I’ve been playing with the Atmel series of micro processor chips lately, specifically the ATtiny84 microprocessor. This is a 14 pin DIP chip that despite it’s size is actually quite powerful. You can download the free Atmel Studio 6 and use a low cost programmer like the Pololu AVR usb programmer ($20) and do C code. Quite a lot of fun.
I’ve managed to get a small code set working that uses nothing but the standard libraries included with Atmel Studio. It reads 6 channels of R/C from a generic airplane type radio control and breaks each channel down to an integer between 900 and 2000. I get a micro second resolution using the stock internal 8mhz clock, no external components at all! Very cool.
One thing that I thought was very handy- the Pololu USB AVR programmer has this nifty little application called SLOSCOPE. It turns two pins on the programmer into inputs for a light duty oscilloscope! Works great, I can see the R/C pulses and watch them change widths as I move the joysticks.
