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I'm really intrigued by the Arduino, but I'm still a little confused about all the different types. If we assume that money's not a huge issue and I just want to get the most (currently) powerful/expandable/whatever-able Arduino board, what should I be looking at?
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Jan 31, 2013 00:37
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I appreciate the fast reply! Honestly, I don't have any definite projects in mind right now. I see a lot of stuff on Instructables I'd like to tinker with, have a few generic ideas of my own, and...well, basically I just want to get my feet wet while still having the option of "going big" if I want. Having a shitload of I/O pins isn't necessary at this point. Worst case right now, I might be looking to drive a few servos or tinker with driving some relays. If the Uno is a good jumping-off point then it's likely to be more than I even need. I'm just one of those people that hates to buy something, only to realize that if I'd gone one step higher I would have been much happier. 
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Jan 31, 2013 00:55
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Finally just headed over to Radio Shack and bought an Uno yesterday. Already in love with the whole concept, and I don't even remotely understand the programming language yet. What I *do* understand is that I was controlling the position of an RC servo via a small pot in a little under 20 minutes...it's the little things that make me happy.
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Feb 4, 2013 21:21
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I'd love to take credit for the code, but it was just a copied/pasted sample from the Arduino web site. *sheepish grin* But really, it's the fact that it just worked that made me a little giddy. I know precisely squat about programming in anything other than Commodore 64 BASIC...it's been that long since I've dabbled in it. It doesn't look all that daunting though, at least for the starter projects. Just have to sit down and dedicate the time to learning some of it after the initial "ooooh, blinky!" excitement subsides a bit.
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Feb 4, 2013 21:52
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bobsacks posted:They sell Arduino at RadioShack? I haven't been in one of those in a decade - creepy lookin guy behind the counter. You know the dude was some kind of serious perv. The closest Shack to me is staffed by two giant goony neckbeards most of the time. Neither one of them has a clue about anything in the store except for the cel phones. Thankfully, I never need their help for anything unless it involves checking for inventory, and I always come armed with specific catalog numbers. I try not to go there much, but sometimes you need a small DPDT toggle switch right loving now. Arduino update: I'm now the proud owner of a 2-line LCD shield, a PIR sensor, an ultrasonic sensor, and a 3-axis accelerometer. Everything runs great with the sample code. I also have an old 4x4 RC truck that's begging me to turn it into an autonomous cat-chasing machine of doom. I guess it's actually time to sit down and learn some of that damned programming language now!
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Feb 8, 2013 00:07
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For lack of anything better to do on a cold, snowy Sunday, I built an LED cube based on this Instructable. Of course I didn't have a single usable scrap of perfboard left in the house, but I *did* have a Seeed ProtoShield kit. Adapt and overcome! To my delight (and somewhat to my surprise) it worked on the first try.   And a dark grainy video, just in case you've never seen one of the other five trillion dark grainy LED cube videos: http://youtu.be/-Sh972dMumY
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Feb 11, 2013 02:57
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huhu posted:
Christ, I was ready to stab my eyes out with the hot soldering iron after doing a 3x3x3. And I *like* to make things. That's just absurd. I need one. On the subject of swapping chips and burning bootloaders and such...since I'll always be more of a hardware than software guy, I ordered all the requisite materials to make a few standalone boards. So far I'm having zero luck programming with the FTDI adapter I picked up, but using these instructions I managed to prep 5 new breadboarded 328s with a bootloader and the "blink" sketch. Now I'm just looking for a nice compact layout to build them on. I have all the stuff on hand to etch my own boards, so I might give both the DIY Arduino and the Nanino a shot. Oh, and if anyone's been looking at the cheap Chinese clone boards on eBay, I can attest to the fact that at least the Mega2560 seems to work fine. Getting into this right at tax refund time was a very, very bad idea. 
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Feb 16, 2013 12:54
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, here is a 16x16x16 cube... why?
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Later that day...  Didn't turn out half bad, considering that's the first board I've etched in almost 20 years. My $5 yard sale laser printer performed quite admirably. I used 2 parts hydrogen peroxide/1 part muriatic acid as the etchant, already had the stuff on hand from trying out some aluminum etching last fall. It works like a champ and is spaced correctly for shields, although the electrolytic cap stands a bit proud of the headers. I also figured out my problem with the FTDI adapter - my breadboard circuit (and this board, initially) didn't have a .1uF cap between the 328's reset pin and the DTR pin on the programming header. Apparently that's required for the board to auto-reset itself for programming, otherwise you have to manually mash the reset button at the right time to start the serial communication. You can see where I tucked the cap on the bottom of the board. Ugly but effective. Now I just need to remember where my package of little stick-on rubber feet is...
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Feb 16, 2013 22:50
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That's fantastic, Zuph, thanks! I'm going to be making a few more of these for myself and a couple of friends, and your layout is exactly what I would have done if I had any idea how to use PCB/CAD software.
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Feb 17, 2013 00:56
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huhu, I've got a discrete component collection that rivals lots of small stores. I'd be *more* than happy to put together a care package for you with a variety of capacitors, diodes, and a wider range of resistors for you if you'd like. Nothing worse than being stuck in the middle of nowhere, unable to complete a project due to lack of materials.
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Mar 6, 2013 23:59
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I'll second the "wosang_pro"-purchased jumpers. Mine had a very slight odor when I first opened the bag but it dissipated very quickly. I wouldn't idly nibble on any of them out of boredom, but they're probably as good as or better than any other cheap Chinese jumpers.
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Apr 6, 2013 18:52
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I'll second Bad Munki. I have all sorts of Arduino boards laying around here...Uno, Mega, Nano, Leonardo, even a few DIY flavors...and 9 times out of 10, I've got the Uno plugged in. The tenth time out of ten is usually having one of my smaller homebuilt ones jammed in a breadboard. The only thing an Uno might be lacking for a big home automation project is a sufficient number of inputs or outputs, but there are several ways around it that don't require buying a new dev board. If you're in the U.S., have a Radio Shack nearby, and don't mind spending a few extra bucks for instant gratification, you can usually grab one right off the shelf along with various gizmos and widgets to plug in.
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Nov 3, 2013 15:49
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I have a couple of nice (pricy) Fluke meters I use at work, and while they're all nice and calibrated and ridiculously accurate and whatnot, they are extreeeemely overkill for anything I do at home. On a whim, I bought a $20 Equus Innova 3320 off one of the tool trucks that comes by the hangar, and it's really a great little rig. Compact size, flip-out stand on the back, rubbery casing to help protect from falls, standard jacks that are compatible with all my expensive Fluke test leads (don't buy expensive Fluke test leads), and has all the basic functions most people will need for starting out. Also perfectly good for stabbing at wall sockets. http://www.amazon.com/INNOVA-3320-Auto-Ranging-Digital-Multimeter/dp/B000EVYGZA (edit) - I forgot to agree completely with the Extech 330 recommendation as well. That's a meter that will last a hobbyist a long, long time and is well worth the extra money. Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Dec 7, 2013 |
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Dec 7, 2013 03:33
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Captain Cool posted:Thanks. I did see some hobby stores come up on Google but I didn't get that one. I have a whole pile of those. If all you need is a cheap, light duty servo for small projects they'll fit the bill quite nicely.
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Feb 15, 2014 15:37
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Captain Cool posted:I was referring to the typo on the label in that picture. Doesn't give me high hopes of getting a genuine product. Doh! Completely missed that. Had to go check mine, they actually say "servo."
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Feb 15, 2014 20:30
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CygnusTM posted:SparkFun is having a big sale for Arduino Day this Saturday. Great time to pick up a couple of cheap boards if you need them. Everything is (unsurprisingly) already sold out on the site, but they're allowing backorders. Pro Minis are only $3.00!
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Mar 29, 2014 14:49
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Hadlock posted:So I got one of those $10, 3 wheeled robot chassis off of ali express/ebay, am I just a huge baby for not soldering a wire to the leads on the motors, power switch and battery case? I soldered on 0.1" header pins to each of them to make it easier to plug a bunch of female to male jumper cables between them and a breadboard. As far as the free space on your shields - use it if it's convenient, or do something different if it's not. Totally up to you to decide what's going to work best.
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Jan 31, 2015 03:49
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The Royal Scrub posted:Has anyone ever read a resistive touch panel with Arduino? They're surprisingly cheap so I think I'm going to pick one up to mess with. I'm just trying to decide if I need a driver. I'm not worried about saving on analog ports or anything. You won't need a driver, maybe just a couple of pull up resistors. It's quite literally as easy as connecting four wires and running the appropriate code. Do a Google search for "Arduino 4 wire touch screen", and you'll get more information than you'll even know what to do with. I haven't messed with one in a while, but even with my near-zero knowledge of the programming language, I was able to bluff my way through a few code samples and get several touch panels working with very little effort.
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Mar 3, 2015 02:07
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SoundMonkey posted:holy. loving. poo poo. I feel like a big dummyface, but just for clarification - can these actually be used by themselves to interface with stuff without requiring a separate microcontroller? Like, if I wanted to wirelessly monitor the water level in my coffee pot (for whatever reason people do this) all I'd need is one of these and the appropriate code and sensor?
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Apr 3, 2015 17:15
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mod sassinator posted:Yes, but be careful because there might not be a library to talk to your sensor. I think someone mentioned the board doesn't do SPI or I2C yet so that rules out a lot of things. I'm also not sure it has an ADC so you definitely need to do some homework first. All good info, thanks. I don't really have anything in mind yet that I'd need that kind of functionality for, but as I continue to fumble through some basic home automation prototype projects, I imagine something will pop up eventually.
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Apr 3, 2015 17:44
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I ended up grabbing a few of those ESP-12 modules from eBay just for the hell of it. They are very small.
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Apr 9, 2015 23:00
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OK, these little ESP8266 widgets are pretty awesome. I've only gone as far as blindly following this Instructable, but everything worked exactly as advertised. I still have no idea exactly what I'm going to do with them, but just seeing them in action - and realizing that I paid roughly $4 apiece for them - is just a little bit amazing. I got mine from a US-based seller, five units for $2.95/ea with $3.49 shipping. They don't come with the little breakout board, so keep in mind that the pins are spaced at 2mm rather than 2.54mm/0.1 inch and won't fit on a standard breadboard. I made my own breakout with some strip board and scraps of solid core Cat5 cable. I don't recommend my method...in hindsight, I probably could have designed and etched a board in less time than it took me to make that little monstrosity. gently caress it though, it worked!
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Apr 12, 2015 03:06
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ejstheman posted:A 16MHz crystal is cheap per each, but I assume not if I only need two of them, what with S&H. Where do you live? I have a whole shitload of 16MHz crystals on hand for Arduin-ish projects, and I'd be more than happy to throw a few in an envelope and send them along. I'm in the US, so postage to...well, basically anywhere...is going to be negligible, as long as you don't want them tomorrow.
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Apr 16, 2015 00:05
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Sure thing! I know how frustrating it is, so I figured I'd throw it out there.
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Apr 18, 2015 05:09
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One ridiculously messy prototype later, I've got an ESP-12 board (flashed with the NodeMCU firmware), running standalone, that reliably triggers a relay via my home wifi. Right now the relay just controls the little LED that's circled, but as soon as I get a little better at this NodeMCU/LUA stuff, I'm going to make a nice lazy man's switch so I can turn something useful on and off without getting out of my chair. Truly, the future of home automation is now, if still a bit klunky. 
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Apr 27, 2015 02:20
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I always seem to be too late to be relevant to the conversation, but I made an ISP on a breadboard with a ZIF socket to program blank 328P chips: Hooks up to an Uno running the ArduinoISP sketch with just a few wires (there are schematics all over the place for the whole rig) and works like a champ.
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Aug 31, 2016 11:10
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Sagebrush posted:Also, you should always have a little bit of molten solder on the tip of the iron, just enough to spread across between the iron tip and the component and conduct the heat effectively. A dry, oxidized tip doesn't work well at all. I may have mentioned this before, but using this sagebrush advice as a jumping off point - you should also put a healthy blob of solder on the tip *after* you complete your joint, and *before* you put it back in the holder. This is called "idling" the tip, and will extend the useful life by...forever. The solder blob becomes a protective layer and will happily sit there and oxidize on the outside while the rich, creamy center stays nice and molten and shiny. When you're ready to solder again, dab the tip into your Hakko tip cleaner (if you don't have one of these, you're missing out on some goddamn magic) to clean the schmootz off, dab a little fresh stuff on there, and get to work. Repeat all steps as necessary. I have some tips easily approaching 15 years old that still work like new because of this One Little Secret Big Solder Doesn't Want You To Know. (it's not really a secret, it just isn't mentioned many places and doesn't get taught/learned much anymore.) Another fun fact: solder will flow towards the heat. Keep that in the back of your mind and watch how it behaves in your projects. Once you really see how it works, you can use it to your advantage and make some really pretty joints with less solder and contact time than you might be using now. Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 17:05
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cakesmith handyman posted:That tip cleaner's just a brass sponge right?
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Feb 19, 2017 00:16
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SkunkDuster posted:I'd like to build my own jumper wires. The male ones are easy enough (solder a header pin to a wire and put heat shrink on) but I'd also like to make the square insulated female pins. I have a crimper, but have no idea what the part numbers are for the female crimp pins or insulating collars. Does anybody know where I can get them, or even better, a link to them on Digikey? I couldn't find the singles on Digikey, but what you're looking for is called a Dupont connector. I did find some generic stuff on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/SUNKEE-100pcs-Dupont-Connector-Housing/dp/B00CGXNFBK (housings) https://www.amazon.com/SUNKEE-Dupont-Jumper-Female-Connector/dp/B00CGWVFWW (contacts) I've been tempted to make these myself in the past, but I've found that unless you need some super custom length, it's easier to buy a pre-made ribbon cable and just peel off individual ones as needed. I'll admit to not really wanting to assemble fiddly little crimp connectors at home though, because that's kind of what I do for a living. cakesmith handyman posted:Good, because it's 30 quid over here but generic ones are 5. Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 15:25
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You're very welcome, hope they're not complete garbage. The worst thing I've had to deal with in recent months was Quadrax connectors, as part of an in-flight WiFi system installation. Thankfully one of the newer and slightly less jaded guys volunteered to do most of them. I don't know who designed them, but I'd like to kick him in the groin repeatedly until he apologizes. And then maybe some more after that. They were the size 19 style ones in this data sheet. Absolute chaos in a tidy little package.
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Feb 19, 2017 17:07
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The optoisolator electrically separates the transmitter and receiver, and is part of the MIDI spec as a measure to prevent ground loops (audible noise) in the circuit. It may be less critical in these Moderne Tymes where things are generally more digital than analog, but I couldn't say for sure. I know I've seen Arduino circuits that use a transistor instead.
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Feb 24, 2017 13:19
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Anyone have any favorite neopixel tutorials? I got a bunch of the little individual ones on round PCBs to play with, but everything I've come across so far seems to want to teach me how to use whole strips. My programming skill level without just cribbing code is roughly "hello world", so the more toddler-oriented the material is, the better.
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Sep 4, 2017 16:48
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That fast led library looks like just the ticket. Their basic usage tutorial is easy to understand even for someone like me. I guess I sort of knew that the number of individual LEDs didn't matter all that much, but I'm fearful of new things. Thank you!
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Sep 4, 2017 18:04
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It would be wonderful if the Arduino and adjacent ecosystems were all plug-and-play, but for better or worse, there's usually research that has to be done and knowledge that has to be gained in order to do even the most basic of tasks if you're not super familiar with any of it. I don't know if this'll be helpful at this point, but Adafruit does have a guide for adding the ItsyBitsy libraries to the Arduino IDE. That should add support for your specific board and make it appear on the selection list. https://learn.adafruit.com/introducting-itsy-bitsy-32u4/arduino-ide-setup
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Sep 27, 2023 15:37
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Deadite posted:You know what? I'm a loving idiot and installed ARDUINO AVR Boards and not ADAFRUIT AVR Boards, I'm going to install the right one now It happens! LOL... I was just coming back to talk about that specific point after running through the steps, and the Itsy stuff came up on mine. You should be good to go once the actual Adafruit libraries are in there though. I don't even mean to come in here and sound like some kind of expert or anything, I'm a complete hack and don't even know how to write my own code for the most part. I've just been through a lot of these little hiccups during my own travels and know how frustrating it can be.
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Sep 27, 2023 16:17
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