Spoilt.

stan74

Senior Member
Hello.I'm new to this forum.
I've only had a picaxe for a week but already have had programming help here.
I bought a Cybot 14 years ago just for the wheel motor gear boxes and built a light seeking
while avoiding obstacle robot.
It used a 16f876 chip and was programmed in assembler.
The programmer was home made and used the parallel printer port
but the software stopped working after Win xp.
Now with a picaxe I can do in minutes what would have taken hours.
I wrote an obstacle avoiding program with pwm motor control and IR sensors
using the picaxe for 38KHz for IR leds.With some help from hippy it was much easier than assembler.
I'm also amazed at the various sensor devices and how cheap they are,
no more hours with a soldering iron.
I just sent off for some Ping clone ultra sonic rx/tx modules for £1.95 each.
They're were time consuming and expensive to make yourself and weren't that good.
Well,not the ones I made.
I think I'm going to have fun with picaxe.
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
Now with a picaxe I can do in minutes what would have taken hours.
That is what first got me into PICAXE; reasonably priced chips, a very easy to use Basic language, no messing about with assembler, needing a programmer, or having to figure out which tools to use and jumping through hoops to make them work. Though I was doing that in my day job it wasn't what I wanted when using microcontrollers in what was meant to be a fun hobby. My first project was also using a PICAXE to drive a Cybot chassis though I never went as far as you have.

Things have got even easier with enhancements to the PICAXE range and PICAXE Editor and with cheaper modules becoming available.

The PICAXE design makes it easy to use and quick to develop with but does bring some limitations for projects which require very high-speed processing, but for most projects it is perfectly good for the job and PICAXE chips are cheap enough that using multiple PICAXE chips to achieve a task isn't a major obstacle.

It is still ideally suited to the educational role it was intended for, and is often used way beyond its original intent. Being able to program it using Basic, flowcharts, Blockly and Scratch, with the ability to simulate code ( and even hardware with PACAXE VSM ), it is accessible to people with a wide range of experience from newcomers and novices through to experts.

And, as you noted, help is always on hand. This forum is also one of the most friendly I have encountered and, as we at Rev-Ed have always acknowledged, credit goes to our members who take the time to help answer questions, share their knowledge, and help others with their projects.

So, many thanks for your kind words, and I think everyone here is delighted when able to help someone else succeed.
 

erco

Senior Member
Welcome stan74! Agreed, Picaxe takes the drudgery out of bot-building and makes it fun. Per hippy, this is a great forum to share info & discoveries and ask questions. Would love to see some pics and videos of your robots.
 

stan74

Senior Member
Speed isn't an issue yet.Assembler is no fun and if I was to use c++ then I'd go microchip compiler not arduino.
Here's a photo of my old bot that's now going nowhere.I built it from a spinning top and cybot motors.
At the time there was a site called http://www.robotbuilder.co.uk/ which is still going.
A guy called Nigel http://www.winpicprog.co.uk/ gave me a pic basic compiler he wrote but I lost it and he lost the floppies.SAM_1076.JPG
 
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