Hi in a previous video which I'll link in down below at the end. If you haven't seen it and I'm sure you have because like a hundred thousand people watched, it seemed very popular. This paddle if I'm still pronouncing that correctly. Paddle: three cent microcontroller that you can buy from LCS see here: I won't go through.

but even if you look even in three hundred quantity under three cents each for a little eight pin or a sock 23 package micro can eat bit microcontroller not flash, but like one time only. programmable but three under three cents each. Remarkable. Anyway, and one of the questions was from the video after I did that video, apparently they completely sold out.

There was nothing left on the website. They do actually have more in stock, so a lot of people asked, well is it was it just a one-time buy and stuff like that? It seems not the LCSC have ordered more and stuff like that anyway. I ordered a bunch of chips I've actually got them. They've delivered no problems.

Actually got a whole reel of $0.10 or sub $0.10 or something. Um, 3.3 volt voltage regulators. Apparently they're pretty good. They sell really cheap voltage regulator so why not have 3000 on them? Beauty.

Um Anyway, we've got the micros and thank you very much to the doc. Um, a kindly saw my video and they kindly sent me the programmer. Now they say that it's only a variable from tab our website which is a Chinese like ebay type website so it's It's not exactly easy to get. it's like a hundred US dollars I believe For the programmer, they didn't have any of the programming adaptors for them in stock so they couldn't send me that, but I can just make one myself.

no problems whatsoever. They also kindly sent me the in-circuit emulator I've done an unboxing on my second channel. Focus, you bastard. All right there we go I'm in-circuit emulator for it as well because these chips are one-time programmable.

So obviously like every time you compile your program and run it, you don't want to have to burn a new chip right, then plug it in and all that. So the in circuit programmer allows you to run the on like it's not the real chip on there, but it emulates the real chip in hardware and then you've got all your pins and you can connect it to your device under test. So this basically simulates the chip and it. and it simulates any of their size chips any of their packages because you can get them in much higher pin counts than this.

Anyway, we're going to get this up and running, so thank you very much for to Paducah for sending that in now. I Just heard back from Paducah that they don't actually offer factory programming services, but they think you should be able to get there done at one of their authorized resellers. And as it turns out, LCSC are not anvil yet I guess an authorized reseller of Paducah parts, but that doesn't mean they're fake. they actually buy LCSC actually buy them from authorized dealer which is shins in foresight technology.

Co and you go over to their website and well, it's like yeah, ok um I think you probably need to know Chinese to deal over here, but they do actually look they do actually have the Ice program up down here. It's the same price as I sorry the Ice. The in-circuit emulator is the same price as the programmer and that's four hundred and sixty you are there and what's that in Yankee bucks? That is 66 Yankee bucks for the programmer and the ice. but of course it's more expensive than that from other dealers.

but that's one of their authorized dealers. So there you go. I've yet to find out if you can actually I've asked LCSC but they haven't gotten back if they do and you can actually get them factory program from them through the authorized provider but supplied by LCSC I'll update the description and leave a sticky comment down below because the value proposition for these parts always comes down to whether or not you can get them factory program. There's no point paying three cents for your micro controller.

If you have to program each one, take it out in program each one individually in here. The time and money wasted. you may as well Just you know, get the 40 cent microchip pre-programmed part straight from the factory. So like really, it all hinges on that in terms of our viability for these types of parts.

But like, it's amazing that LCSC can sell these for three under three cents like in in large quantity sixty thousand which is not a lot really. And there you know in the mass volume scheme of things you know, two and a half cents. Listen, you know I call this the three cent micro, but really, you can get it for less than that that's from. That's like not even from the official distributor.

So what are they making like once in each you know LCSC make their 1 cent per dog, make their 1 cent and their official word distributor of that that they're better LCSC are buying from they make their one cent. It's crazy. So let's have a look at the software. Showery.

I want to take you through the website, but if you go to the website you can download. You can get the data sheet for these chips in English. So we've got the 1/5 4c which we're going to compile for, but today we're only going to run it on the in-circuit emulator. Will do have to do another video for the actually getting the real program using the programmer and then actually program a real chip put on the breadboard and doing that.

But if it works on the in-circuit emulator, we shouldn't have any problems translating in theory translating over that to a program. Anyway, everyone wanted me to see if I can actually get how easy it was to get a program running on these 3 cent microcontrollers with using like this weird-looking IDE interface which actually turns out to be quite nice. Anyway, you read out, download it. It's like a three mega executable that installs Not Point Eight Three version.

for those playing along at home, it's the FPAA which is a field programmable processor array so it's kind of weird. And then we've got the writer. So once we've compiled it I Assume we can just write it, but we haven't tried that. so let's run this.

It's a single XC It's only three. Meg And Bingo! Welcome to Panic Software, thank you very much. And this is like just a a changelog or whatever. So let's go in and create a project from scratch.

It's not easy. We still haven't found any sort of like you know, processor architecture manual with all the instructions loosens and stuff like that. So I've had to cobble this together, but it didn't take long to figure out all this like an hour or two you know, tops - to figure this out. So a cobbled order yeah, that don't have everything fully understood yet, but we can get a LED flash in so let's do it from scratch.

New new project. Okay, now they use what's called mini see. This doesn't appear to be a theme. apparently it's their own thing or you can choose a SM for example.

But we're gonna do the Mini C so it doesn't look to be exactly you know, like an Zc I Like it. It seems a little bit strange, but it's C ish. Let's do a project called Toggle Bot shall we? We can select our chip so these are all the different chips that we can select well. Let's do the 150 C shall we select device PMS PMC Serial AP Serial I'm not quite sure what that is yet, so we're gonna leave it default now.

Frame has Sis clock IRI HCR on - So these are the internal various internal clocks. We'd have to have a look at the data sheet. There's likely eight megahertz economy oscillators that let the low-power oscillator or whatever. Anyway, if we choose Sis clock equals IH RC on - we can get that working and we can actually call up some help for that.

There you go, they tell you. executing I See, under Sis clock represents the most simple architecture which only needs to provide single Ez frame. but at least we get it in English right? even if it is Chinglish Anyway, it's actually got a surprising amount of help available for this thing, so actually quite impressed. So these are the different oscillator options: One key + 10 second lead.

there you go. I Let's just get up and running with our program, shall we? So we'll leave that the pin 5 here PA 5 port. A 5 pin art can be an open drain or a reset pin that seems to be common across all their chips will disable the watchdog. so let's go.

Oops. Found this bug before you see it didn't generate what we want I Think because I caught up that help file right? so let's try that again. I won't touch anything else. Go okay in.

Bingo! We've generated our new template and it includes our Externa file, all the externals, this void fpp a zero that is like main. so think of that as main. They don't actually call it main but that's what it is so you know. As I said, not exactly our standard C and a just IC sis clock I RHC Onto and look this open Help Here you can move your cursor down here.

you can actually pop up the help, look at this briefings and user who start the pedal I See at first time might be curious about the instruction. This is great. Is this like they've got to have really tried to write all this English Help and it's it's all there. I'm quite impressed by that.

How do I shut down that frame? There we go. Got it. Okay, so it's generated our template so he put our code in here like this. It's all automatically generated and interrupt.

but we haven't. We can actually get this running. We haven't tried to delete the interrupt yet. Small step at a time so you're basically following through as whereas we're really learning with this thing.

but this is our main so we can type our code into here. Let's go and here we go. We can. If we want to see what's in X term we can go our open document extern dot hi and it's not much in there is there.

Um, that's it. It's a bit disappointed. Get back anyway. So I'm gonna put some code in there to define just a lead out and that defines the port PA dot zero and pin 0.

So port a pin will port a pin zero I Guess so in while here we'll just put let out equals zero, let out equals one. So all we'll do is simply toggle a pin. That's it. and I'll just keep repeating in our while mate as I said this is main dot C you might be familiar with in your regular embedded programming and that shouldn't be it.

We should be able to run that although this inter up. return I Haven't tried to take this out yet so we can add a command just to disable interrupts just in case. So there we go, we can go this. G int we system found that and copied it from somewhere else that's global interrupts disabled.

That's our code and we should be able to now run that and compile. Let's try it. Now our options up here here we go. Build.

We've got rebuild all we've got. Stop Build boom and then we've got go. So let's just build it. Enable security so we can actually I didn't know it had a security bit.

There you go so we can disable security. Drive a low or normal I didn't know it had variable drive on the output that might be out like drive capability slew capability. So I don't know I haven't read the D datasheet in detail yet I'm just running it. the low voltage I reset thing.

We won't worry about that. boot up time. Slow or fast. No idea.

Let's just divide by default is set to slow. That's fine. Like it once again. I have not found any options.

oops Ovi is too low. please refer to IDE help on Lvr I goofed it Anyway, there's no compile so I still don't know where the compiler is, what it's using this mini C compiler or whatever I don't know I haven't looked into any of the details of that but interrupts was not used n B bypass and B by verse great Oh VI Lvr must be greater than 3 volts at sis clock. I HR c On to fine. We'll do that.

so we'll set that to 3 l Vr there so we'll go back. We're all happy by the way. I forgot to watch setup. you have to the PA is the port and PA C is the control register for that port.

So the output direction. We have to actually set up the output. If you want to pin to be an output or an input, you've got to set that up. So we've got to set let out.

Direction equals 1. So we just set that into our initial code at the start of our main. but we hit the while loop here. Well, let's compile it, shall we? So look? Yay! Zero errors.

One warning: We know in a chicken dinner interrupts not be used and be bypassed. That's fine. I'm happy with that. So let's actually run it.

Or by the way, there is a nine volt input on this but you don't seem to need it. It's powered from the Usb. Great fine. So we're not sure what the deal is there.

We don't have a manual for this with no idea. We're really running blind here, but let's say let's run it. There is no indication of power or anything at the moment. so let's go to here.

Go! We found a bug in this. You've got a press go once. like this. Lv R equals up.

Pop popped up for a minute and we get some nice stuff. Look at this you know we get like it looks like register. that's the memory dump. Let's we find it didn't actually run straightaway.

You have to go. You have to go Go Go. You have to enter go go mode by pressing it again but looks of it so it's really. it's really strange.

so let's do it again. Now it runs. We get a flashy flashy flashy flashy flashy thing. So now I'll hook up my logic analyzer to the pins and we should be able to see it toggle.

So there you go. we'll just connect up to the first pin there. Port: a0 Pin PA 0 Let's bring in my logic analyzer here. Start sampling Tada! Winner Winner chicken dinner.

Our three cent micro is working and that's how easy it is. And as I said, probably like within an hour of just around not even having proper manuals, we can get this to work. Oh by the way, it's two Megahertz, which is half of what it's supposed to run at. We found something that mentioned that the Ice potentially runs at half the speed.

So I still like that's that's what they say. So anyway, yeah, so I think it's maybe it needs to do its I see stuff in the background and and whatever it is. Anyway, it recommends that you run it the processor at twice the speed to what you actually need. But there it is.

it's toggling. We've got a pin toggle to Megahertz. It's not a 50% duty cycle because it needs to do. it's uh, it needs to loop back or whatever.

Now you might actually notice something interesting up here. Look at some of the gaps between. Look. the.

the duty cycle of these is actually different, right? It goes to two Point Four megahertz, Two megahertz, Two Point Four megahertz. What's going on? Well, this is actually a trap for young players with timing analysis mode on logic analyzers like this: Sayle Logic analyzer. But any logic analyzer. Basically, it's because we're trying to measure a two megahertz signal at a twelve Meg sample per second right here.

So if we actually go higher than that, 20:24 makes samples per second. It's because we don't have the the temporal resolution to actually get the I always get a correct accurate frequency on there. So really 24 Meg will still kinda see it. so we'll sample now at 24 Meg but you'll notice that periodically it's showing these.

Sort of like it changes the duty cycle like that and that's just a nature of the sampling and it'll get worse the lower your sample rate goes. So if we go down to say 8, it'll pry. It should be like really terrible. Merial Well, it's different.

Yeah, Anyway, look at that. I Mean that? Well, in fact, look at that at 8. Meg There's whole sections where there's just nothing there, so just be careful of that when you're using your logic analyzer. So even at 24 mix samples per second, there will but like it'll show you like two megahertz everywhere on both of the different duty cycles here.

but there'll be one point where it switches over. there just gets out of whack a little bit. There it is 2.18 2 megahertz. So that's just the this sampling resolution that we've got here.

But it's tells you it's 2 megahertz in here and it tells you it's 2 megahertz in this section here as well. so you know that's right. But just that little changeover point, timing, mode, sampling rate. It's a big deal.

and the good thing about once you've actually compiled this is that you can actually like hover over your variables and stuff like that. It shows you your stuff. you can hover over say port A there and you can right-click on that and you can go to go to definition of Port A And there you go you can jump over to where it actually defines poured A in there doesn't tell you what file and where current or Inc Yeah, there we go. PMS 150c Inc So that's the include file.

Please don't change the following code. It's only used for there for internal engineer I Love it! This is great. So there you go. That's the include file that sets up all your you know, your registers, your ports, your timers, and there's TM 16 for example.

So we can We? We have that here. Interrupt: Go to definition of inner Interrupt Queue. There you go. So it's all there.

It's pretty cool, but that's all it took. Really? Um, you know there's a bit of a bit of learning curve there. Maybe we got a bit lucky in, you know, finding things easier than what other. you know If you having a bad day Murphy's over your shoulder.

you know you may not beholder have found all this stuff. But anyway, that's pretty groovy. I Like it. it worked.

a treat. Now why do we have to do I are I HRC On to I'm still not. Can we go like / one can we do that? Let's it's just let's just build. It's just build not.

Didn't like that at all. Wasn't a happy little camper. but anyway, we still don't know why you've got to generate that way. You've got to go.

You've got to go Go. It looks like it. It's sort of like stops at the start there. Maybe it's like it looks like maybe it's in break point mode or like a single step mode or something like that.

and yeah, I'm not sure it's literally the first time I've used it. Okay, now we've got a basically the same thing here. but what we're going to do is we're going to use the timer. so T 16.

So it's 16 bit timer here and we've just got some extra code here. I'm gonna take this out and I was just sticking around here. they code which we'll use our timer here and now it will toggle our pin slower. Hopefully we'll get a one.

it's square-wave out of this thing so we haven't figured out like delays and still like any sort of like delay routines and stuff like that we got. so we're just using the timer. There you go. so interrupts not being used, it's just warning us.

use we use for memory remain sixty unused memory. So you seen four bytes of memory or sixty? you know four words of memory and we've got sixty unused words of memory left. and ROM ROM size for the 160. last year's code remained free.

There you go Lust 358 hex for those playing along at home. Do your conversion Anyway, let's go go Gadget. Let's go back to our saintly logic analyzer here. Taken 10 seconds worth of data now.

I'm a bit overkill on the on the data there, but there you go point. It's one point double O 3 Hertz of course internal RC oscillator so it's not going to be absolutely precise, but good enough for Australia like yeah, 3 milli Hertz out I'm pretty happy with that. So there you go. There's out that there it is.

we can toggle and that's all there is to it using the timer thing here and once I get like I Haven't tried to like, look at like haven't single stepped I haven't done you know I said breakpoints or anything. you know fancy at all. Just wanted to get a LED flash up around but I know you want to see a LED flash. Okay, hold the tongue at the right angle.

Please excuse the crude in your model. Didn't have time to build the scale out of paint it but there you go we have our flashing LED Whoo-hoo our blinky. We got the blinky. We know we're not chicken dinner so there you go.

We actually use this thing without too much mucking around. There was, you know, a bit of light going. not on, you know. try this to get it up and running and I cut and pasted the examples.

They don't have examples by the way. There was some demo projects but none of them are the processor that we're using. I don't think. but yeah, let's have a look at Dos Tops ST TC So timer 16 he led a DC get V DC GP said you know they've got some I don't like PWM There you go.

So maybe we can like open up PWM project and have a look at this so you know they've got some example code which you can copy and it seems to be their own mini C whatever it is it you know would have been nice if they just written it for GC support for GCC for example. That would have been great, you know? So I don't know why they did that, but somebody could easily write the G and GCC thing couldn't you? David Yeah, yep, how long do you think it would take you to write a GCC port and fat pad? Or three weeks ago, three weeks partially broken GCC port But there you go. Like we were able to get to Blinky with not much trouble at all. granted we had the in-circuit emulator.

The next step will be of course the programmer, so this will be a part. Two Video will program the chip, make a little layer program in adapter for a bit I'm sure it works, the writer program haven't even loaded up OTP Writer There we go. so load file, don't even know auto program for rolling code like serial code generator, whatever. Anyway, I did like it works and their interface is actually surprisingly good.

You know it's got color, syntax, highlight, and it's got context-sensitive stuff. Their help seems, you know it's surprisingly comprehensive considering that there's no well, not that I've found. there might be like a process, a manual or whatever that lists all the assembler code. Haven't done assembly yet.

Still not sure what the deal is and all that sort of stuff, but there's many see they call it well able to get something running and some people may go well. I Wouldn't trust this thing at all like some you know obscure. Taiwanese Company making their three cent microcontroller with their little three mega IDE using mini C and non-standard star wouldn't trust it at all. and well you know, fair enough.

but at the end of the day if it works and you have use for a 3-cent in fairly lowest volumes you know only three hundred plus Bonz $0.03 microcontroller. If you can program the things then you know, like and it works and you can test and verify that it works and you can still get them from LCS See they keep them in stock by the looks of it. I have asked them if you can actually order these pre programs. they're still getting back to me on that so maybe I'll update you in the next video I haven't heard back from might give him another poke yeah pun intended because we're talking about programming I'm here all week So yeah like the the value proposition if you can't get these programmed and you know and if this is your only programmer and you need to program 10,000 of them, it's kind of gonna ruin your day and takes away the value proposition of the 3 cent micro.

so it like So the value of these in volume hinges on the fact well hinges on whether or not you can get these pre-programmed from the factory. if you can that that's killer. You can simulate your code on the ice and you can actually get it running. You can experiment.

you can you know, do all sorts of stuff, then you can program it. You can verify your code. These micros only can you know very small programs on these so it's not hard to. so you could like verify a complete micro.

You can test it over voltage and temperature and you can qualify these things yourself. It's not necessarily difficult if you have the means to do it and you know there are people who will say well, you know, just go for a 30 or 40 cent or whether I think it's 40 cents for the lowest cost. Start pick that you can order pre program from the Pic factory. it's got industry standard support, etc etc.

and well, you know, Yeah, that's a valid argument too, but three cents. Just love it. It's great. There's got to be nice uses for this.

This is fantastic. Anyway, if you liked the video, please give it a big thumbs up. And if you want to see our program, stuff and things like that and get something running and we're thinking about now that it's all working and we see I'm sure we'd be able to program this thing. Shouldn't be too much effort thinking about a big project that needs like, you know, 10,000 of these things.

That'd be great. Hmm, somebody actually bought up 10,000 of these after I did the video, somebody went and purchased like 10 of the top 23 version or something. Anyway, I've got the So8 I've got some sock 23's I've got some other variants of it as well. So yeah, you might go to do some interesting projects anyway.

comments down below: Catch next time.