18 SERVO 01.2014
because I can use the MPIDE Arduino
compatible IDE to quickly lash up
projects. Many Arduino sketches run
unmodified on chipKIT boards; others
require small changes because of the
different architecture.
There are 33 available I/O lines,
two hardware UARTs, and a USB
programming connector. There are
even two PMOD connectors for use
with Digilent’s huge collection of
PMOD options. At $29, it isn’t the
cheapest tiny Arduino out there, but
it is the most powerful!
The second new chipKIT board
is the WF32 chipKIT board. The
WF32 runs the PIC32MX695F512L
32-bit microcontroller with 512K of
Flash program space and 128K RAM
at 80 MHz. It has a USB OTG
connector, Wi-Fi module, uSD card
slot, 43 I/O lines, and — you get the
picture — lots of stuff. The board is
slightly smaller than their chipKIT
MAX32 board (see Figure 2) but
has nearly as much capability as the
Wi-Fi board stack comprised of a
Digilent UNO32/Wi-Fi Shield/Basic
I/O Shield combination (Figure 3).
This looks like the board to use
for a “roll your own” wireless
controller using the Digilent Wi-Fi web
server stack that I talked about back
in my November 2012 column. I’m
going to see if it will run on this
board with minimal changes.
This board is more expensive
than the typical Arduino at $69, but
for that you get a TON of program
and data memory, uSD card,
Wi-Fi module, and a USB OTG
connection, for whatever you can
think of.
The MPIDE that these boards
use for Arduino compatibility is fully
open source and is under continual
development at Rutgers University
and Digilent. I may be talking about
these boards more in the future (as
soon as I get the time!).
Well, that’s it for another Mr.
Roboto. I hope you learned
something that you needed to know
or were inspired to go out and try
something new. As usual, if you
have any questions about robotics,
please send them to roboto@
servomagazine.com and I’ll do my
best to answer them. Until next
month, keep building robots!! SV
Figure 3.
Figure 2.
