Embedded Programming

Sometime by Week 8...

Over the past weeks, I ordered several MCUs and dev boards, their cables, some other hardware, and other such. So while the rest of this page will look like an orderly progression of events, it was very definitely not one.

At the current moment, I am working with the following MCUs
1. The ATtiny85 USB devboard
2. The ATtiny85 microUSB devboard
3. The Waveshare RP2040 Zero
4. The Waveshare RP2040 One
5. The Seeduino XIAO SamD21
6. The Seeduino XIAO RP2040
7. The Arduino Nano

This is approximately the order of how I obtained them as well, since I had the ATtiny USB on hand, and I ordered the WaveShares because the Seeduinos were out of stock, and finally the Seeduino XIAOs once they were in stock.

MCUs Microcontrollers and dev boards : L-R
Waveshare RP2040 Zero, Waveshare RP2040 One, Seeduino XIAO SamD21, Seeduino XIAO RP2040, ATtiny85 USB devboard

Waveshare Zero Waveshare One Seeeduino SamD21 Seeeduino XIAO RP2040 Arduino Nano ProMini Atmega328P

Source : Robu.in has been my primary source for everything electronics on this page and further (unless mentioned otherwise). They have a fantastic service, competitive prices, and - atleast for me in Mumbai - great delivery times.

Waveshare One RP2040
Waveshare Zero RP2040
Seeduino XIAO SAMD21
Seeduino XIAO RP2040
Arduino Nano

Learnings :

  • Make sure to order the right cables along with the MCUs,
  • Order extra cables if you are going to deploy something and the cable is going to be used up/stay occupied. (This was something that caused another few days of delay because I assumed I will have the right cables since the phone uses the same, but I could not do anything beyond testing some stuff because I couldn't keep my cellphone cable occupied.)
  • Similarly for USB chargers; since I wanted to deploy the programmed MCU in-situ, I was rather stuck until I ordered more USB chargers.