Any Info on the New Digispark Pro?

[gogol]

I watched now Tuesday and Wednesday for the launch and wondering, that there was no message here, no mail via kickstarter (I would recommend an Update to the disgispark and digix projects).

Question: When I wish to get the BETA and the TRIO, can I pledge to either one and increase the pledge?

[digistump]

Thanks for posting it! Yes it is live!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digistump/digispark-pro-tiny-arduino-ready-mobile-and-usb-de

[TimO]

Currently with over $26000 pledged against the $10000 goal, and there are still 27 days to go!

[TimO]

Amusingly, Kicktraq has it trending towards $172,183, which is unlikely to happen.

[gogol]

Why?  Look where the original digispark ended up?
And that was, when Erik had only one non successful project. Now he has two very successful projects as a reference, a grown community and a very wide range of shields and accessories.

My bet is, that it will end up about above $200,000!

[MichaelMeissner]

So, it looks like the digispark pro addresses several of my issues with the original digispark, namely it can now be used on a standard breadboard/perfboard, has more pins, has some sort of serial support.

I have some other questions though about the board:

Do the support libraries ditch the Tiny* libraries and use the standard include files and library names that are used in the Arduino?  In particular, I have various microprocessors (Teensy 3.0, Uno R3, Pro Mini, Digispark, Gemma, Trinket, etc.) and I find I am less inclined to use the ATtiny85 processors due to having to change the code to use TinyWireM.h instead of Wire.h (and of course #ifdef out use of serial).  I haven't gotten into servos or motors as much, but I would have the same issue there (due to the ATtiny85 not having 16-bit timers).

Is the board is more like a Leonardo than an Uno, in that serial.print only goes to the USB, and if you want it to go to the serial line, you would use serial1 (or serial0, etc.)?  Or is it like the Uno in that serial.print will go to both the USB and RX/TX lines, and you shouldn't use those pins when debugging.

Can I setup the digispark pro so that I can re-program it from the computer without having to press a reset button or power cycle the board?  I.e. does it honor the DTR emulation in USB?

You mention solder jumpers underneath the digispark pro.  Exactly what jumpers are available?

Does your I2C pins have the 4.7K ohm resistors in place, or like the original digispark, will we have to provide these?  What other pins have resistors on them (I assume pin 1 has the resistor for the LED, and the USB data pins do as well).

You use a micro-USB connector on the pro.  While that is the standard connector these days, I've seen a lot of complaints in the various forums that the normal micro-USB connector isn't that good for repeated insertions and deletions.  Are you going to strengthen the solder connections on the digispark pro so that it will have less chance to come apart?

There is no 3.3v pin, so I assume mixed voltage projects will need an appropriate buck converter.  Is this true?

I burned out one of my sparks hooking up a neopixel ring to VCC instead of VIN (with power from USB).  While it was my fault, are the voltage regulators and fuses on the pro more able to protect us from dumb mistakes?

You don't mention what processor is actually used on the pro.  Was I correct in my guess that it uses the ATtiny167?

Assuming it is the ATtiny167, the ATtiny167 can do touch sensing.  Are you planning on releasing a touch interface so that we can do touch sensing in our projects?

Do you have an idea what the general retail price will be after the kickstarter phase?

[gogol]

Does your I2C pins have the 4.7K ohm resistors in place

I will hope, that they are not in place!  More and more extension boards (like ADXL345 variants) have them in place, which ends up with to high current!
Furthermore pullups on the board are rendering the pins for other purposes unusable.

You don't mention what processor is actually used on the pro.  Was I correct in my guess that it uses the ATtiny167?

he told that long ago:
http://digistump.com/board/index.php/topic,997.msg4193.html#msg4193
http://digistump.com/board/index.php/topic,997.msg5972.html#msg5972
and digging into micronucleus V2:
https://github.com/micronucleus/micronucleus/tree/testing-V2-New/firmware/configuration

[DeuxVis]

I got a project - currently prototyping using digispark - which needs more pins and more flash, so that's quite a good timing to launch the pro version, thanks.

In for a trio and a few accessories.

[MichaelMeissner]

Does your I2C pins have the 4.7K ohm resistors in place

I will hope, that they are not in place!  More and more extension boards (like ADXL345 variants) have them in place, which ends up with to high current!
Furthermore pullups on the board are rendering the pins for other purposes unusable.

Well, there is always the option of solder jumpers underneath to enable/disable the jumpers, like the Arduino pro mini.  The question is whether out of the box, I have to add the resistors or not.

You don't mention what processor is actually used on the pro.  Was I correct in my guess that it uses the ATtiny167?

he told that long ago:
http://digistump.com/board/index.php/topic,997.msg4193.html#msg4193
http://digistump.com/board/index.php/topic,997.msg5972.html#msg5972
and digging into micronucleus V2:
https://github.com/micronucleus/micronucleus/tree/testing-V2-New/firmware/configuration

I didn't see those posts, but earlier in the thread, I came to the conclusion that the 167 was the only chip that fit all of the specs.

[TimO]

Why?  Look where the original digispark ended up?
And that was, when Erik had only one non successful project. Now he has two very successful projects as a reference, a grown community and a very wide range of shields and accessories.

The Kicktraq website looks like it does something like a simple linear projection into the future, whereas with something like this, a lot of the earlier backers are going to be people who are aware of the project, so got in their early, probably causing a initial impetus which won't continue for the entire duration.  It also doesn't entirely have the novelty and very low cost of the original DigiSpark, so I suspect it'll appeal less.  It'll clearly continue to gain more funding, but I'd expect the graph to level off, and not continue upwards with as much speed.

Does your I2C pins have the 4.7K ohm resistors in place, or like the original digispark, will we have to provide these?

I'd doubt that they're fitted, since most people wont use I2C, and their addition would increase the price (and potentially get in the way of other uses).  Whilst the price would only go up slightly, every penny counts on these small designs.

I burned out one of my sparks hooking up a neopixel ring to VCC instead of VIN (with power from USB).  While it was my fault, are the voltage regulators and fuses on the pro more able to protect us from dumb mistakes?

It's difficult to protect against every eventuality, and for every eventuality which to do manage to protect against, you run the risk of introducing something else that can be broken.  As far as I recall, the Digispark has no fuses anyway, so I'd doubt the Pro will have any.  The additional cost would only provide benefit very occasionally and low cost seems to be one of the Raison d'êtres of the Digispark, so again I think the cost wouldn't provide much benefit to most people.

[digistump]

So, it looks like the digispark pro addresses several of my issues with the original digispark, namely it can now be used on a standard breadboard/perfboard, has more pins, has some sort of serial support.

Yep - your feedback was certainly some of the feedback I referenced when designing it!

I have some other questions though about the board:

Do the support libraries ditch the Tiny* libraries and use the standard include files and library names that are used in the Arduino?  In particular, I have various microprocessors (Teensy 3.0, Uno R3, Pro Mini, Digispark, Gemma, Trinket, etc.) and I find I am less inclined to use the ATtiny85 processors due to having to change the code to use TinyWireM.h instead of Wire.h (and of course #ifdef out use of serial). 

From the next release forward Digispark and Digispark Pro will have compatible Wire libraries based on TinyWire - no changes needed to use them with existing I2C libraries.

I haven't gotten into servos or motors as much, but I would have the same issue there (due to the ATtiny85 not having 16-bit timers).

Timer heavy libraries like some of the servo libraries will always need to be written to work explicitly with different MCUs due to the timer differences - but I suspect more will work out of the box with the attinys as they grow in popularity in the Arduino world. Motors/motor drivers have never needed any special consideration in my use - they tend to just use PWM inputs.

Is the board is more like a Leonardo than an Uno, in that serial.print only goes to the USB, and if you want it to go to the serial line, you would use serial1 (or serial0, etc.)?  Or is it like the Uno in that serial.print will go to both the USB and RX/TX lines, and you shouldn't use those pins when debugging.

Serial is the USB serial device
Serial1 is the hardware UART

Can I setup the digispark pro so that I can re-program it from the computer without having to press a reset button or power cycle the board?  I.e. does it honor the DTR emulation in USB?

No - this isn't possible with the way the bootloader works - for this to work the USB code would have to keep running, watching for that signal, and doing a reset when it sees it - which isn't practical on these small resource limited MCUs. Someone could add support for that - but it would have its own set of disadvantages. If one used an FTDI or secondary USB to Serial converter chip then they could do this with the attiny167 - but that would push the price too high in my opinion.

You mention solder jumpers underneath the digispark pro.  Exactly what jumpers are available?

Disconnect LED, disconnect power LED, disconnect Zener for USB+, disconnect Zener and pull-up for USB-

Does your I2C pins have the 4.7K ohm resistors in place, or like the original digispark, will we have to provide these?  What other pins have resistors on them (I assume pin 1 has the resistor for the LED, and the USB data pins do as well).

No I2C pullups - that would mess a lot of people up. I may put footprints on the bottom to solder them - but only if layout allows (right now it doesn't)

Pin1 has a 1K feeding the LED
Pin3 has 1.5k pull up
both can be detached by the solder jumper

Pin3 & 4 have low value resistors in series with the USB lines but not the headers, so they should have little effect on the pin usage

You use a micro-USB connector on the pro.  While that is the standard connector these days, I've seen a lot of complaints in the various forums that the normal micro-USB connector isn't that good for repeated insertions and deletions.  Are you going to strengthen the solder connections on the digispark pro so that it will have less chance to come apart?

It uses a micro usb (I don't care for the mini usb, it's big and the cables are less and less common) - I think the only reason the micros have a bad rep is 1) some of the people who had issues with them on projects like Mojo were very vocal about it and 2) some people use really cheap ones with a bad footprint that doesn't put enough solder under the case of the connector. Despite that I don't buy into the idea that they are so flawed (I've never broke a single one, even the cheap ones, except one that didn't have solder under the case) - the prototypes are using ones with thru hole reinforcement pins - and I plan to use those in the final version as well. These were used on the DigiX as well.

There is no 3.3v pin, so I assume mixed voltage projects will need an appropriate buck converter.  Is this true?

Shields for 3.3v devices will integrate a LDO regulator - no need for a buck (unless it is a super low power use) - just a cheapo LDO will do without too much power loss. We have a 3.3v version of the Pro as well - but at 3.3v running it fast enough for USB isn't stable (a lesson the trinket has taught many). While I know some power users want 5v and 3.3v pins, in general it is one of the least requested things, and would represent significant extra cost.

I burned out one of my sparks hooking up a neopixel ring to VCC instead of VIN (with power from USB).  While it was my fault, are the voltage regulators and fuses on the pro more able to protect us from dumb mistakes?

It is very likely it will have a fuse, it will have a more robust diode - were still playing with the sweet spot of pros and cons of these things, as well as what we can do with the limited space - we have a final version with and without a 500ma fuse on the 5v line

You don't mention what processor is actually used on the pro.  Was I correct in my guess that it uses the ATtiny167?

Assuming it is the ATtiny167, the ATtiny167 can do touch sensing.  Are you planning on releasing a touch interface so that we can do touch sensing in our projects?

Yep Attiny167
Thats the first time anyone has ever asked for touch shield - it'd be fun to make, I'll see if others are interested as well.

Do you have an idea what the general retail price will be after the kickstarter phase?

More than the Kickstarter price - that's all I know - these cost a lot more to make than the original Digispark, but I felt strongly about having them $10 or under. We'll have to see after we talk with our major distributors but I have a feeling it will be about $12 and the original Digispark may come down a bit in price when the Pros hit retail.

[defragster]

Question: When I wish to get the BETA and the TRIO, can I pledge to either one and increase the pledge?

Follow up email provides for add-ons!  Go for the Beta while you can. [edited after I got my backer email]

[gogol]

The Kicktraq website looks like it does something like a simple linear projection into the future, whereas with something like this, a lot of the earlier backers are going to be people who are aware of the project, so got in their early, probably causing a initial impetus which won't continue for the entire duration.  It also doesn't entirely have the novelty and very low cost of the original DigiSpark, so I suspect it'll appeal less.  It'll clearly continue to gain more funding, but I'd expect the graph to level off, and not continue upwards with as much speed.

Lets see!  I still see it crossing the $200,00 margin!

[defragster]

I'll be a bit surprised if it doesn't go over 200K.  Avg Spark backing was $52.5 and $87.70 for Digix.  Right now the Pro is at $44 each - but I expect to double my order given the 'shield selection' letter that has built in discount and broad Pro upgrade choices.  And I just got my email today - as did maybe a couple other thousand prior backers (if 6k+ all registered) - then there are the others ... my guess just splitting the differences is 252,146.77

[MichaelMeissner]

From the next release forward Digispark and Digispark Pro will have compatible Wire libraries based on TinyWire - no changes needed to use them with existing I2C libraries.

Great!

Timer heavy libraries like some of the servo libraries will always need to be written to work explicitly with different MCUs due to the timer differences - but I suspect more will work out of the box with the attinys as they grow in popularity in the Arduino world. Motors/motor drivers have never needed any special consideration in my use - they tend to just use PWM inputs.

Hopefully at least the basic servo library will be provided with the same name scheme as the Arduino library, and not TinyServo.  I realize under the covers things have to be different, but at least at the Arduino function call level, things should be the same.  Sure, if user code plays with timers, interrupts, or uses port registers directly, they will need to update the code.

Serial is the USB serial device
Serial1 is the hardware UART

That is reasonable.  It might have been better if the Uno had had this separation.

No - this isn't possible with the way the bootloader works - for this to work the USB code would have to keep running, watching for that signal, and doing a reset when it sees it - which isn't practical on these small resource limited MCUs. Someone could add support for that - but it would have its own set of disadvantages. If one used an FTDI or secondary USB to Serial converter chip then they could do this with the attiny167 - but that would push the price too high in my opinion.

For me this is an issue.  I tend to prefer not removing my hands from the mouse/keyboard to hit the reset switch or power cycle.  Particularly if I have the microprocessor mounted in a costume, the button can be hard to press.  I also find the various timeouts to be too small, particularly as I often use an older laptop for programming, and the compilation can take longer than the timeout.  If I go with the digispark pro, I likely will use a programmer, just because I dislike having to use the reset button.

No I2C pullups - that would mess a lot of people up. I may put footprints on the bottom to solder them - but only if layout allows (right now it doesn't)

Be sure to document this.  I recall the original spark didn't have these tidbits in the wiki, where people would read it.

Pin1 has a 1K feeding the LED
Pin3 has 1.5k pull up
both can be detached by the solder jumper

Pin3 & 4 have low value resistors in series with the USB lines but not the headers, so they should have little effect on the pin usage

Ditto.  I recently bought a Pro mini, and it has been tough to find documentation on their jumpers.  I recall similar issues with the DigiX (and google's thread on all of the features).  Document early, document often.  Make sure comments from the kickstarter page and these various threads get into the basic documentation.  I recall having to dig around to find the pin resistors in the early days after the digispark was released to answer questions on this wiki.

It uses a micro usb (I don't care for the mini usb, it's big and the cables are less and less common) - I think the only reason the micros have a bad rep is 1) some of the people who had issues with them on projects like Mojo were very vocal about it and 2) some people use really cheap ones with a bad footprint that doesn't put enough solder under the case of the connector. Despite that I don't buy into the idea that they are so flawed (I've never broke a single one, even the cheap ones, except one that didn't have solder under the case) - the prototypes are using ones with thru hole reinforcement pins - and I plan to use those in the final version as well. These were used on the DigiX as well.

Reinforcing is fine.

It is very likely it will have a fuse, it will have a more robust diode - were still playing with the sweet spot of pros and cons of these things, as well as what we can do with the limited space - we have a final version with and without a 500ma fuse on the 5v line

However, frying the chip instead of just having a fuse kick in until I undid the wiring did leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Thats the first time anyone has ever asked for touch shield - it'd be fun to make, I'll see if others are interested as well.

You don't need a touch shield.  Just access to a library that uses the data pin in touch mode rather than digital/analog mode.  While I've only played with it briefly on the Teensy 3.0, it is a neat feature.

More than the Kickstarter price - that's all I know - these cost a lot more to make than the original Digispark, but I felt strongly about having them $10 or under. We'll have to see after we talk with our major distributors but I have a feeling it will be about $12 and the original Digispark may come down a bit in price when the Pros hit retail.

For me, price and size are the main issues for doing one-off builds.  I've moved past pre-made shields, and I tend to look at how easy a microprocessor is to use and what features does it have.  I suspect the great majority of digispark customers (not digix though) need the shields, and they add a great value to them.  However, since I now have the hardware programmers, your main competition for my attention is the Sparkfun Pro Mini/Gravitech Nano and the various processors using the ATmega32u4 chips, in the $10 range, and Teensy 3.x in the $20 range.