The Olimex PIC32-Pnguino with it's large DIP form factor

Specs:

• Manufactured by Olimex
• Price ~$25 USD
• Pic32MX440F256H 32 bit Microchip MCU
• 256K of Flash, 32K of RAM
• Built in microSD slot
• Operating at 80 Mhz
• USB On-the-go
• Geared for Pinguino IDE

First Thoughts:

I haven’t used this product very extensively yet so some shortcomings are awesome points may be missed. I have played with it for a couple of days though and read through most of the libraries and documentation. This product is from Olimex in Bulgaria and to be honest, I’m a bit of a fan of Olimex. Olimex has built some interesting devices such as the DuinoMite and you can really tell that these guys really like what they do. They spend the time and effort to make the boards as good as possible.

Anyways, some thoughts about this board. It’s a pretty neat little board for both prototyping and perhaps even fitting it in to a product. It has a small form factor and would happily fit into a larger board for use in a larger product. The built in microSD port and the USB otg interface allows for some neat things to be made. The pinguino IDE isn’t too bad either. The libraries are reasonably complete and the device works quite reliably with the software as I encountered no bugs or glitches and programs worked as expected.

Pros:

• Small form factor
• .1 dip pinout which is good for breadboarding
• Good price for a 32 bit device like this
• Well built
• UEXT port for other Olimex peripherals is a nice choice
• Fast!

Cons:

• Uses small ICSP port which you must buy from Olimex. I know it’s done for size and not simply to sell a cable but it’s still a bit of a drag.
• DIP width is too wide to fit on a single breadboard, you’ll need to use two breadboards and straddle it over them.
• UEXT connector is taller than everything else on the board. Not a huge issue but most people won’t use the UEXT connector and the header could interfere inside an enclosure.
• like with most 32 bit processors, the pins are not 5V. some of the pins may be 5V tolerant but this simply comes with the territory.

Final Thoughts:

I like the stuff that Olimex builds. They give a shit about what they make and it shows. This type of device is pretty good for almost anyone with a reasonable amount of skill wishing to prototype anything you would normally do with an Arduino. For the price, you can’t beat these guys. In order to get ahold of one you can go through Mouser or look at the Ebay distributor (olimexery). Olimex themselves seems to sell it but they don’t seem to have a slick store setup to do purchasing.

The Wiring S board from Rogue robotics

Specs:

• Manufactured by Rogue Robotics
• Price ~$27 USD
• Uses an Atmega644p (surface mount)
• 64Kb of Flash (double arduino uno)
• 4Kb if SRAM (double the uno)
• overall size (2″ x 3″ x .5″)
• 16 Mhz
• 7-12v input or USB
• 2 hardware uarts
• 1 hardware spi
• FTDI USB to serial interface

First thoughts:

I started off trying a few common things such as accelerometers, switches, sd cards and various other things. Most of the basic stuff from a standard Arduino will work except the SD card will you to program it through the SPI library. The form factor has changed a bit from Arduino in that they have used standard 100mil spacing. Also, they have separated the headers in to groups of 8, you can access each of these as ports instead of straight pins. you could do this with the Arduino but the pins were not always contiguous. Also, using the 644 is great because you get two hardware UARTs. very nice! Other than the changes mentioned, it is pretty much the same as an arduino and the software looks and functions almost exactly the same as the standard Arduino IDE. It all has very good fit and finish and is reasonably priced and functional.

Pros:

• Better pin locations, based on a grid of 100 mill unlike and Arduino which has one row of headers off by 50 mil.
• Better pinout usage. Ports are aligned along the header and power,rst and aref are on their own separate header, much better.
• Easier to reach reset button if a shield were on the board.
• more flash and SRAM than standard UNO, double to be exact.
• inch based form factor (exactly 2×3 inches)
• provision for pins or terminal for direct power feed rather than barrel or usb
• reasonable cost, not super cheap or expensive, comparable
• Switchover jumper for usb power and external
• Canadian Made!

Cons:

• Used huge USB connector like Arduinos. Most others stay away from these since they’re huge and most people don’t like the large cords.
• For the same reason that the header placing is good also makes it bad if you like to use shields for the Arduino
• sd library isn’t implemented but that’s not a big deal
• slightly larger for factor (as per area) than the Arduino but not by much.

In closing:

This product is great for anybody who uses the Arduino or is learning. It’s better in almost every waythan an UNO and is offered for a  reasonable price.

Pop by robotshop or roguerobotics if you’d like to pick one up

Digi-Gage

My Digi-Gage is coming along quite nicely. I spun a set of boards from Itead studio a couple of weeks ago, paid a bit extra for the ENIG and the black soldermask. very nice indeed.

This board is for my digital gage. The board interfaces a PIC18F4685 to a LS7166 and thus counts ticks from a run of the mill glass scale. Hopefully it’ll work as well as I hope.

This is it semi-populated. turns out I forgot to buy the TQFP package MCU hence why the mcu isn’t present on the board. I’ll get the rest of the parts from Digikey soon.

Arduino – devboard collection

Well, I’ve been spending money on all kinds of things and perhaps it’s time to slow down a bit. Especially considering that I don’t use them. Here’s what I’ve got and some thoughts about them.

• Arduino Uno – The standard arduino, handy, very handy
• Arduino Mega 2560 – A bigger version of the standard. Good for extra pinouts.
• Arduino Nano – Extremely handy, combining both the arduino usefulness with a breadboardable stick.
• Chipkit Uno – A (much) faster 32 bit arduino. Only disadvantage is the 3.3 volt limit on IO. That said, it has double the IO of a standard arduino and uses the Arduino IDE
• Chipkit Max – A larger version of the previous one with many more IO.
• AVR Butterfly – Haven’t really played with it yet but it seems pretty promising for something cute and interesting.
• Netduino Plus – Like an arduino but faster and able to be programmed in visual c#. I haven’t figured out how to program it in VB yet, perhaps it’s not even possible.
• Netduino Mini – like the above but with a smaller form. Neat little device.
• Duinomite Mini – another cool device with VGA out just like the Duinomite standard.
• Beaglebone – Still haven’t used this much yet
• Olimexino 328 – An arduino but built well. Great for industrial use. Gotta love olimex.

I decided to record data in my car overnight and through the daytime. From 12:00am to 7:00pm thereabouts. I recorded the data every 4 seconds with the following sensors

• NTC Thermistor
• Low Sensitivity CDS (Resistor that changes when light hits it)
• High Sensitivity CDS
• Accelerometer X,Y,Z axis

Why did I do this? just cause. here is the resulting chart

Recorded data for Feb 1, 2012 in my car

Here is the legend: B = Temperature , C = Low Sens. Light, D = High Sens. Light, E = X axis accel, F = Y axis accel, G = Z axis accel.

All of these values are as the MCU read them, ranging from 0-1023. They are also logarithmic so as they approach 1024, the value is ‘squished’ so large changes appear small.  anyways, I thought it was neat to see the following things occur.

• Temperature of the device goes down as the night wears on. There are some lights detected, probably people passing by in the alley behind my car. some drift is noticeable from the accelerometers (due to temperature change?). Also something to notice is that  X and Y are pretty much the same
• The light appears to go haywire, this is me driving in the dark and going under streetlights. Also, the temperature increases, the accelerometers shake and show the duration of my drive to work.
• As my car is parked you can see that I have parked crooked by the X and Y axis. Also, the sun starts to come up. As far as I could tell, it was pitch dark outside, the sensitive light meter says differently.
• During the day, the overcast sky keeps the sky about the same light level, whereas with the less sensitive instrument, since it’s further from saturation, shows variations in the ambient light level through the day. Temperature also fluctuates.
• The Drive home, very similar to the drive to work.
• The car is level again and the light level drops as well as the temperature.

Anyways, I know it’s boring but it’s neat to see real world events (ones you didn’t know about) show up on the chart.

Update on the Digital Gage

Things are proceeding apace with this as well. The rail and the encoder are attached together and they also slide together with the aluminum part I machined for that purpose. Now as for the board, this was a nightmare. Nothing but problems. I started out with a PIC18F46K80, the faster/cheaper versions of the high end 18f4680 and initially it was all OK. Until I tried to use the UART. For the life of me, I could not get the UART to stop spitting out junk. Once I started getting it to stop spitting out junk, it then output nothing at all.

Now, I’ve switch over to a standard 18f4680 but the LS7166 is giving me problems. aaargh! Anyways, things should improve with a bit of hard work and a fresh mind on the idea.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered the Duinomite. I stumbled across it at dontronics and after reading a bit about it, I purchased it right away.

The Duinomite is basically a single board computer with a BASIC interpreter, VGA and Composite interface and a bunch of other little features which make it so awesome. It should also be noted that this idea was done first by Geoff Graham and his unit, the MaxiMite. It seems as though Olimex and Geoff were having a bit of a fight for a while but frankly, I don’t really know. All I can say is that it’s a really neat device and I’m glad that I bought it.

Anyways, like I said, it has a basic interpreter on it. It allows you to program it with a ps2 keyboard or through the console on a virtual com port. The language itself is pretty rudimentary with no labels except for line number. No functions either. However, for simpler, less time intensive stuff, this board is ideal. Here are some screenies of the video display.

The video is pretty rudimentary, monochrome only, 324×216 or 320×200 in vga mode. It does seem to work ok though. The nice thing about this device is its easy access to a sd card so you can log data as well real easily.

anyways, I thought it was a neat device. anyways, check it out at http://www.olimex.com/dev/index.html

Data logging

As a side effect of trying this board out, I kept a couple of graphs. The first on is temperature versus time and the next is light level. I just wanted to try it out so I left it run overnight and here are the charts

I did something like this earlier, like 3 years ago. I’ve always found it neat to see such variation in a controlled environment. For example, the temperature graph shows when I closed the door to my office, the temperature dropped but you could see the furnace kicking on every 20 minutes.

Also, with the light. You can see I had the main light on. Then I turned it off. Then i left the monitor on when I left, eventually the monitor turned off and then as day broke you could see an increase in lighting.

I dunno, I think that kind of thing is cool.

These boards aren’t including the mps430 board, the pic boards, the mikroelectronika board or the Friendly ARM. Too many boards, not enough time. I’m sure I’ll use them for something I guess. Tomorrow begins the fun of interfacing the LS7166, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

The device itself is dead simple, simply find an old speaker you never use, preferably a small one so that you can drive it from the output pin. Using a small battery like I have there, you could probably let the device run for about 30 days. Here’s the design:

dead simple, once again. Only one output is used on this device, I even disabled MCLR so that there is no extra resistor. Just one cap for decoupling and one cap for producing a larger waveform for the speaker. You can change the cap size if you want, you may want a larger cap for a bit of a smoother wave. So, here’s the pinout and the source code and .hex file

• GP0,1,3 -> Not connected
• GP2 (pin 3) -> to speaker

Source and hex: 10f200 annoyo src.zip

Anyways, a couple of notes. This program was written with Oshonsoft basic. Also, it could have been written a bit smaller if I tried but as it stands it takes up 253 of 255 bytes available in flash.

Hope somebody has fun with this!

The concept is simple, have a knob that produces no waveform in the middle of it’s stroke and as the pot deviates from the center, the speed of the signal increases also changing direction based on which side the knob id turned to. I couldn’t use a PIC10F200 much to my chagrin because it doesn’t have an ADC module built in, the PIC10F222 does however. It still works within my concept of low-end mcu’s doing valuable jobs since they’re still only 55 cents in quantity, from digikey of all places.

Overall, it’s a pretty simple design.

• GP3 -> unconnected
• GP2 -> Channel B out (Digital output)
• GP1 -> Channel A out (Digital output)
• GP0 -> 10k Potentiometer in (Analog in)

Dead simple. I did program a bit of a dead spot in the middle so that one can stop the quadrature from advancing quite easily. I put 2 LEDs on it to indicate that it is in fact working. Anyways, here’s the source (again it’s in Oshonsoft BASIC)

10f222 quadrature src.zip

I didn’t bother drawing up a circuit diagram since it’s such an easy circuit but here’s an additional image if you’re really curious. keep in mind that the board I’m using is Stripboard (aka Veroboard) so the traces run along one direction

Now for the fun challenge of making a simple serial interface MCU to the LS7166.

The problem with some other MCU methods is that people often try checking every 5ms to see if two successive input were high. This is a faulty approach since it can be computationally wasteful and can still produce noise. My approach is as follows:

1. read the input on a loop
2. if the input is high, increment a counter up to a certain maximum (say 90)
3. if the counter goes above a certain amount (say 60) then turn on the output
4. if the input is low, decrement the counter until it reaches 0
5. if the counter goes below a certain amount (say 30) then turn off the output
6. Don’t change the value of the output between 30 and 60

What this does is ensures that there is an area of hysteresis where the noise or bounce of the switch will not generate noise on the output. You can play with the rules to suit your specific need and improve responsiveness or make the output resilient to accidental triggering. This is the reason why for some more important things I have used this method. I have used a pic16f505 for this purpose as well with larger arrays of buttons. Having a programmed method that you can change easily can give you an easy ‘jellybean’ solution for these kinds of problems. Mind you of course when dealing with switches in high noise environments you may need to optoisolate or run TVSs on the switch.

If you’ve read any of my other posts you’ll know that I like the PIC10F200 MCUs simply because of their simplicity and the fact that a lot of people write them off as useless. This design is pretty crude as you can see and that leads me into the topic of the compiler. First,  here is a sample hex file for debouncing - debounce. This hex is programmed to premit a pressed switch to activate after 11ms.

I recently bought a suite of compilers from OshonSoft since I drifted over there out of pure chance. This company is a one man show who sells a variety of BASIC compilers for PIC, Z80 and 8085 processors. I tried the 10f compiler and was immediately impressed with how, for so inexpensively, there was a useful tool for simulation and programming.

I’ve only used the 10f compiler so far but it beats the tar out of PicBASIC Pro, as far as I can tell thus far. Not a lot of frills or gimmicks but it outputs very tight code. Here’s the source for the debouncer pic10f200. You can download a demo version of the 10f simulator at his website.

debouncesrc.zip

Well, anyways, that’s my little treatise on the subject. Also, for those of you on a tight budget and just getting into microcontrollers, Oshonsoft might be a good place to buy a compiler that’s reasonably simple.

Ugluino Being Built

Based off of an Arduino Nano, this guy works just fine. I don’t like using Arduinos for the following reasons.

• Perceived lack of control of what’s going on inside
• Feels like cheating since it’s so easy
• Arduino UI is kind of shitty, especially for larger source files.
• When dealing with AI routines, making it difficult to use multiple files is a minus

Anyways, i plugged ahead and quickly pounded this out with the following IO

• Input – The only one, the Echo pin on the ultrasonic sensor
• Output – Trigger on ultrasonic sensor
• 4 Digital output – for controlling direction on SN754410 Quad half h-bridge driver. These go to two gear motors which are attached directly to wheels
• 1 PWM out for duty on motors
• 1 attached servo out of the servo to turn the sensor

The back end of the Ugluino

Most everything worked out swimmingly until I fucked around with some wiring and produced a short. I hooked the robot on to the USB supply on my computer, I noticed after a few second that the power to the unit wasn’t running… hmmm POOF! Well, as it turned out, there was a problem with the wiring to the ultrasonic dealy and it blew what I beleive was a zener diode

I wasn’t able to figure out exactly what it was, I suspect that it is a zener diode that selects between main power and USB since it is on the output of the VReg. I could be wrong. Since I didn’t have any more Arduino Nano’s I simply tried to fix it and soldered a wire across the offending gap. The device seems to work fine…? Anyways, if anyone know what that part was on the Arduino Nano v3.0, I’d like to know ’cause I couldn’t find the 3.0 Schematics and the design has moved those parts around.

Anyways, The robot moves around based on a very simple algorithm.

1. Stop Moving
2. Scan from 40Deg Right to 40 Deg Left in 10 deg increments
3. return appropriate movement from a function that analyses it
4. execute proper movement (Forward, Backward, Right, Left, Hard Right and Hard Left)
5. rinse
6. repeat

It seemed to work reasonably well. I’d like to build a more sturdy version for shits and giggles so that I can play with the algorithms. I’m probably gonna build one with a PIC18F2685 instead of an Arduino. Also, instead of a single sensor, I will use IR proximity sensors to detect low lying objects. Moving the sensor with the Servo make the robot seem more intelligent than it actually is like it’s ‘looking around’. I quite like that.

Anyways, it’s my first post of the year, considering it’s January 1st and 3:52 am as I write this. maybe I should go to bed. Here’s a video of it getting around.

First off, the Mikro C compiler deal. A few days ago I went over the the mikroelectronika site and noticed that they had a sale on their compilers, a large develpment board for free if you get the compiler. I already have the PIC-C compiler but I figured it’s time to buy a new on since I haven’t actually purchased one for years.

So, for $250 you get both the compiler and the large development board.

Lot's of buttons and lots of stuff.

So there is the BIGPIC 6 board. It’s a well built board, .120″ thick and the parts and overall quality are top-notch. Granted, I haven’t used it much since I’ve only had it a couple of days, but if you’re going to try out a compiler and want a development board to test out your compiler, this may be your ticket.

The BIGPIC 6 in profile

The only thing I was disappointed about was the lack of inclusion of the displays. They’re not that expensive and from the site has them for way too much money. You can buy them off EBay and wire them yourself if you want though.

Ok, and now for another item of interest of things from the work front. Gages! RTJ gages, BX groove gages and RX gages.

I’ve been tasked with designing our new series of RTJ groove gages. My primary idea is to make it completely electronic and build a non-referential gage. Basically my electronics version is a linear bearing attached to a DRO slide

My Digitial Gage Design. I have most of the parts and am working on the electronics

Doesn’t look impressive, it’s just a prototype really. Here are the actually slide and dro scale. Right now I’m working on interfacing the LS7166 quadrature interface controller but that’s going to take a while since I have to work on the dial indicator version of the gage since the old design has started to reveal problems.

Dial Gage for RTJ Grooves

Anyways, I have all of the materials and I am working on the varieties of things needed to complete these things.

Linear glass encoder

Linear bearing

Yes, an Arduino!

Anyways, these things are all coming along nicely and not in a vaporware kind of way. I shall keep things updated.

Now this innocuous question is usually asked by people who either don’t have money or are cheapskates like me. I have purchased all kinds of cheap and slightly-less-cheap stuff from a variety of sources over the years and I’ve seen the quality and lack thereof. I’ve worked with it and I’ve had my problems with it. What I figure might be informative is a general guideline of some things I’ve bought over the years, especially the cheap shit, also my opinions on this stuff for people who are starting out.

It should be stated that I’m no expert on electronics and perhaps that makes my opinion suitable for the new hobbyist like myself. Sometimes acceptable is good enough.

The Multimeter

Every hobbyist needs a multimeter. They tell you voltages, resistances, current and often times things like frequency, diode voltage drop,  continuity and various other things. This will be your most important tool when things don’t work as they should or when building a circuit.

The cheap chinese multimeter

Above is the cheap chinese multimeter. They come in various colors and designs and you can pick them up sometimes for $5. While they seem like a good deal, they are not. I have had a great many of these and they have all been a problem in one way or another. Either the voltage shown is wrong, or the fuse inside is pre-blown or sometimes certain functions simply don’t work. If you just want one around your house to check to see if something is live, buy one but otherwise I would stay away. Now for the hobbyist, there is the middle of the road multimeter, these are the ones I would get if you want a blend of quality and cost effectiveness. Some brands to consider are :

• Agilent ($99 to $150)
• Extech ($50 to $100)
• Uni-T ($35-$100) meh..

There are others but those are the ones I have experience with. Obviously the more money you spend, typically the better product you’re going to get. If you’re gonna cheap out on anything in your lab, don’t cheap out on your multimeter, it is the single most important tool in your lab. Remember to get one that’s auto-ranging and don’t bother with ones that aren’t auto ranging or have those transistor testers on them. Transistor testers are the mark of a shitty multimeter.

The Power Supply

Whenever you do electronics work you need some source of power. This can range from using the USB port on your computer (like with an Arduino) to getting fully programmable supplies.

From a diy site on a refitted computer power supply

Some people try to save a few bucks and use a computer power supply for their projects. This isn’t bad since it outputs a whole lot of different voltages (3.3v, 5v, 12v, -12v) and can usually supply a whole lot of current. Only problem I have with them is the fact that they don’t tell you much about how much juice you’re using and you can’t limit the current.

Some people are really cheap and use wall-warts (like I did) for power. This is almost universally a bad idea because wall warts can fail spectacularly when shorted out or exposed to weird power loads. If you value your time and parts, don’t experiment this way.

A regulated DC power supply. This is basically the standard model made in china and is marketed under like 30 different brand names.

The best way that’s cheap is simply an analog adjustable power supply. They go for about 110 to 140 bucks and will last you a long time under normal use. You can adjust both maximum voltage AND maximum current so you can perform various tasks with it and save yourself headaches sometimes by limiting current. Trust me on this, for most things this is the best option.

Oscilloscope

Everyone wants to be able to diagnose problems with their circuits, see if there is actually changes going on over data lines, or see if there’s noise on your power supply or something. Also it just looks cool to have a 50′s mad scientist’s lab for when people come over.

This is one item that I see people cheaping out on all the time, and frankly myself as well. While I don’t have top end equipment at the moment, I have second hand equipment that is pretty good.

Your basic analog scope

Above is your general, all purpose analog scope. For most things this guy will serve you well. Buying a new one is often almost as expensive as buying a digital storage scope so buying one like this should be second hand. You can get an analog scope for a song on EBay sometimes and even around town at universities and college, they have extras kicking around. Using an analog scope correctly is a good skill to have and will serve you well with your digital storage scope, if you decide to get one.

a Digital Storage osciloscope

These may be your ticket to have in your lab. Some companies like tequipment sell GW Instek oscilloscopes for $300 or so. While it can be a bit of an investment, this may be your ticket to having decent equipment for your hobbyist lair. The one shown above is obviously an older one and similar to my tektronix 100mhz scope. I got mine second hand for $400 and it’s been a great investment. To be fair, there are other economy brands such as OWON, Rigol and others but I only have experience with the instek ones.

An example of the DSO Nano

The DSO Nano. They are cheap and tempting but they are not worth the money. From what I can tell, they have very low bandwidth and aren’t that great. There is a new model out for about 180 bucks, I may buy one to see what it’s all about. There are other portable DSOs out there but anything that’s any good is a fair amount of money such as the Fluke 123 and various others. OWON makes one for about $500 I believe.

An example of a usb oscilloscope

Well, some people like Dave from EEVBlog warn people away from these USB oscilloscopes but I wonder why sometimes. The only difference really is that the display is now standard hardware instead of the company having to engineer a whole interface on custom hardware. It should be noted though to stay away from the cheap ones on EBay. The ones for about 60 bucks have a bandwidth in the low KHz, yes, not MHz and they suck. Stay away from cheap USB oscilloscopes. somebody who appears to make good ones is Picotech, but that said they are the only company I have experience in that regard.

Anyways, You can get away with $300 oscilloscopes for hobby work, don’t cheap out if you can help it. It’ll make your life easier.

The Rest

Well, I don’t know if I can say “The rest”. there are so many things you can buy to accompany your lab that it’d take many tens of pages of writing to cover even in a very cursory fashion.

I’ll list a few things in point form you could need in your lab to make it both workable  and useful.

• Breadboards – Cheap and effective, get at least 2. You can get them for 5 bucks each on EBay
• Soldering iron – Spend 100 dollars and get a temperature controlled one. Weller or Hakko. Those cheap 20 watt soldering irons suck and you’ll waste more time than anything with them.
• Side nips, you can get these for like 3 dollars.
• Wire strippers – Again, EBay, Cheap. Get the lower gage ones 20-30 gage unless you do a lot of speaker wire and power stuff.
• Wire – get some rolls of solid core wire in both 22 and 24 gage. get different colors. red, black, green and white are recommended. more colors the better.
• Resistors – you can get sets of resistors off EBay or from Jameco for cheap. Get 1/4 watt ones, that’s standard.
• Diodes – a pack of diodes off ebay might cost you upwards of 2 dollars. yes. cheap
• component packs – These carry a whole slew of random parts you might need. Everything from switches and caps to potentiometers and other goodies.
• Alligator Clips – Get some alligator clip wires, very handy for everything.
• A good light – Get yourself some adequate lighting, only costs a few bucks but makes working much more pleasant.
• Arduino – Personally, I hate arduinos but if you’re new to things, get one. It introduces things in a much more pleasant way and allows results quicker.

The DON’T List

It should be said that I started out with damn near nothing but a bench and a $10 multimeter. I struggled and struggled and bought nothing but cheap crap because I’m a cheapskate. I didn’t buy a compiler and there was no such thing as an Arduino (At least not to my knowledge) so I wrote all my programs in assembly which is extremely time consuming.

Anyways, I suppose what I’m trying to say is that if I can learn it, anyone can. even on a limited budget. If you’re serious about it though, spend the extra few bucks and get something decent.