Hole in the market

Status
Not open for further replies.

Vic320

Member
I love the teensy 3.0. It's tiny, powerful, easy and cheap. I use it for every project, even ones that do not need all the power and features because, well, why not?

However, recently I have started to out grow the Teensy 3.0. I am doing projects that, for example use graphical displays and the Teensy, despite having the horsepower, just does not have the RAM or flash space (mostly the RAM) for this. I have gotten around these issues with some creative coding and even though this is fun to figure out, it's a lot of extra work. I have started looking around the market for a more powerful platform, or at least one with more RAM and flash and I have found a couple such as TI's Stellaris boards but TI is terrible at documentation and I've spent hours trying to get even "hello world" compiled and installed (this was not helped by the fact all there tools run on "winblows" while I run Mac). It seems that the next step up is something like a Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone which is way more power than I usually need, not to mention all the unneeded complexity and instability that comes with an fully blown OS.

What I am interested in is knowing if I am not alone here. Are there others that crave a board that fits between the Teensy 3.0 and Raspberry Pi? My dream platform would be a 32-bit ARM running at about 120MHz, about the same size as the Teensy boards and have at least 256KB or better yet, 512KB or 1MB of flash and at least 32K, preferably 64K or 128K of RAM and have the option for easily adding ethernet.

Paul, are you thinking about a Teensy 4.0? If so, you've got the specs...
 
Yes, a Teensy++ 3 and other future products are planned. At this point, I can't say anything other than they are coming....
 
I bought one of these
http://coldtearselectronics.wikispaces.com/USB+LCD+-+LCD+System+info (run the streaming video demo; hang in for 2nd clip... shows connected to USB of RPi)
for use with T3. Haven't had time to do so.
Was $30 or so as I recall.
Works well on windows PC with their software.

I have example source code for drivers for Linux/USB and Windows/USB... my intent is to use these as a model for how I might interface to the T3.
The T3 would have to be a USB host of some sort.. all TBD

It is possible to control 100% of what's on the screen. Some of the icons are built into the firmware within the display.

This would make a nice display for some embedded applications.
 
Last edited:
Obviously, Paul can't comment about Teensy 3.0++.

If you need something in the November/December time frame, the DigiX is about ready to start rolling out the sales to kickstarter backers: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digistump/digix-the-ultimate-arduino-compatible-board-with-w

Note, I did back this project and I expect to get it in a few weeks. But, I'm not expecting to use it for a lot of things, as I much prefer the Teensy. Part of it is this forum and the support Paul provides. I really prefer for instance to get a complete release, and not have to compile things to get them to work or edit things like avrdude.conf, which I've had to do in order to get the digistump/adafruit ATtiny85 chips to run. So, I'm looking forward to the Teensy 3.0++ whatever it may be.

Lets see:
  • 84 Mhz
  • 512K Flash, 96K SRAM, 4K EEPROM
  • 99 pins
  • Wifi builtin
  • nRF24L01+ builtin
  • USB on the go (USB-OTG)
  • Audio output
  • 4x UARTs, 2x I2C, SPI, CAN Bus, 2x DAC, JTAG, DMA
  • EEPROM
  • Kickstarter price of $59, but it will be higher at retail. However, the Yun/Galileo/Tre/Beaglebone Black may force them to keep the price in the $60-$75 range.
  • Not small

Given that digistump has gone from a $9 ATtiny85 product (digispark) to this Due clone with extra features, it may well be suffering from the second system effect (classic computer text from Fred Brooks that says in a second system, often times every bell and whistle that had to be junked in the first product to meet schedules/cost comes back with a vengence in the second system, and it is the most dangerous system a designer can design).
 
Last edited:
What I am interested in is knowing if I am not alone here. Are there others that crave a board that fits between the Teensy 3.0 and Raspberry Pi? My dream platform would be a 32-bit ARM running at about 120MHz, about the same size as the Teensy boards and have at least 256KB or better yet, 512KB or 1MB of flash and at least 32K, preferably 64K or 128K of RAM and have the option for easily adding ethernet.

rest assured you're alone. in lots of audio applications, for example, RAM is a major bottleneck too. hardware floating points, too, would make life easier at times. so good to know there's a teensy 3++ coming.
 
How is Arduino Due's compatibility with most Arduino libraries, as in not the ones that come with the Arduino IDE?
Since I don't own a Due, I don't know. Though I did get at least one of the Adafruit libraries not work initially when I put it on the Teensy, since they assumed that if you weren't an AVR, you must be using a Due, and furthermore, you would be using the second i2c device and not the primary i2c device (Wire1 vs. Wire).

I do wonder how many Due's and/or shields were fried, due to the voltage differential between an older shield that was not 3.3v tolerant.
 
I love the teensy 3.0. It's tiny, powerful, easy and cheap. I use it for every project, even ones that do not need all the power and features because, well, why not?

However, recently I have started to out grow the Teensy 3.0. I am doing projects that, for example use graphical displays and the Teensy, despite having the horsepower, just does not have the RAM or flash space (mostly the RAM) for this. I have gotten around these issues with some creative coding and even though this is fun to figure out, it's a lot of extra work. I have started looking around the market for a more powerful platform, or at least one with more RAM and flash and I have found a couple such as TI's Stellaris boards but TI is terrible at documentation and I've spent hours trying to get even "hello world" compiled and installed (this was not helped by the fact all there tools run on "winblows" while I run Mac). It seems that the next step up is something like a Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone which is way more power than I usually need, not to mention all the unneeded complexity and instability that comes with an fully blown OS.

My advice would be to switch to the Raspberry Pi since the Teensy 3++ is bound to be very close to its price tag. The RP Model A is a full-fledged Linux computer which you can hook up to a monitor and keyboard.

Most people seem to forget that for anything of even moderate complexity software debugging capability is a must. Teensy's USB 'print' is a blessing, but insufficient for larger projects. With a RP you can have full source-code debugging without the need for an external system.
 
Last edited:
Need video? EVE

FT800 chip from FTDI that was recently released and someone is making a library current for the gameduino 2 that is currently in kickstarter. The eve click that I linked above is only 3.3v compliant unless you add a level shifter but that tiny chip acan do some awesome LCD stuff while allowing your teensy 3 to do all the main stuff.

Gameduino 2 <-- kickstarter showing off video of what this chip can do using a simple arduino. Currently he is writing the library for the ft800... which hopefully will be pretty awesome!
 
Last edited:
Yes, a Teensy++ 3 and other future products are planned. At this point, I can't say anything other than they are coming....

Glad to hear that there is a Teensy++ 3 in the works and I'll be excited to see what it can do. It's probably not cool to talk about competing products on your board but I just wanted to point out the Spark Core (https://www.spark.io) if you are not familiar with it. If this board came with a little more RAM/flash and in a bluetooth version, then it would be really awesome...
 
It's generally ok to talk about competitive products here, as long as they're not "spammy". The one spammy case that seems to actually happen involves backers or supporters promoting their live kickstarter projects. Robin does the moderation stuff on this forum, so usually it's her call. Usually she reviews new registrations and deletes obvious spammers before they post and bans blocks of IP numbers they're using, rather than reading through technical conversation for messages that obviously aren't spam (her ongoing efforts nobody sees and 2 filters we use are the reason there's so little spam here). If multiple people start clicking that little "Report Post" icon, then it's almost certainly spam!

Like so many other people, I backed the Spark Core project. My opinion of it so far can be summed up by only 1 word: LATE. Yeah, I know that's pretty much standard for Kickstarter. I too was late on some rewards on my 1 and (so far) only Kickstarter project, but only by 1 day past my promise. I had originally backed Spark Core based on a notion they would be among the first to ship the CC3000. Since then, of course I got the Adafruit breakout, Adafruit published a library, I patched it for Teensy and they've accepted my changes. Since then, I'm not as enthusiastic.

I just took another Spark Core just now. Looks like they're now saying early November for shipping most rewards. Seems pretty likely they'll slip farther. But when they do finally ship, will it be useful with Arduino? I must confess, I haven't followed their developments closely. But the stuff I have seen has all been about the hardware. Have they written sometime substantial about their software side? All I've seen so far is stuff about a web-based I/O interface. Even that appears to have zero code published so far. I just looked at their github, which also appears to be only hardware files. Then again, everybody knows what happens when an open hardware project publishes code before hardware! Still, my suspicion is Spark Core will ship without much Arduino support, perhaps only a copy of the old stuff from Maple? But perhaps they've actually done a lot of amazing work and it'll be highly compatible with Arduino sketches and libraries, or have excellent non-Arduino software. Time will tell, perhaps even next month if their schedule doesn't slip again?
 
Last edited:
By kickstarter standards, I'm not sure a 1 day delay counts. One of the kickstarter projects that I backed managed to ship just days shy of their one year anniversary of the promised delivery date.
 
Sign of a great product, does not mind comparison to the competitive field. Teensy is a great product...

Back to thread:

Maybe a K60 Teensy, high end features with claimed backward compatibility to the K20.
Would love to see a K60 + CPLD/FPGA on the FlexBus. Arduino + FPGA might be cool.

--Mitch
 
By kickstarter standards, I'm not sure a 1 day delay counts. One of the kickstarter projects that I backed managed to ship just days shy of their one year anniversary of the promised delivery date.

Exactly! There was another ARM 3 board on Kickstarter that basically started at the same time as Teensy3. They started shipping 4-6 months after Teensy3. At that time we already had a functioning product in the first projects with a lot of libraries already working.
 
Paul! The Teensy 3.1 is PERFECT (at least it's spec sheet is - don't have one yet)!! THANK YOU!! This is exactly what I needed to get my project off the ground!! YOU ROCK!!!
 
There was another ARM 3 board on Kickstarter that basically started at the same time as Teensy3. They started shipping 4-6 months after Teensy3. At that time we already had a functioning product in the first projects with a lot of libraries already working.

And that my dear friends is the difference between yet another ARM project on kickstarter and Teensy. Paul delivers the goods and the software to run them, a rare combination. This innate understanding between software and hardware is likely the reason that other projects so easily fail - someone might be talented re: the hardware but fall on their face with software or vice versa. But MCUs require an understanding of both since there aren't several layers of abstraction between the hardware and the software running the MCU. As frustrating as devleoping code under such circumstances is, it's also immensely gratifying to see something work after all that labor.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but I have no interest in exploring other platforms - these Teensy 3 MCUs are so fast and powerful, they're running circles around my projects.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top