also been experimenting with the new Raspberry PI Pico, but I'm not sure whether it makes a good candidate for a metal detector project. It's physically bigger than the Arduino Nano (despite being called Pico) and is more difficult to set up. The Pico can be programmed using MicroPython (I've used Python before, and it's somewhat similar) but my impression at this point is that the Arduino is an overall more pleasant experience. Obviously the Pico is a more powerful device than the Nano, with a lot more memory, so I might change my mind later as I get more familiar with it.

[ivconic]

Don't know about Pico, i am having for longer time Raspberry 3+.
It is a power hog. Eats amperes.
What's worse; they put micro USB to supply it!??!
Other words; splendid conditions to produce magic smoke, sooner or later... or at least to have it most of the time in limbo state.
So i gave up of it.
Next one i am trying is ESP32 (Wroom board). I am pleasantly surprised with number of features and performances.
What's even better; lately everything can be done in Arduino IDE. ESP32 is having very good support.
Only small drawback; also power hog. Can drain 80-260mA, depends on the active modules.
My most recent works are all related to ESP32.
Doing lot of experimenting with multiple UARTs and recently with mems.
What especially impresses me is it's ADC and possibility to configure&use it, all done in Cpp and IDE.
It is time&energy consuming to often switch between the tools. Once used on some programming tool; i tend to stay with it.
Since i am not getting any younger.
That's why Arduino IDE is my favorite. Day by day it expands and you can improve its capability by adding more features on it.
...
P.S.
Hate to say "I told you!"...

[ivconic]

Even my Ender3 runs on customized Arduino.
...
Arduino platform and Arduino IDE designers should be nominated for Nobel prize.
And i am not joking about that.
Considering how huge Arduino population is today.
How many people worldwide were educated well and fast thanks to that platform.
This is serious achievement.

[Xtrem]

I found the Arduino environment very easy to learn when compared to Microchip PICs,

Would be nice to convert the Voodoo project to run on Arduino

[waltr]

Yes, I wrote the Arduino PI sketch.

I found the Arduino environment very easy to learn when compared to Microchip PICs, and I know others have struggled to get going with PICs, which is why I put this project together in the first place. Also, I wanted to make the design data open-source so that the project would be more accessible and provide a platform from which to experiment further.

I'm a PIC user but mostly due to doing PICs for years and knowing them and the MPLab IDE.
Arduino's are more than capable to run PI detectors and have many advantages over the PIC such as code is more independent of which processor is used. This issue showed up in the VooDoo project when others wished to use a different PIC but requires code changes.

Arduino platform and Arduino IDE designers should be nominated for Nobel prize.
And i am not joking about that.
Considering how huge Arduino population is today.
How many people worldwide were educated well and fast thanks to that platform.
This is serious achievement.

Yes, this is true. The Arduino coding is much easier to learn than PIC or STM and a great platform for people who need to get a processor up and running without to much time spent learning the processor details.

Would be nice to convert the Voodoo project to run on Arduino

This is a great idea.

[Qiaozhi]

Would be nice to convert the Voodoo project to run on Arduino

Funnily enough I've already created an adapter for the Arduino Nano that plugs into the current position occupied by the PIC processor on the Voodoo PCB. I currently have the PI channel working successfully. Unfortunately there are a few changes required to the adapter PCB as some of the connections need to be swapped around. If I can get the rest of the detector working then I'll create a new revision of the adapter board. I'm working on this in the background as an experiment, and once the DISC channel is working, I will start a discussion in the Voodoo Project thread and post the details there. The adapter currently has support for both an LCD or an OLED, and the push buttons have been eliminated as well as the menu system. I'm not sure whether to keep the OLED support though, as the 1.3" display is tiny compared to the LCD, and the library consumes a lot of memory even when configured in non-buffered mode.
If anyone has any thoughts on this subject, then please continue discussions in the Voodoo Project thread.

[MartyJ1963]

Brilliant progress George! Looking forward to the upcoming progress on both projects. Thanks, Marty.