ThePastRecedes wrote:
Hey, I'm new here but a post a little on OSG, madbean, and ILF.
I've just started my adventure with microcontrollers. I'm having a little play with my Arduino and I eventually plan to upload (right term?) the code to a microcontroller.
My n00b question is; would using a single microcontroller for relay switching and a LFO cause excess noise and/or reliability issues?
Well....I'm a noob too. I'm sort of working on something similar in so much as I'm trying to make the MCU do multiple functions at the same time without interrupting each other.
I really don't know anything about Arduino and I'm not sure if you would be capable of doing this in Arduino. Ironically, what you want to start learning about is called an "interrupt".
It needs to be done in assembly language for it to work well. Higher level languages like BASIC and Arduino can't seem to do it.
http://darreltaylor.com/DT_INTS-14/intro.html This is an example of some interrupt programs. Unfortunately for you, this example only works with the PBP compiler. With this, you upload the ASM program files to your compiler. These are called DEFINEs. You then write your code in whatever language your compiler uses, but you can write in commands to call these functions that are written in ASM. So, yes, you can make an mcu do more than one thing at once. In that example, there are interrupt programs for making the mcu recognize a button, and perform Pulse Width Modulation, which is exactly what you seem to want to do. There is probably something very similar to this for Arduino.
That being said, the cost of using 2 separate lower end mcu instead of using a single higher end mcu to do what you are proposing is probably a wash and would be much less complicated. Unless you're trying to do something with multiple relays that can save multiple LFO/loop presets, I'd look into keeping the two functions on separate mcu.
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