[Jeff] from Gadget Gangster sent in a great tutorial on connecting a cheap Bluetooth module to a Parallax microcontroller. In addition to getting a terminal to the Propeller up and running from his computer, [Jeff] was able to toggle IO pins and even control servos and Android devices – perfect for your next wireless robot.
Connecting the Bluetooth module to the Propeller dev board was easy enough – just two wires for power and two for transmitting and receiving. The computer side of the setup was easy as well; just entering a Bluetooth passcode. Once that was done, the Propeller could talk to the computer and vice versa.
Of course, without the ability to control pins on the microcontroller wirelessly the build was for naught. [Jeff] wrote a simple blinking LED demo. After that, a servo was connected and the build finished off by connecting to an Android terminal.
Although it’s a relatively simple build, we’ve noticed the Propeller doesn’t get much love around the Internet. While it may not have won the microcontroller holy war, it’s nice to see an underrated mcu getting some attention.
The prop is a great chip if you need to true multitasking. Plus the primary languages of Spin or Assembley make it a little blah.
I hope the Prop2 does better.
The thing about the Propeller is that you might as well chain together some AVRs or use an FPGA instead if such parallelism is needed.
“””The thing about the Propeller is that you might as well chain together some AVRs or use an FPGA instead if such parallelism is needed.”””
So you’d rather have 8 different bits of firmware, plus 8 times more expenditure on PCB real estate, plus 3 or 4 times more signals to route out, plus the extra power consumption, plus the added financial costs of buying all those extra bits?
Daisy chaining AVRs.. heh..
Why would I want to put myself through that!
The Prop does amazing TV and VGA video using a handful of resistors, a simple audio circuit will allow it to play wav audio, or funky synth sounds. It’s multi-core ability gives me the ability to talk to several devices simultaneously without using interrupts.
Now a C compiler (and IDE) have been released allowing me to write in Spin, C, Basic, Assembly at whim. (Even more languages run right on the Propeller itself.)
Why would I want to downgrade to AVR?