Adventures in TinyAVR 1-Series

DavidEF · 2019-03-12T01:54:32.000Z

gchart:

reserved… Justin Case

Well I’m subbed… Justin Case! :laughing:

WTF · 2019-03-12T02:12:08.000Z

Once upon a time Wight made one of these adapters to replace a pic with an attiny. OSH Park ~

Could a similar adapter board be made to convert the 25, 45, and 85 SOIC footprint to a 20 pin QFN footprint of a 1616?

Consider the size of the SOIC package with space for the programming clip. Take that footprint and cram the QFN package to one corner and in the opposite corner make a three pin L shaped programming port. The programming key would have two pins on one side of a printed circuit board and one on the other. If there is space left over and the trace routing isn’t horrible a few I/O pads could be made. Probably not enough space for a crystal but an accurate clock would be nice.

Newer drivers could have the programming ports on the spring side. The L shaped layout would make it impossible to put the key on the wrong way.

I know it won’t be as easy as it sounds, but it would be nice if it could happen.

clientequator · 2019-03-13T18:03:15.000Z

I think I recall mr Mike C is using the Attiny1617 for his flashlight driver projects also! I think this is related to new AVR1 series because it also has updi?

gchart · 2019-03-13T18:26:39.000Z

Is he? Last I checked in with him I think he was using the 1634, which is the older style, but is a QFN footprint.

WTF · 2019-03-14T03:17:55.000Z

Pretty sure Mike is using the 1634, before that he was using the 841. As far as I know gchart is the first one here to use anything with updi.

I’m surprised this isn’t getting more attention. People around here seem to have wanted more pins and memory for a long time but it’s always been the chicken and egg story. Why build a driver using an mcu no one has written firmware for and how do you develop firmware without any hardware to test with?

Without having to use Atmel ice, programming these new drivers is surprisingly cheap. It’ll be even cheaper if usbasp can support updi, and from what gchart is saying that is not too far away. If an adapter board can be made any driver can be converted for cheap. I believe the 1616 is cheaper than an 85 and a tiny driver adapter board at Oshpark should only be a couple bucks for three. The explained board and the total cost of three programming keys wouldn’t be much more than a Ponoma clip. I know how easy it is to wear out a Ponoma clip but I can’t imagine wearing out a programming key.

More I/O pins and up to four times as much memory, the new one series looks good.

gchart · 2019-03-14T03:30:34.000Z

I will say, I don’t have any fancy tools (no hot air station or reflow oven) and no stencils yet, so these VQFN have been a pain to solder. I imagine they’ll get easier as I get more experience. The 412 has been easy-peasy of course.

Speaking of programming keys…

Mike_C · 2019-03-15T08:07:31.000Z

WTF:

Pretty sure Mike is using the 1634, before that he was using the 841.

That’s correct. Besides more memory I found that the 1634 was far better suited for OTSM than the 841, low power operations are much better.

WTF:

I’m surprised this isn’t getting more attention.

Not me, not any more. I thought that more would be interested in moving over to 16kb MCUs because I was reading about interest in the 1616 and 1617 about the time I started using the 1634. That was quite some time ago, but to my knowledge nothing happened.

I’m quite happy with the 1634. Believe or not I’ve actually made a driver that uses every single IO on it, but what has my interest is the three pin UDPI programming. That might very well get me on to the 1616 or 3217. I’m some what reserved though, the reason why I went with the 1634 is because it’s 4x4mm with 20 pins. The pin density is high enough, I’ve had some issues with amount of solder paste on them but I seem to have got it dialed now. The 1616 has 20 pins crammed in on 3x3mm, and the 1617/3217 have 24 pins crammed in on 4x4mm. I can’t say I’m looking forward to building drivers with them… I’ve looked for 4x4mm QFN 20 pin options with at least 16kb and UDPI but didn’t find anything. I won’t move over to anything less than 16kb regardless of other benefits so my own options are limited, but gchart’s work with UDPI is something I’m following with great interest.

Microa · 2019-03-18T02:29:04.000Z

Hi gchart,
How to wire the 412 for your RampingIOS ?
PIN 1 VCC
PIN 2 SW
PIN 3 —-
PIN 4 PWM
PIN 5 ATL
PIN 6 UPDI
PIN 7 —-
PIN 8 GND

WTF · 2019-03-18T03:16:03.000Z

Mike C:

That’s correct. Besides more memory I found that the 1634 was far better suited for OTSM than the 841, low power operations are much better.

Not me, not any more. I thought that more would be interested in moving over to 16kb MCUs because I was reading about interest in the 1616 and 1617 about the time I started using the 1634. That was quite some time ago, but to my knowledge nothing happened.

I’m quite happy with the 1634. Believe or not I’ve actually made a driver that uses every single IO on it, but what has my interest is the three pin UDPI programming. That might very well get me on to the 1616 or 3217. I’m some what reserved though, the reason why I went with the 1634 is because it’s 4x4mm with 20 pins. The pin density is high enough, I’ve had some issues with amount of solder paste on them but I seem to have got it dialed now. The 1616 has 20 pins crammed in on 3x3mm, and the 1617/3217 have 24 pins crammed in on 4x4mm. I can’t say I’m looking forward to building drivers with them… I’ve looked for 4x4mm QFN 20 pin options with at least 16kb and UDPI but didn’t find anything. I won’t move over to anything less than 16kb regardless of other benefits so my own options are limited, but gchart’s work with UDPI is something I’m following with great interest.

I always thought it was the cost of programming equipment and that held back use of the updi mcu’s, its not the first time I’ve been wrong.

I just soldered the pogo pins on a six pin Harley Quinn programming key. Even with the vias to locate the pins I need a little magnification to line things up. It’s 100 times nicer than using a Ponoma clip. Gchart’s little three pin key would be even better. Would love to figure out a way to attach one to a dial indicator stand.

I’m not sure how gchart is soldering his mcu’s without a hot plate or hot air station, that can’t be easy. I have most of the parts for a GXB172 driver so I’ll be finding out how hard soldering qfn packages is pretty soon. It looks like trying to toothpick the solder in place will be a disaster. I’m hoping thinning down some solder paste with some liquid flux and smearing it around will work OK. Bought a couple spare MCU’s to practice with, trashing boost converters will get expensive.

Do you think putting some vias near the center of the chip to give excess solder a place to go would help?

gchart · 2019-03-18T03:40:35.000Z

WTF:

I’m not sure how gchart is soldering his mcu’s without a hot plate or hot air station, that can’t be easy.

I’ve been using a hot plate. Not perfect, but better than just using an iron. I just ordered my first stencils, hopefully those will make these QFN chips easier.

gchart · 2019-03-18T03:49:05.000Z

Microa:

Hi gchart,
How to wire the 412 for your RampingIOS ?
PIN 1 VCC
PIN 2 SW
PIN 3 —-
PIN 4 PWM
PIN 5 ATL
PIN 6 UPDI
PIN 7 —-
PIN 8 GND

This image is labeled for my current setup: [Review] 77 Outdoors D25 Headlamp (18650) - #2 by gchart

Changing pins for PWM, Switch, and adding ALT PWM should all be doable in the tk-attiny.h file except for PWM output also needs to be enabled for specific pins at the top of int main(): set TCA0.SINGLE.CTRLB to enable the correct compare channel(s). You might need to reference the 402 datasheet to map the waveform/compare out to pin assignments (the 412 datasheet is missing some of these details).

Mike_C · 2019-03-18T03:54:08.000Z

WTF:

I’m not sure how gchart is soldering his mcu’s without a hot plate or hot air station, that can’t be easy.

The 412 that qchart is using is not QFN package, it’s SOIC with legs.

WTF:

Do you think putting some vias near the center of the chip to give excess solder a place to go would help?

I usually have a couple of vias in there, and paste does sip through, but I don’t know how helpful it is. I just do it for connection to GND plane.

gchart · 2019-03-18T04:00:01.000Z

Mike C:

The 412 that qchart is using is not QFN package, it’s SOIC with legs.

True, but I’ve also been using the 416 and 817 which are both QFN.

Mike_C · 2019-03-18T04:27:24.000Z

gchart:

True, but I’ve also been using the 416 and 817 which are both QFN.

Aha, alrighty. Using a hot plate.

I’ve been using stencils for a long time. I got sick of pasting by hand real fast. If I decided to work overtime the same amount of time I save with stencils, the stencils would pay for themselves multiple times over.

Tom_E · 2019-03-19T14:45:03.000Z

This is a great ref source for everything ATtiny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATtiny_microcontroller_comparison_chart

You should add this in the OP.

gchart · 2019-03-19T15:00:26.000Z

Tom E:

This is a great ref source for everything ATtiny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATtiny_microcontroller_comparison_chart

You should add this in the OP.

Yeah, I’ve found that to be very helpful. I just added that and a couple other sources as a “Chip Information” section in the OP.

gchart · 2019-05-23T21:30:42.000Z

Well… at this point, I’ve ported RampingIOS to run on the Series-1 chips (ATtiny412 / 416 / 817 / etc). That was pretty easy as almost everything was pretty self-contained. And I’ve created a couple drivers from scratch using that setup with good luck.

But now it’s time to try and tackle to larger, but more popular options… Andúril/FSM and NarsilM, here we come! I dunno exactly when I’ll get around to porting the code, but I made a development board for the ATtiny816 (or 1616 / 3216). Basically the same at the 817 except it’s 20 pin instead of 24; I don’t plan on need 24 pins anytime soon. Instead of running through regulators or FETs, I’m just using the MCU output to run the LED (limited with resistors). Since this is just for testing, I don’t need it to be bright… actually, bright is bad because I’d just be blinding myself.

DavidEF · 2019-05-23T21:57:32.000Z

Thanks for the post here. One more thing: Not sharing the new dev boards?

gchart · 2019-05-23T22:21:34.000Z

I just noticed I forgot an aux LED. Updating the board in a little bit and will share it then.

gchart · 2019-05-24T13:47:14.000Z

Alrighty… Aux LED has been added and boards re-ordered. Linky