Pro Mini ? Adafruit vs Micro

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mjpcarbon
 
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Pro Mini ? Adafruit vs Micro

Post by mjpcarbon »

My question is can I use a Mico in place of a Pro Mini ?
I came across a project that the builder used a ProMini but I dont have one.

Also looking for breadboard trim pot 10k-100k, I looked at the 356 but didnt see the range stated
So many projects so little brains

Mark

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Pro Mini ? Adafruit vs Micro

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

The Micro and Pro Mini use different microcontrollers.

The Micro uses the ATmega32u4, like the Leonardo. The microcontroller can do its own USB communication, so the Micro can present itself to a computer as an HID peripheral like a keyboard or mouse. The on-chip USB means the serial port you use to program it from the Arduino IDE will appear and disappear as the bootloader runs and then passes control to the loaded firmware.

The Pro Mini uses the ATmega168, like the Diecimila and older Duemilanove. It doesn't have onboard USB capacity at all, so you need an FTDI cable or some other USB-to-Serial converter for programming.

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mjpcarbon
 
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Re: Pro Mini ? Adafruit vs Micro

Post by mjpcarbon »

Mike this is still unclear to me, I understand the communication is different but really my question is will the Uno or Micro run a Pro Mini sketch ?

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Pro Mini ? Adafruit vs Micro

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

That depends on what the sketch does. Many simple sketches will just run.
If your sketch is using thing like timers, interrupts or i2c communication, you may need to make a code change or move some connections to different pins.

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michaelmeissner
 
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Re: Pro Mini ? Adafruit vs Micro

Post by michaelmeissner »

It depends on the sketch. Many sketches that run on Uno might have to be changed to run on a Leonardo, and this depends on the low level details of the chip and board layouts. I don't have a Leonardo chip, but some of the differences that show up in the documentation are:
  • On the Uno, i2c is on pins A4/A5, while it is on digital pins 2/3 on the Leonardo;
  • Similarly, on the Uno, SPI is on digital pins 10-13, while on the micro they are located on separate pins;
  • You need to look at things that do timers (servos, IR support, etc.) and external interrupts that might be different on different processors;
  • On the Uno, you can use the normal Serial class for either USB serial support, or RX/TX on pins 0/1, while on the Micro, you need to use Serial1 when talking to the RX/TX pins, and Serial when talking to the USB host;
  • A micro will cause the USB port to be renumbered each time an upload is done (Uno has a separate processor to keep the USB connection alive across uploads, ATmega32u4 uses the main microprocessor to run the USB connection).
  • Each of the processors has different amounts of memory, that may be an issue if you use most of the memory on the bigger processor, and try to run it on the smaller one.

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