I've got a fairly simple project that I'm needing some guidance.

I want to have a remote control that reads an potentiometer & transmit the data to a controller nearby. This is for a beekeeping project I'm working on. I don't want a one-off thing, I'm probably going to make about 50 of them. I've used microchip parts in past projects. Preferable something that I can solder (avoiding BGA if possible).

I'd love to find a single chip that can take an analog input and transmit the level every maybe 0.1 seconds. And I'll need a second chip over on the controller board that can communicate via I2C the reading to my microcontroller & respond accordingly.

Any recommendations for parts to use?

(reference: I'm a EE, but from back in the 80's, not keeping up with all the new bells/whistles... so I'm not up on Bluetooth, but I can do board layouts & soldering & such)
Thanks.

 

Take a look at Cypress BLE and Bluetooth offerings -

https://www.cypress.com/products/ble-bluetooth


Some short videos on basics -

https://www.cypress.com/video-libra...mable-system-chip-bluetooth-low-energy/108231


https://github.com/cypresssemiconductorco/PSoC-4-BLE 100 Projects in 100 days


A Cypress PSOC chip, ARM + Analog, makes it easy to do the control + the mixed signal.

Attached is a catalog of onchip resources (varies by part) available to user.


Regards, Dana.

http://www.cypress.com/products/psoc-4-ble-bluetooth-smart

http://www.cypress.com/blog/problem-solver/100-projects-100-days-psoc-4-ble

http://www.cypress.com/products/ez-ble-and-ez-bt-bluetooth-modules

http://www.cypress.com/products/32-bit-arm-cortex-m4-psoc-6

 

Dana,

How good are Cypress programming tools?

Again, my reference is Microchip. Their stuff is a huge pain, I spent easily half my time dealing with bugs in their development tools compared to working out my project issues. It'd be a new learning curve, but I'm open to finding a new microcontroller company.
Thx

 

I have not done BT except to look at some very basic stuff. But I do
regularly use PSOC Creator for their other PSOC stuff and very much
like it. Its right up there with Freescale Code Warrior I used in the past
and liked. Depth and capability for both.

PSOC Creator is free, its GUI drag and drop components, route them to
each other and outside world (pins), right click and config/open datasheet
to look at the myriad of API calls they have for use in code. Very well
layed out, extensive tools, like clock tool for whole chip, DMA wizard, tools
for component configuration that are more complex like CapSense, DFB
tool (Digital Filter Block), State Machine Wizard.....

Tons of example projects to draw from.

One tip, when opening projects often you will find they need their components
used to be updated to current version of Creator, as many were developed in
earlier versions of Creator. So a click away is an auto update of the components
in the project. Simple, just throws people the first time when they go to compile
and Compiler complains about outdated components.

Attached is a list of components in PSOC (its one that I did, its outdated, does
not show the BT components which exist) for the 5LP family of parts. The lower
end parts, like PSOC 4, a subset. A component is an onchip resource. Lots of
analog stuff.

https://www.cypress.com/products/psoc-creator-integrated-design-environment-ide

https://www.cypress.com/video-library/PSoC-Software/psoc-creator-101-lesson-1-introduction-0/108116

First link shows PSOC 6 (BT) oriented videos for Creator, second a series on general
PSOC families and Creator.

Here is a DFB project, note resources used window on right not much used. Again
all on one chip.




Regards, Dana.

 

Here is an example of one of the config tools, for the DFB in this case -



Regards, Dana.

 

Here is a roadmap for PSOC. I include because a few pages in each family
shows a block diagram of onchip capabilities, a quick summary of whats
in the chip.

https://www.cypress.com/file/151476/download

PSOC, most families, have a UDB array, Universal Digital Blocks. think
FPGA, where advanced components use blocks in this array to create the
HW. For example a request was made to cram as many UARTS and have them
route on one chip. As I recall I got 18 in one of the 5LP parts. A bit of a fools
errand as I did not evaluate for requester how well the traffic was going to
get managed with all that DMA activity, eg. impact on speed.....

To answer the bug question, yes Cypress has had bugs, you will see revision
history for each component. Some are bugs, others are enhancements. In
general I would say their release process pretty tight. And they have a very
active forum on their website with some super capable supporters if you run
into problems.

Regards, Dana.