HeroCore ONE is a microcontroller, MCU (Micro Controller Unit), based on ATMega2560. it is equipped with 40 digital inputs and outputs, 16 analog inputs and outputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial ports), an SPI port, an I2C port, a 16Mhz resonator, a reset button, 3 different colored LEDs, 16 LEDs equal color and a button for generic purposes. HeroCore ONE uses a constantly increasing range of modules, which are mounted on it, and which can be equipped with additional technologies such as WiFi, navigation system, Ethernet, etc.

It is programmed with Arduino language (C++) and operates at 5V

Atmel ATMEGA2560-16AU is an 8-bit CMOS low-power microcontroller based on RISC advanced AVR architecture. By executing powerful instructions in a single clock cycle, the ATMEGA2560-16AU achieves actual transmission capacity at 1MIPS per MHz allowing the programmer to optimize consumption against processing speed.

• Advanced RISC architecture

• Powerful instructions 135 – execution of more single-cycle colock cycles

• General purpose registers 32 × 8

• Full static operation

• Effective transmission capacity up to 16 MIPS at 16MHz

• 2-cycle multiplier on chip

• High resistance non-volatile memory segments

• Self-programmable flash inside the 256KBytes system

• EEPROM 4Kbytes

• Internal SRAM 8Kbyte

• Write / reset cycles: EEPROM Flash 10.000

• Data retention: 20 years at 85 ° C / 100 years at 25 ° C

• Optional boot code section with independent locking points.

• Internal system programming through the chip start-up program

• Reading operation during writing

• Programming block for software security

• Resistance: up to 64Kbytes of optional external memory

• Atmel® QTouch® library support

• Buttons, sliding and capacitive touch wheels

• QTouch and QMatrix® Acquisition

DEFINITION: The General Purpose Input / Output (also known as GPIO) is an interface available on HeroCore. A microprocessor, microcontroller or interface device can have one or more GPIO connections on an interface with external devices and peripherals. These can act as inputs, to read digital signals from other parts of the circuit, or output, to check or report to other devices. GPIOs are often placed in groups, typically of 8 pins – a GPIO port – which usually have individual configurable GPIOs either as input or output. In the case of HeroCore GPIOs can be configured to produce CPU interrupts and be able to use Direct Memory Access to efficiently move large amounts of data to and from the device.

EXPLANATION. A digital input by definition can assume one of two digital values ​​equal to ZERO / ONE, which is equivalent to say LOW / HIGH  or 0 / 5V or FALSE / TRUE. The microcontroller can perform two unique actions on a GPIO: switch it on and create a 5V output to turn on an LED, for example, and hence use it as an output (OUTPUT), or the GPIO can be used as an input (INPUT) so the microcontroller checks if a voltage of 5v is applied to said input. The command to create a 5V output is digitalWrite(22, HIGH), and to read it is digitalRead(22) for port 22 in this example.

DEFINITION: In electronics a digital-to-analog converter (abbreviated as DAC) is an electronic component that converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC), is the converter that performs the inverse function.

EXPLANATION: When used as inputs, A0, A2, A4, A6 are able to read a voltage from 0V to 5V, through the analogRead(A0) command, to read input A0, for example. This command will return a value between 0 and 1023, which has 10 bits of resolution (2 ^ 10), whereas 1023 is equivalent to 5V. When used as outputs the resolution is 8 bits, and we can recreate any voltage between 0V and 5V using the analogWrite(255, A0) command to get 5V output on A0, for example. Remember that the maximum recommended current is 10mA.

DEFINITION: In electronics a digital-to-analog converter (abbreviated as DAC) is an electronic component that converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC), is the converter that performs the inverse function.

EXPLANATION: When used as inputs, A1, A3, A5, A7 can read a voltage from 0V to 24V, via the analogRead(A1) command, to read input A1, for example. This command will return a value between 0 and 1023, which is 10 bits of resolution (2 ^ 10), whereas 1023 is equivalent to 24V. When used as outputs the resolution is 8 bits, and we can recreate any voltage between 0V and 5V using the analogWrite(255, A1) command to get 5V output on A1, for example. Remember that the maximum recommended current is 10mA.

DEFINITION: In electronics a digital-to-analog converter (abbreviated as DAC) is an electronic component that converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC), is the converter that performs the inverse function.

EXPLANATION: These 4 inputs / outputs differ from the others as there is a 15uF capacitor which improves the accuracy of the signal tenfold.
When used as inputs, A8, A10, A12, A14 are able to read a voltage from 0V to 5V, through the analogRead(A8) command, to read input A8, for example. This command will return a value between 0 and 1023, which is 10 bits of resolution (2 ^ 10), whereas 1023 is equivalent to 5V. When used as outputs the resolution is 8 bits, and we can recreate any voltage between 0V and 5V using the analogWrite(255, A8) command to get 5V output on A8, for example. Remember that the maximum recommended current is 10mA.

DEFINITION: In electronics a digital-to-analog converter (abbreviated as DAC) is an electronic component that converts a digital signal into an analog signal. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC), is the converter that performs the inverse function.

EXPLANATION: These 4 inputs / outputs differ from the others as there is a 15uF capacitor which improves the accuracy of the signal tenfold.
When used as inputs, A9, A11, A13, A15 are able to read a current from 4mA to 20mA, through the analogRead(A9) command, to read input A9, for example. This command will return a value between 0 and 1023, which is 10 bits of resolution (2 ^ 10), whereas 1023 is equivalent to 20mA. When used as outputs the resolution is 8 bits, and we can recreate any voltage between 0V and 5V using the analogWrite command (255, A9) to get 5V on output A9, for example. Remember that the maximum recommended current is 20mA output. EXPLANATION: These 4 inputs / outputs differ from the others as there is a 15uF capacitor which improves the accuracy of the signal tenfold.
When used as inputs, A8, A10, A12, A14 are able to read a voltage from 0V to 5V, through the analogRead(A8) command, to read input A8, for example. This command will return a value between 0 and 1023, which is 10 bits of resolution (2 ^ 10), whereas 1023 is equivalent to 5V. When used as outputs the resolution is 8 bits, and we can recreate any voltage between 0V and 5V using the analogWrite(255, A8) command to get 5V output on A8, for example. Remember that the maximum recommended current is 10mA.

DEFINITION: In electronics and telecommunications the pulse width modulation (or PWM), is a type of digital modulation that allows to obtain a variable average voltage dependent on the ratio between the duration of the positive impulse and the negative one (duty cycle). Likewise, it is fundamentally used for communication protocols in which information is encoded in the form of durability of each pulse. Thanks to modern microcontrollers, it is possible to activate or inactivate a high frequency switch and in the same way to detect the status and the period of an impulse.

EXPLANATION: The HeroCore PWM has 8 bits of resolution, ie 256 combinations from the minimum that is 0, to a maximum of 255. When in your prgram you write analogWrite(255.12), for example, you are writing 5v on output 12, that is full duty cycle. If instead we write analogWrite (127.12) we are writing 0V and 5V alternately, for a duration of time equal to each, at high frequency. The average that will be perceived at the PWM output will be 2.5V. By rapidly alternating 0V and 5V and dosing their times, duty cycle, it is possible to recreate any voltage between 0V and 5V

DEFINITION: The UART or Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter is a general purpose or dedicated hardware device that converts data bit streams from a parallel format to an asynchronous serial format or vice versa.

EXPLANATION: An output can have only one value, if taken at a single moment. However if we add the component of time, an output can take more values, creating a series. This is the concept of serial, hence its state is investigated for a prolonged period of time, which is understood as communication. The stream of data can be in RX reception or TX transmission. A TX output of a device A must be connected to an RX input of a device B. TX> RX and RX <TX. HeroCore has 2 ports for 5V UART communication with other modules, Serial1 and Serial2

DEFINITION: The UART or Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter is a general purpose or dedicated hardware device that converts data bit streams from a parallel format to an asynchronous serial format or vice versa.
EXPLANATION: This special 3.3V UART is for the direct plug of ESP01, the most widespread wifi in the world for makers. An output can have only one value, if taken a single moment. However if we add the component of time, an output can take more values, creating a series. This is the concept of serial, or its state is investigated for a prolonged period of time, which is understood as communication. The stream, stream, of data can be in RX reception or TX transmission. A TX output of a device A must be connected to an RX input of a device B. TX> RX and RX <TX. HeroCore has 1 port for 3.3V UART communication with other modules, Serial3.

DEFINITION: The Serial Peripheral Interface or SPI is a communication system between a microcontroller and other integrated circuits or between several microcontrollers.
It is a standard communication bus designed by Motorola and developed, in a variant, also by National Semiconductor with the name of MicrowireTM bus.
The transmission occurs between a device called master and one or more slaves (literally from the English master and slave). The master controls the bus, emits the clock signal, decides when to start and end the communication.

EXPLANATION: SPI is different from serial because communication is not between two devices, but between a master and a multitude of slave devices, which can each speak, one at a time. Many HeroCore modules use this type of communication.

DEFINITION: I²C (abbreviation of Inter Integrated Circuit), (pronounced i-square-c or i-2-c), is a bifilar serial communication system used between integrated circuits.
The classic I²C bus is composed of at least one master and one slave.
The most frequent situation sees a single master and several slaves; however, multimaster and multislave architectures can be used in more complex systems.
The bus was developed by Philips in 1982 and after the construction of hundreds of components and systems in the ’80s, in 1992 the first version of the protocol was produced that underwent several updates and generated similar buses, one of which (SMBUS ) for purely commercial reasons, Intel patent, in 1995.

EXPLANATION: There is an I²C port in the HeroCore, but others are virtualizable with the appropriate libraries. The SDA (Serial DAta) and SCL (Serial CLock) outputs are sufficient. The selection of the slave to which you want to send a data is via software, evoking it using its address, for a maximum of 32 addresses on the same line. Our I²C port is positioned to accommodate the most popular OLED screen in the world.

16 Blue LEDs connected to 16 GPIO can be used for the following functions by avoiding the installation of external LED indicators:

• Software testing to check actuators sequence

• Visual feedback of the GPIOs that are active or not

• Bar chart graph to represent the percentage of values

• Any other function that requires visual feedback

3 Blue, white and green LEDs connected to 3 GPIOs that can be used for the following functions by avoiding the installation of external LED indicators:

• Software status, i.e. Blue=active, White=working, Green= success

• Software stages that have been reached during run time

• Signal which of 3 different programs/functions are running

• Any other function that requires visual feedback

LED that indicates when the microcontroller is receiving power.

This DIP Switch is connected to 8 GPIOs, we can send a pull-down signal  to  any of the 8 GPIOs, associating this to 0 inside the software by switching it to ON.

During the OFF position, it will be associated to 1 inside the software by activating an internal pull-up.

We can utilize the DIP Switch for the following functions:

• Set an IP address without the need of connecting a PC

• Identifying a HeroCore among others by numbering it

• Replicating the behavior of one pin onto others

• Choosing which program/function to execute