Arduino Development VS picAxe Development

 Yes, we hear all about Arduino and they ARE great with lot`s of developers creating lots of software.  The real "competition" if you care to call it that, is between the chips themselves. This boils down to PIC chips against Atmel chips. PIC chips generally speaking require a more technical approach and special programming tools. The compilers are not often simply free, so the investment is larger.

Enter the picAxe chip. Here someone took a PIC chip and put a bootloader (like arduino) but just a little more... A BASIC interpreter! So you can hook up a PC as a terminal and program in BASIC. 

 So I created a benchmark test:  Blink Ten LED`s in sequence. Easy peasy with picAxe dev board. Not so easy to get ten grounds from an Uno. Not without either buying a pins-in breadboard for your Uno, or soldering iron and breadboard shield, but the soldering messes up the apples vs apples tests.

In Summary:


1. I like, neigh Love, Arduino Uno. It`s hard to beat an Arduino Uno with an added proto-board. The great software is off the charts, and complex projects get easy.

2. Since the introduction of the M2 parts, you can`t beat a picAxe for lowest cost, electrically tough parts.

3. The new kid on the block uses a group of parts for creating an UNO using a pin-block and handful of glue parts. Now you have both the advantages of the picAxe dev system (lots of pins for experimenting). And the software for Atmel chips. I like this approach, though I haven`t tested it thoroughly just yet. I may leave that part up to you.

See the whole project at C What I Can Do .com and enjoy developing what ever flavor you choose!