EEVblog #1132 - The 3 Cent Microcontroller!

Taking a look at a sub 3 cent microcontroller, and other obscure Chinese manufactures, how to find them, and were to get them in stock.

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[pq]

Please do a project with one of those! :-D

[TheDefpom]

Buy them Dave... it looks like a great item.

[Schwuuuuup]

I'd love to see you doing a video about that. But not only to prove, that 3ct chips work (we already know that) but more how usable they are.
Tinkerers will have a Problem with them being one time programmable, so I would look if there are flash-variants for Development. (I don't want to solder in a new mcu, when I change my code)
Also these 3ct jobbies are a bit limited, maybe try a bigger one from the same family or one that is compatible with the same programmer you can go back to smaller/cheaper chips easily, when you realize that you don't need as much pins, but being one pin short can be a pain in the backside, if there isn't a bigger chip.

In conclusion I would say that I'm much more interested in the tool-chain that in shaving off half a cent of the price.

And If you are getting somewhere usable, consider to split it in two (or more) videos: 1. your journey what you found and how and 2. a how-to that others can follow learning from your experience in the field

Thanks for the great work you are doing.
TOM

[Brutaltronics]

Let's make some cheap ass projects with the tiniest budget possible

[repatch]

The "nop" is required when dealing with RMW (read-modify-write) ports, if you set a bit on an IO port, and then set another bit, what the hardware does for the second write is read back the port value, modify it, and write it back. The problem is if the IO line you previously set is capacitivly loaded the read back on the second write instruction might still see a "0", and the write back will clear that bit, nullifying the first write. This is a common problem in earlier PIC microcontrollers that didn't have a shadow buffer for the port drivers.

[testep]

The 6 thumbs down are from Mouser, DigiKey, Texas Instruments, Microchip, NXP, and Atmel :)

[TheAmmoniacal]

I challenge you to make a LED blinky with this 3 cent micro!

[freeman]

I don't have a clue what these chips do, or how to use them, but I just bought 10, 000 because they are such a deal.

[movaxh]

This MCU with embedded fonts in mask rom is awesome! A lot of characters, sizes, including Unicode. You can't even do that on your standard Arduino.

[eav]

I just made ~200$ order from them, i hope this will be game changer since DigiKey, Mouser... and some other companies simply ignore countries like Bosnia and they have default shipping cost of 120EUR even for a few parts of 10-20$. Also, the cost of same package to Croatia, Slovenia or Austria can be optimizes to ~15-20EUR and those are basically same region countries. I tried to reach them and suggest them to optimize that but so far nothing...

Local dealers charge about 3-5 (stupid 4017 decade counter costs 1-1.5 EURO here!!!) times and sometimes even more for anything and there is also no quantity discounts.. So i HAVE to find good online store if i want to do anything.

[Zadster]

Challenge: Make an 8-pin dip version behave like a 555!

[xbipins]

i developed a motion sensing passage light controller using one of these asian chips and must say they work great for the price and if you contact the company they will help you over skype no matter what issue. i really want you to buy one of these micro controller and develop a product with it. I have been buying from LCSC for branded parts and they are a lot cheaper for branded stuff as well considering the place where I live digikey etc charge like $70 for shipping whereas LCSC can send you over registered mail for a lot less. Recently started buying from arrow for free shpping but LCSC at times is cheaper for samsung, rubycon etc capacitors and other branded company connectors etc

[RDarrylR]

I’ve bought a lot of components from that site. They are very fast at shipping and I typically get the shipments in 2-3 days to Canada (via DHL)

Yes some of it is subpar quality but most is just fine. I’ve saved a bundle compared to Digi-Key orders.

[jdholmes]

I can't wait to see the development of a programmed chip start to finish, that would be an awesome bit of internet learning for us...

[mooksdfe]

Tip: You can open a new tab by holding ctrl on your keyboard and clicking a link. Or you can just click on the link with the middle mouse button. No need to open up context menu. Nice overview by the way.

[zlac]

If you're left with enough flash "empty", you can "reprogram" them if you use assembler!
Insert some "jump if" that can be converted to "jump if not" with blank address for the jump (or similar) before every piece of code.
When you need the "bugfix", you convert the "jump if" to "jump if not" and use the blank line to insert an address for fixed piece of code that you put at the end of program (with new jump and everything). This way you can bugfix and insert new code as long as you have flash left!:)

[shasterdhari]

Oh please do a video on this. It'd be great if you could show the process of programming these (even if it's just a screen recording of you doing so).

[tecollins]

Do it Dave! Watching your design/engineer processes is really enlightening.

[SolaLupus]

Would be nice to reverse engineer the programmer so that anybody can cheaply make one

[PINKFLYD-sh]

Your interest is infectious! When you are in a PCB factory going into the ins and outs gets me smiling ☺