AVR, PIC, or Arduino?

[XCVG]

I've been wanting to try microcontrollers for a while now. Hopefully I will be able to get something sometime soon but I'm not sure what to get. I thought I wanted an AVR but I'm not sure. There's the PIC, and the AVR, but I'm also considering the Arduino. It has a lot of fans and looks easy to use. Also, I know the Arduino is AVR-based. Does that mean I can make a ghetto-duino with just an AVR and a few components?

So... what do you use? What should I get?

 

[robm]

The Arduino is a dev board utilizing an AVR, yes. As such, I highly recommend getting a processor first and work on building circuits with it (i.e., getting an L.E.D. "hello world" program successfully wrote and flashed to the chip) on a breadboard before moving on to an actual development board.

 

[jleemero]

Well the Arduino is very simplified to be honest.
I'd TOTALLY recommend starting with an Arduino.
You're hello world will be a thousand times easier than starting with a raw MCU.

It's a great place to start learning, and it'll really get you comfortable with a lot of "ideas", you could say.
Moving from the Arduino to AVRs would be quite easy.

As for PICs?
There's nothin' wrong with them, and programming for them is roughly the same.
BUT, the AVRs are much more powerful (for the cost), have lots of neat little features that PICs may not, etc.
Not to mention, the AVRs are really well backed by hobbyists.

 

[XCVG]

The PICs are out of the question after I looked at the prices of programmers.

Okay, most likely going with an Arduino. In addition to being easier to program, it's easy to connect and just plugs into USB for power AND data, which I think is really cool. I know you can ghetto-rig your own Arduino but I think I'll stick with an official one for my first time.

And yeah, moving from Arduino to AVR would be easy, wouldn't it? Just overwrite the bootloader

 

[XCVG]

Okay, ordered a Freeduino SB, Protoshield and breadboard, and a few other random parts. Hopefully I'll get the stuff sometime next week.

 

[snowpenguin]

The PICs are out of the question after I looked at the prices of programmers.

Okay, most likely going with an Arduino. In addition to being easier to program, it's easy to connect and just plugs into USB for power AND data, which I think is really cool. I know you can ghetto-rig your own Arduino but I think I'll stick with an official one for my first time.

And yeah, moving from Arduino to AVR would be easy, wouldn't it? Just overwrite the bootloader

Picaxes require no programmer, just a programming cable which is cheap and I believe you can even build them.

 

[XCVG]

I think PICAXE has a bootloader like Arduino. Arduino has a lot of supporters and AVR seems to be better than PIC. However, everyone seems to have their own preferences, which complicates matters a lot. An Arduino can be homemade, you can even get preprogrammed chips! For my first time though, I think I'll go with a plug and play proven solution.

 

[snowpenguin]

Picaxe can be home made as well...

 

[jleemero]

Just stop talking Penguino.

 

[snowpenguin]

XD

 

[XCVG]

Stuff has arrived! Pics coming soon! Also, new thread coming and this one will soon be obseleet!