YACT: Any experienced Electronic Engineers in the house???

[halik]

Alright,
i don't know much about microcontroller / circuit design, so bear with me

I've got two solenoids that need to be controlled on/off with bit logic. It's a basic state machine with the user having only two buttons to switch states back and forth. The solenoid get enabled/disabled based on the state you're currently in. So i need a dual solenoid IC controller and a programmable microcontroller to deal with the logic.

Now I found (PDF) a nice solenoid driver IC that will handle the loads (12V / less than an aMP), but i still need a microcontroller. First it needs to work with the solenoid and it also needs to be programmable (I've seen chips that can be programmed with basic). Do you guys have any clue as to what could be applicable???


EDIT: It's car related actually - I'm trying to rig up a tiptronic controller for an automatic transmission

 

[franksta]

So either of the solenoids are energized at one time but not both together? And they're controlled by buttons?

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: franksta
So either of the solenoids are energized at one time but not both together? And they're controlled by buttons?

well its a 2 bit logic, so there are 4 positions total (on&on, on&off off&on off&off). The solenoids are driven by 12V - on if they have voltage across, off if they dont.

They are NOT controlled directly by the 2 buttons, the buttons only change between the 4 states (on&on, on&of ... etc). The microcontroller is what deals with the button input and logic output based on the state.

 

[franksta]

I don't understand the role of the buttons. Why don't you just use them to set the states for the solenoids?

 

[stephenw22]

So you'll be using buttons as switches for a simple up/down counter?

As far as microcontrollers go, if you've never used one before, there are a few decent options. The easiest would probably be a "BASIC Stamp". They're programmable in BASIC, have a few I/O points, and are pretty easy to work with. Cost is $50-$100, I think.

If you're going to make lots of these as kits to sell, you'll probably want to go with Motorola or Microhip (or maybe TI) and use their equipment. The initial cost will be $300-$500 for a dev kit and programmer, but then additional microcontroller chips are cheaper, only $2-$20 each. Most of these guys let you use C as a programming language.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: franksta
I don't understand the role of the buttons. Why don't you just use them to set the states for the solenoids?

because the buttons just switch the binary logic

State Solenoid1 Solenoid2
1. on off
2. on on
3. off on
4. off off

the two buttons move up and down the states (so if you're in state 3. button two will switch to state 4.)

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: stephenw22
So you'll be using buttons as switches for a simple up/down counter?

As far as microcontrollers go, if you've never used one before, there are a few decent options. The easiest would probably be a "BASIC Stamp". They're programmable in BASIC, have a few I/O points, and are pretty easy to work with. Cost is $50-$100, I think.

If you're going to make lots of these as kits to sell, you'll probably want to go with Motorola or Microhip (or maybe TI) and use their equipment. The initial cost will be $300-$500 for a dev kit and programmer, but then additional microcontroller chips are cheaper, only $2-$20 each. Most of these guys let you use C as a programming language.

Exactly what i was looking for,
I didn't know the basic ones were that expensive. Is there any kind of standard for the digial input and output? From the specs the solenoid controller expects -.3 / 2.2 V for 1 and 0