Other Microcontrollers

[viscomjim]

Hi Adafruit people,

You have what I consider the best selection of coolness and I love when a new part comes to my mailbox.

There are many other products in your line that I would love to use, however, I don't (and I am sure I'm not the only one) use the Arduino or rPi or BB for anything, I use pic microcontrollers. I am sure that many of your customers use Arduinos and that is great for them as there is always a library available for your products. However, I would love to use, for instance, your ADAFRUIT 16-CHANNEL 12-BIT PWM/SERVO DRIVER - I2C INTERFACE, and many other ADAfruit products with my pic setup. I do use I2C for many things, it seems that you only describe the use of your products using libraries that you or others have written for it specifically, and never really describe your product for use with anything else. If you had documentation like "this register does this and this register does that and this is how you address this register, etc...", even us non arduino folks would be able to use way more of your product line. Shoot, even with your libraries, if you actually added a description of the way your product works like that, even the arduino people would get a better handle on how the hardware actually interfaces with the signals and commands from the micro.

I know there are many, many pic and other micro users out there, and with no description other than plug in this library and fill in the variables using an arduino, it makes it difficult to implement something in a new design that has no way of using it without digging up the data sheets for the actual chip you are using in your product, deciphering whats happening and figuring out how you implemented it in your design or breakout board, so "we" can use it for what it is intended for. (wordy, I know).

Do you think that this is something that can be done, or is it too much detail and information to put out there for us other micro type folks? I understand the KISS principle, but darn, I would love to use way more of the stuff you offer.

Thanks for everything. I do love your company.

[Franklin97355]

On most products that have a library you can look at the .cpp and .h files to see how it's done then write your own code based on that. Most "libraries" are just functions and classes that make programming easier for the novice (and the rest of use too) You can also check the datasheet for the i2c chip used if you want to write directly to the registers. Thanks for supporting Adafruit.