Hey guys,
This is my first post here and I am a total newby when it comes to controllers. I have a delay pedal that allows me to tap in the tempo of the repeats via a momentary footswitch. While this pedal has an LED that flashes to the tempo, it does not have a screen that displays the tempo. I would like add a screen to this pedal and through my research I have found that I need a micro controller, but i cannot find which one I need. Any tips, advice, or controller recommendations?
Thanks!
Micro controller for BPM counter
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Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
- adafruit_support_mike
- Posts: 67446
- Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm
Re: Micro controller for BPM counter
How big and fancy do you want the display to be?
Starting from the simplest and moving up, we have 7-segment LED displays, LCD displays, and TFT displays.
Starting from the simplest and moving up, we have 7-segment LED displays, LCD displays, and TFT displays.
- adsmith47
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2014 9:12 am
Re: Micro controller for BPM counter
Not fancy at all. i have looked at your displays (killer colors) and i only need a 4 digit alpha numeric display at the most. I want to use this one https://www.adafruit.com/products/2157.
- adafruit_support_mike
- Posts: 67446
- Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm
Re: Micro controller for BPM counter
Okay, that makes things a lot simpler.
The easiest microcontroller board for a beginner is the Arduino Uno:
https://www.adafruit.com/products/50 - just the Arduino
https://www.adafruit.com/products/193 - Arduino plus a few extras
https://www.adafruit.com/products/68 - Arduino and lots of extras
and while you may not want to put the whole Arduino in a project, it's a good place to test a circuit and get things working.
Once you have the code and display working the way you want, you can move to a 5v Pro Trinket:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2000
which uses the same microcontroller as an Arduino Uno, but is designed to be built into a project.
There are some small differences between the Uno and the Pro Trinket (the Pro Trinket doesn't have a couple of output pins that the Uno does, and you need a special cable to make Serial.print() debugging work), but they're easy to work around.
We also have a series of tutorials to help you get used to the Arduino here:
https://learn.adafruit.com/category/learn-arduino
They start simple and work up through a range of jobs that tend to show up in most projects.
Once you're comfortable with that, we have a tutorial showing how to connect the quad alphanumeric display to an Arduino:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-led ... phanumeric
You can use that to get started, then tweak the code to make it do what you want.
The easiest microcontroller board for a beginner is the Arduino Uno:
https://www.adafruit.com/products/50 - just the Arduino
https://www.adafruit.com/products/193 - Arduino plus a few extras
https://www.adafruit.com/products/68 - Arduino and lots of extras
and while you may not want to put the whole Arduino in a project, it's a good place to test a circuit and get things working.
Once you have the code and display working the way you want, you can move to a 5v Pro Trinket:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2000
which uses the same microcontroller as an Arduino Uno, but is designed to be built into a project.
There are some small differences between the Uno and the Pro Trinket (the Pro Trinket doesn't have a couple of output pins that the Uno does, and you need a special cable to make Serial.print() debugging work), but they're easy to work around.
We also have a series of tutorials to help you get used to the Arduino here:
https://learn.adafruit.com/category/learn-arduino
They start simple and work up through a range of jobs that tend to show up in most projects.
Once you're comfortable with that, we have a tutorial showing how to connect the quad alphanumeric display to an Arduino:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-led ... phanumeric
You can use that to get started, then tweak the code to make it do what you want.
- adsmith47
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2014 9:12 am
Re: Micro controller for BPM counter
awesome! thanks!
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.