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Price of minimal MegaDrum kit & PIC vs. AtMega

PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 11:22 pm
by Cysign
Hey fellows
haven't been here for some years.
But as I recently found my old MegaDrum module laying around I got the idea of building another electric drumkit - which I'm going to start, soon.
But also I wonder what a minimalistic module might cost by today.
There's been a switch from AtMega to Pic controllers (for what reason?).

So I'm sure there won't be any updates for my old module (even can't remember which chip it's using :D).

Is the Pic controller faster or better in any way? Or is it just in case of copyprotection of the firmware?

Re: Price of minimal MegaDrum kit & PIC vs. AtMega

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:56 am
by ignotus
Hi there, welcome back ;)
You can check the price of different options in this same forum. The change wasn't to a PIC but to an ARM processor. It runs at 120 MHz as opposed to the 16/20 MHz of the Atmega, has more memory and a few other things. The firmware started to be encrypted back in 2010 I think, so the latest firmware you can install on your Atmega board will date back to then. You can either send Dmitri your Atmega chip so he can load a special bootloader on it to update to the latest firmware (assuming he still does that), or you can buy an ARM board to get all the latest hardware improvements, including a bigger colour screen.

Re: Price of minimal MegaDrum kit & PIC vs. AtMega

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 4:44 pm
by Cysign
Well, I remember the incryption-stuff. I already sent him my AtMega somd years ago ;)
20110621 is my firmware - not sure if there's any newer.
Have searched the board shortly but didn't find any information about pricing...

Re: Price of minimal MegaDrum kit & PIC vs. AtMega

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 4:50 pm
by ignotus
You have prices here, here, here and here.

You have the latest firmware here. Provided it's an Atmega 644 or above you can load the latest firmware.

Re: Price of minimal MegaDrum kit & PIC vs. AtMega

PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:55 pm
by Cysign
Thanks for your help! So 'Minimal Lite kit - 75GBP' + shipping would be the cheapest option.