Concussion and Arduinos.

[Robin Graham]

On Robin Graham Said:

…
Dave- it wasn’t the BOOTSEL thing that caused the failure to upload with the Arduino standard package.  I too had been tripped up with that earlier and used the correct method.  I don’t know what went wrong …

 

Robin

We’re having a violent agreement!   It is a BOOTSEL thing in the sense that following the instructions can foul up too!

Most microcontrollers supported by the Arduino IDE switch automatically into load mode when required.  The process is reliable and seamless.   The RP2040 is one of a few exceptions, in that the switch isn’t automatic, and isn’t completely reliable.  I develop on Ubuntu, and uploading to a RP2040 occasionally crashes the USB link.   The cure is to exit the IDE, unplug the 2040 and then restart the IDE after a short wait,  giving the operating system time to reset the mangled USB connection.

Dave

 

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

To draw a line under this thread for me for now at least , I have learned that there are many ways to skin this cat.  Arduino, ESP and RPi seem to be best supported for the amateur, though other options are available. All have their pros and cons at the hardware level and there are different strategies for programming them, all of which have strengths and weaknesses at the software level. So whilst the count of the ends of the branches of the decision tree probably doesn’t approach the Shannon number it’s still complicated!

I’ve ended up going down the RPi pico / PicoSDK C route myself.  I suppose that’s a journey vs destination thing. It’s probably  a terrible path for anyone who just wants stuff to work but personally I had much more satisfaction from coding a bit-bang 1 wire interface to the DS18B20 thermometer which Dave mentioned earlier than I got from knowing how hot my room was.

Robin.

 

 

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