# Picaxe/Arduino Shield Combo



## fritz42_male (May 5, 2009)

Hi all you Picaxe lovers.

A few people have commented about the wealth of Arduino stuff out there. Well here is a nifty solution. A Picaxe equipped but Arduino format board.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XINO-Basic-PI...891?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4aa92b01b3

Also a proto board shield

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ProtoX-protot...076?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4aa8ac77e4

The merchant has a number of nifty devices including TTL relay boards and so on. I'm about to order off him and will report back.


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

The key words here are "Arduino shaped"
Nice marketing ploy.
Looks like they are trying to ride on the coattails of the Arduino crowd

Why not just buy an Arduino for $20?

They might look like an Arduino but there is no possible way for a Picaxe to support any of the hundreds of Arduino shields or code libraries. The only thing that comes close to the Arduino (or any of the many clones that use an Atmel processor) is a NetDuino (a serious 32bit 48MHZ processor board that supports Arduino shields).


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## Jaybo (Mar 2, 2009)

I saw those XINO boards pop up on eBay a couple of weeks ago and have been wondering if they were any good. I'm very interested to see what you find out.

Here is the company's website: http://www.ciseco.co.uk/content/?page_id=1646


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## fritz42_male (May 5, 2009)

Why not buy an Arduino for $20?

Well if I could program in C I'd consider it.

However, I'm starting to look into shield based stuff but with the possibility of using a basic compiler to load the program into whichever processor is driving the shield.


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

I agree with Fritz - the picaxe is much easier to program. Not to mention the fact that if you're building a single purpose controller the picaxe can be _way_ less expensive.

I have nothing against the arduino, but the picaxe fits my needs better.


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

hedg12 said:


> I agree with Fritz - the picaxe is much easier to program. Not to mention the fact that if you're building a single purpose controller the picaxe can be _way_ less expensive.
> 
> I have nothing against the arduino, but the picaxe fits my needs better.


I use both Arduinos & Picaxes and find very little difference in programming difficulty. You do not have to know anything about C to program an Arduino. There are tons of free libraries (pre-compiled code if you will) to do just about anything you could imagine.

I just don't understand why anyone would make a Picaxe board with the same shield layout as an Arduino when you simply can't plug in a normal Arduino shield and expect it to work. Why not just develop a new Picaxe standard shield layout along with a line of Picaxe shields?


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

HomeyDaClown said:


> I use both Arduinos & Picaxes and find very little difference in programming difficulty. You do not have to know anything about C to program an Arduino. There are tons of free libraries (pre-compiled code if you will) to do just about anything you could imagine.
> 
> I just don't understand why anyone would make a Picaxe board with the same shield layout as an Arduino when you simply can't plug in a normal Arduino shield and expect it to work. Why not just develop a new Picaxe standard shield layout along with a line of Picaxe shields?


I suppose it's a matter of familiarity with the code - I've mainly used the picaxe stuff for fairly simple projects & find it easier to knock out a few simple lines of code than to find code snippets / libraries that might do what I want.

I do agree that having boards and shields that are the same physical format but not pin compatible could cause all sorts of confusion & makes no real sense. Maybe they have a surplus of blank boards...

I like the fact that there are all these boards available & there is steady development and improvement, but to me the real beauty of the picaxe (or pic, if you prefer) is the ability to create a simple controller that can provide the desired results for just a few dollars. I breadboarded a controller for the Technological Terror contest last year (never built it, but that's another story) that controlled the random run time of 2 black vent motors. The complete controller - voltage regulator, 08M, resistors, caps, & 2 tip120's - cost less than $7.00. That's not a big deal on it's own, but if I have 5 or 6 (or 10) props running similar controllers the savings over an arduino or prop1 for each prop adds up.


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

hedg12 said:


> I suppose it's a matter of familiarity with the code - I've mainly used the picaxe stuff for fairly simple projects & find it easier to knock out a few simple lines of code than to find code snippets / libraries that might do what I want.
> 
> I do agree that having boards and shields that are the same physical format but not pin compatible could cause all sorts of confusion & makes no real sense. Maybe they have a surplus of blank boards...
> 
> I like the fact that there are all these boards available & there is steady development and improvement, but to me the real beauty of the picaxe (or pic, if you prefer) is the ability to create a simple controller that can provide the desired results for just a few dollars. I breadboarded a controller for the Technological Terror contest last year (never built it, but that's another story) that controlled the random run time of 2 black vent motors. The complete controller - voltage regulator, 08M, resistors, caps, & 2 tip120's - cost less than $7.00. That's not a big deal on it's own, but if I have 5 or 6 (or 10) props running similar controllers the savings over an arduino or prop1 for each prop adds up.


Exactly,

When I want something very small to do a simple function, I grab a picaxe and as small a board as I can make (or no board in some cases). When I need lots of I/O lines and many functions or need to interface directly or host with USB, I grab an Arduino.

As far as the code goes it's really not that different. Although you can get as close to the core machine code on an Arduino if you need very fast processing. Same as picking a raw Pic instead of a Picaxe.

Blink an led on pin 4 of an Arduino:

void setup() 
{pinMode(4, OUTPUT);}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(4, HIGH); 
delay(1000); 
digitalWrite(4, LOW); 
delay(1000);}

Blink an led on pin 4 of a 18m2:

Start:
High B.4
pause 1000
Low B.4
pause 1000
Goto Start


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## fritz42_male (May 5, 2009)

I'm not going to argue wth Homey.....










He might not sell me that new 3-axis system!


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

fritz42_male said:


> I'm not going to argue wth Homey.....
> 
> He might not sell me that new 3-axis system!


Ut Oh!

Sorry, Not wanting an argument, just trying to be informative is all.
I know alot of people probably got these boards already hoping that the more popular Arduino shields were plug and play, only to find themselves dissapointed or confused.
The Xino creator has said that the coding for anything other than a simple relay or motor shield would not be worth the task. I think there would be a good market for a dedicated Picaxe development board with shields and example code to match.

Note to self: reserve TSL Twisty kit for Fritz


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## TheOneAndOnlyKelly (May 7, 2009)

fritz42_male said:


> Why not buy an Arduino for $20?
> 
> Well if I could program in C I'd consider it.
> 
> However, I'm starting to look into shield based stuff but with the possibility of using a basic compiler to load the program into whichever processor is driving the shield.


As a programmer, I have to pipe in here... "C" isn't hard. Once you understand the basics of programming, the only difference is syntax.


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## hedg12 (Jul 6, 2008)

It's always about the syntax...

I'm trying to teach myself ruby, but I find myself constantly reverting to python because it's what I know. If I did it every day I'm sure I'd have an easier time of it, but I only need to write scripts once in a great while. That's the same reason I stick with picaxe over arduino. The arduino's a great platform, but I don't need a controller that often & I learned picaxe basic first.

I'd love to learn C or one of it's variants, but I don't have a real need for it & learning something like that in the abstract (at least for me) is difficult at best.


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## hpropman (Jul 27, 2008)

I agree with Homey as to the Picaxe making its own shield system and boards (Revolution Or spark fun are you listening? Hint, clue, suggestion). This could be a whole new market for you. The picaxe is by far the easiest system to learn with. I have nothing against the Arduino it is a nice product in its own right but I feel that C does have a higher learning curve then basic especially with debugging. The speed advantage of the Arduino does not really matter for prop controller use anyway. If I ever need that kind of speed for an advanced prop then I would consider the Arduino or the Propeller chips but so far the Picaxe line can handle anything that I have come up with so far.


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## JeffHaas (Sep 7, 2010)

Revolution has just leaked an image of its own standard board + shield setup:

http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17777&page=9

Scroll down to see a picture embedded in a post.


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