Banner with yellow background
Arduino Arrives

Got my Arduino in the mail. This thing is great! Took a little to get the code uploading, but I figured it out once I plugged in an LED. I ran a few of the sample programs, worked fine. Documentation is a bit of a problem, have to go to the right web sites.

Wrote my first program from scratch. Took fifteen minutes to get it flashing my name on the LED. Arduino rocks!

The development environment is a little simple, but adequate. Uploading to the Arduino takes some timing. You really need an LED on pin 13. When you press the reset button the LED will flicker, then go off. That's the time to start uploading. If you don't hit it just right the bootloader will time out and restart the existing program on the chip. There are two LED's on the board (labeled TX and RX) that flicker during the upload (mine are green, the power LED is red). Once the upload finishes the device will pause a while, the run the new application code.

To get started you need the LED on pin 13. Just leave it there, most of the sample apps will do something with it. After flashing the LED and sending data back and forth on the seral port (USB) you might want to hook up a speaker (or piezo element) and try some of the sound generating samples. These use the Mega8's PWM device.

I'm thinking about building an electronic cricket. It chirps more the warmer it gets. I just need a temperature sensor and the piezo speaker. The software isn't too hard, just read the temp, figure out how much to chirp, then chirp. I'll get it working on the Arduino, then port it to a Tiny15 chip and just leave it running somewhere. Yeah, that will drive the family to tears. Maybe I need to make it sense ambient light also...

... Link


Creative Commons License (by-nd)

Creative Commons License

Blog entries licensed under a Creative Commons License.

8140 days of detection
mod: 12/3/08, 5:42 AM

days of detection

... PMOG
... ideas
... brain hurts
... weblo

owner

Biography

Randall Bohn lives in Orem, Utah, USA. He works as a Software Quality Engineer. He is a big fan of the AVR line of microcontrollers. He has been in the computer industry since 1989. Randall is married and has three children.

rsbohn can be reached via gmail.com.


status
Youre not logged in ... Login
Amazon.com DVD Shop
menu
... home
... topics
... galleries

... Antville.org home
search

related


calendar
November 2024
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
December
recent updates
Arduino Starter Kit
MAKE Blog How-to Tuesday posted a challenge: Optimize the sketch code for a pressure sensor bar graph. Here is my second attempt: int gate[] = {10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 32767}; void setup() {DDRB = 0b00111110;} void loop() { int dval = 0; int rval = analogRead(2); for (int x = 0; rval...
12/3/08, 5:42 AM
Measuring Supply Voltage
I'm running my latest handheld computer on solar power. It starts up when the sun rises and runs all day. I started wondering how I could measure the voltage coming in from the solar panel. I came up with a way to use a diode and a resistor and the...
7/29/08, 9:53 AM
Ten Pin ISP adapter
I've already built a six pin ISP adapter, but my Olmex cards use the ten pin ISP. I put a header on a scrap of perf board, added an LED for the heartbeat, and then connected the ten pin cable. Actually it is a fifteen pin cable, off a joystick...
7/16/08, 10:00 PM
Hello 5x7 Style
Wrote a new firmware for the 5x7 display. Now it scrolls out 'hello' over and over again. I'm running it on a solar panel, so it wakes up with the sun and runs all day long. When I built the LED matrix I put resistors on the five columns. I'm starting...
6/17/08, 12:48 PM
Provo, Utah
With a walkable downtown and access to two Universities, Provo Utah is a great location. I live next door in Orem. Kipplinger: Provo: Pristine Tech Mecca (Video) (Text)
6/2/08, 10:07 AM
Another release of AVRISP sketch
There is a new release of the AVRISP emulation sketch for Arduino: avrisp.02.zip. This one should work with Mega8 and Mega168. mega-isp
5/28/08, 4:48 PM
Sorting Out Page Sizes
There is a new release of AVRISP Emulation for Arduino. This is an Arduino firmware that allows you to program other AVR microcontrollers. The new zip file (avrisp.01.zip) should compile on the current Arduino IDE, and I changed the comments that put the wrong labels on the SPI pins. Go ahead...
5/27/08, 11:31 AM
Flash Problems
I'm building a project using the AVR ATMega8 microcontroller. Once I got the thing wired up to where I could write firmware to it I found that it was always failing. I made a .hex file full of 0x10 values (256 bytes worth) and tried uploading that to the chip....
5/16/08, 2:56 PM
William's Arduino Board
I'm building an Arduino-compatible board for William. I'm building it on the Evil Mad Scientist MegaXX8 business card. It will have four built-in LEDs and a USB interface. It will also have connectors so he can use it with a breadboard. Perhaps we can connect it to some of his...
5/15/08, 7:26 AM
Cybord Signal Detector
Some digital radio signals use Frequency Shift Keying (FSK). This often has one frequency for a Mark and one for a Space. I plan to build a cybord or other chip that will decode an FSK signal, producing three different values: NO_SIGNAL, MARK, and SPACE. The signals would then go...
5/15/08, 7:20 AM

destinations

Listen to IT Conversations



Made with Antville

Quantum Touch

RSS Feed