What reasons to buy Max32 over Uno boards?

Created Wed, 10 Apr 2013 05:40:37 +0000 by light

light

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 05:40:37 +0000

I am thinking over whether to buy the Max32 or Uno board.

Reasons to buy Max32

• Have extra hardware interfaces like USB, CAN and Ethernet. But are the libraries working?
• More flash and RAM

Reasons not to buy Max32

• more expensive
• perhaps poorer library support

Did I miss out anything else?

majenko

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 08:41:05 +0000

AFAIK there is no library support for on-board USB. That doesn't mean to say you can't use it, if you know what you're doing, but USB is not an easy system to program in these chips.

The main thing you get with the MAX32 is more RAM, more Flash, and more IO ports. Yes, there are extra peripherals - more serial, more I²C, more SPI, and that is all useful stuff, but the big thing is the huge RAM and Flash space - it allows you to really spread your wings and fly :)

EmbeddedMan

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:06:13 +0000

Not quite true. We have library support for USB serial, and it works quite well. Future USB libraries will have increased throughput, but even now it does better than 2Mbps serial.

*Brian

WestfW

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 05:39:09 +0000

whether to buy the Max32 or Uno board.

Shouldn't you be comparing Uno32 against Uno, or Max32 against MEGA? That way the chipKits would become "less expensive."

No one has mentioned "ChipKits are Faster" ?

OTOH, I don't think it's fair to say that the Max32 has Ethernet or USB; the chip has that support, but you need additional hardware (ethernet Phy, USB connector) to get at it, which were implemented by relatively expensive shield (having Ethenert phy, plus USB, plus CAN transceivers.)

majenko

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 08:46:02 +0000

I assumed (maybe wrongly, who knows?) that the OP was comparing the max32 with the uno32. That's how the question reads to me.

WestfW

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:06:46 +0000

I assumed [we were] comparing the max32 with the uno32.

Oh! Could be. Except I don't think the "poorer library support" comment would apply? Except for the peripherals that aren't present at all on Uno32, Uno32 and Max32 should have about the same level of library support...

majenko

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:21:26 +0000

That is exactly what I was thinking, that it was the extra peripherals that would have the worse library support.

majenko

Sun, 26 May 2013 18:55:07 +0000

Not quite true. We have library support for USB serial, and it works quite well. Future USB libraries will have increased throughput, but even now it does better than 2Mbps serial. *Brian

My google-fu is usually pretty good, but I have drawn a complete blank for this.

Can you point me in the direction of the USB serial library, so I don't have to go through the rigmarole of porting the RetroBSD driver (which is based on the MCP sources)?

majenko

Sun, 26 May 2013 20:25:30 +0000

Actually, don't worry - I ported the RetroBSD one in the end.