Arduino?

[tony3d]

Hi, I received a $150.00 gift certificate for Radio Shack at Christmas, and was just wondering how hard it would be for a beginner in electronics to pick up on Arduino? I have been into this now for about 4 months, I have my DMM, Power supply, Solder station, Function Generator, and Oscilloscope, so I'm not really looking for any kind of test equipment. Can't figure out what else to buy there? The thing that really bothers me is the programming looks complicated. The only programming language I ever played with was basic, and that was about 20 years ago. Arduino looks very interesting though. with $150.00 I could get the mega board, and some add ons.

[DrLuke]

Arduino is a product targetted at artists and hobbyists. That means that it's really simple to use it, so easy in fact, that we used it in school, and completely technology illiterate 16 year-olds were able to create something with it.

[xrunner]

Hi, I received a $150.00 gift certificate for Radio Shack at Christmas, and was just wondering how hard it would be for a beginner in electronics to pick up on Arduino?

Not hard. They have beginner's projects/experiments for many types of components. You can do it. 

[MatCat]

I highly recommend it.  Plus from a programming view you will be learning C/C++ programming, which is only a small step from java, so lots of learning to be had hehe.  It's certainly one of the easiest AVR's to get into and there is probably a library for just about anything you want to do already, so hardcore programming really isn't required to get stuff working with one.

[wilheldp]

You must have been a bad boy this year to have received a Radio Shack gift card for Christmas.  I only shop there as a last resort if I absolutely need a common electronic component immediately.  Their selection sucks, their prices are astronomical, their staff is stupid, and I always get a high-pressure sales pitch for some sort of cell phone whenever I'm in there.

[Skimask]

You must have been a bad boy this year to have received a Radio Shack gift card for Christmas.  I only shop there as a last resort if I absolutely need a common electronic component immediately.  Their selection sucks, their prices are astronomical, their staff is stupid, and I always get a high-pressure sales pitch for some sort of cell phone whenever I'm in there.

I'll agree with that on every point, but I gotta add one, and it hurts me to say this, in support of R.S.
If you catch the right store on the right day with the right pinhead working behind the counter, you can get some killer deals on Arduino boards and shields.

[sachleen]

The Arduino is made to be super easy to get started with. I recommend buying the kit as it comes with all the parts to make some cool circuits. It includes schematic and the code and walks you through a lot of the common things you will be doing. The first one is usually blinking an LED. In addition to the online documentation what makes the Arduino good for beginners is the huge community supporting it.

[Skimask]

Nothing like restating the obvious....almost verbatim. 

[Stonent]

I was at Radio Shack the other day and they had the "full" sized breadboard for $16.99 with jumper wires for $6.99 or you could buy the kit with both in a box for $9.99

My advice, buy the bigger stuff and clearance items at radioshack and buy the small stuff elsewhere like Tayda Electronics.

Now some things to think about, things like the parallax ping sensor you can get for over $20 from radioshack but about $1 each on AliExpress for the generic ones.  Pretty much any sensor items are cheap on AliExpress or Ebay.

Radioshack seems to have decent prices on project boxes, at least they always come up as the cheapest on Ebay for US sellers.

[tony3d]

Thanks everyone. I have two breadboards already, and tons of jumpers, I was thinking of going with the mega board, then buying the Make book getting started with Arduino. Is there anything else I would need right away? Are there any sites with preprogrammed projects you can learn from?

I also received a PentaRef, DMM Checker plus, the 3 five timer chip kit from Evil Mad Scientist, and a project learning board from Electronic shock. Com. I have tons of stuff to keep me going a while. I will probably take a week or so to look into this Arduino stuff carefully before jumping in.

[prenato]

Thanks everyone. I have two breadboards already, and tons of jumpers, I was thinking of going with the mega board, then buying the Make book getting started with Arduino. Is there anything else I would need right away? Are there any sites with preprogrammed projects you can learn from?

I also received a PentaRef, DMM Checker plus, the 3 five timer chip kit from Evil Mad Scientist, and a project learning board from Electronic shock. Com. I have tons of stuff to keep me going a while. I will probably take a week or so to look into this Arduino stuff carefully before jumping in.

This series of videos is a good intro to the Arduino for beginners:
http://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL162738B96C8291EB&desktop_uri=%2Fplaylist%3Flist%3DPL162738B96C8291EB

[kolonelkadat]

personally I like the Uno (more than the mega) because you can easily pull the 1$ atmega328 out of the uno once its programmed and leave it in projects instead of leaving the thirty dollar arduino board in it.

Although, I guess if you need the mega's io, then you need the io. I would do some serious thinking about whether you really need it though.

[tony3d]

personally I like the Uno (more than the mega) because you can easily pull the 1$ atmega328 out of the uno once its programmed and leave it in projects instead of leaving the thirty dollar arduino board in it.

Although, I guess if you need the mega's io, then you need the io. I would do some serious thinking about whether you really need it though.

I just figure it's only $30.00 more. If its something I would probably upgrade to, why not just buy it straight away.

[w2aew]

personally I like the Uno (more than the mega) because you can easily pull the 1$ atmega328 out of the uno once its programmed and leave it in projects instead of leaving the thirty dollar arduino board in it.

Although, I guess if you need the mega's io, then you need the io. I would do some serious thinking about whether you really need it though.

I just figure it's only $30.00 more. If its something I would probably upgrade to, why not just buy it straight away.

Since you've got $150 to spend - save yourself the decision and buy both the Uno and the Mega.  This gives you the smaller Uno for smaller projects that don't need all of the I/O of the Mega, and the flexibility of the Mega when needed.  Plus, it saves you from tearing apart one project to work on a second one. 

[Rick Law]

personally I like the Uno (more than the mega) because you can easily pull the 1$ atmega328 out of the uno once its programmed and leave it in projects instead of leaving the thirty dollar arduino board in it.

Although, I guess if you need the mega's io, then you need the io. I would do some serious thinking about whether you really need it though.

Tony3D,

I agree with Kolonelkadat.  I am rather new to the scene, and I have learned to do exactly that.  I have two projects with it's own 328 and about to do the third.

ATMEGA328 costs a bit more than $1 ($3-$4 if you burn the boot loader yourself).  The ability to do that makes a much better experimenting environment.  Also, something may go wrong during an experiment.  While learning, I blew 2 ATMEGA.  One revived upon re-flashing the boot loader, one lost two ADC channel.  With the easily replaceable CPU, I don't have to throw out the whole board - just get a new CPU and put it in.

If you do end up getting an UNO also, allow me to suggest this:  Get a bare 328 chip and use the UNO to burn the boot loader on the bare chip.  Now you have it on stand-by.  If you blow a CPU, you can plug in your stand-by and your UNO is alive again.  You can now use the UNO to burn the replacement blank you ordered.  I did not do that at first and I had to find a place that sells the 328 with preinstalled loader.  That cost some extra (plus you need to reach minimum order $ and shipping and ...)

Good luck, and Happy New Year!

Rick

[echen1024]

I would advise you not get the beginner kit. Just go buy the parts needed at Digi-Key and save yourself a bundle. use your 150 for 2 arduinos, and a new PanaVice

[MatCat]

I wouldn't stick to just any one AVR really, get a whole set of them, for example if you want to do a simple low I/O project, something like the ATTINY85 is fantastic, or maybe you have a project that needs a lot of flash and ram, well then you could go with the ATMEGA644.  The awesome thing about most AVR's is most will work with the Arduino IDE with simple installs of hardware profiles.  Personally I still use my one and only full Arduino UNO almost exclusively as a programmer of other AVRs, or quick prototypes on a breadboard type thing, most projects I just build a PCB for though (Your are in the US so if you decided to do that OSH Park is fantastic for cheap boards).

[Stonent]

The Arduino software I think is a great way to start. Jumping directly into AVR C if you've had no previous microcontroller experience may make your head explode.

The 28 Pin ATMEGA DIP chips are very feature rich. But still at a few dollars each still aren't the best for throw-away projects.

If you can make the transition to AVR C from Arduino, you'll find a lot of your projects can fit in to substantially smaller chips, for example the LED matrix necklace I made displays Christmas symbols and scrolls "Merry Christmas !!" and takes up about 1.4K on an ATTiny2313 since the author of the code had done several workarounds to avoid including unnecessary headers that would take up space.

Attiny 25/45/85 - 8 pins has digital and analog IO
Attiny 2313/4313 - 20 Pins has just digital IO
Attiny 24/44/84 - I think has about 14 pins and does digital and analog IO.

There are other chips in the series, but these are the more common ones.

[tony3d]

I downloaded the software today to have a look, and it is pretty similar to c++. I did a little programming on the iPhone, and I see how similar the syntax is to the iPhone SDK. I think I can do this. Think I will start with the Uno board as most tutorials seem to use this board. I'll let you guys know what I end up buying. There are a ton of add on boards for this thing. Found a really nice set of tutorials the best I have seen so far, by The Open Source Hardware group. Now if I can pull myself away from my new scope long enough to actually buy it, I'll be in business. Thanks for all your input, it's been a great help. I will undoubtedly be asking a lot of questions.

[westfw]

Also, check if anything is on sale.  RS apparently is not going to sell the ADK anymore (which is equivalent to a MEGA with a built-in USB Host chip), and I picked one up for $20...  (and a Motor Driver shield for $5...)

[Stonent]

I downloaded the software today to have a look, and it is pretty similar to c++. I did a little programming on the iPhone, and I see how similar the syntax is to the iPhone SDK. I think I can do this. Think I will start with the Uno board as most tutorials seem to use this board. I'll let you guys know what I end up buying. There are a ton of add on boards for this thing. Found a really nice set of tutorials the best I have seen so far, by The Open Source Hardware group. Now if I can pull myself away from my new scope long enough to actually buy it, I'll be in business. Thanks for all your input, it's been a great help. I will undoubtedly be asking a lot of questions.

You can get "FunDuino" Mega 256 clones from China for about $15. But socketed chips are very useful.

You can pull the chip out, put a 10 cent crystal resonator and have a usable setup.

[BrianDagobah]

Uhh... Easy? I'm not sure I'd say that, but it's not really hard either. The Arduino software (IDE) has a TON..I mean a TON of example code that works really well. Even though I've done this for a while and am reasonably proficient, I almost ALWAYS start with example code and build around it. If the main focus of my program is going to be reading button inputs, I start with the "button" example, and build up from there. Servos, Ethernet, Analog reads or PWM stuff as well.

Start with the Blink example and start adding features. Blink faster, slower, maybe alternate between fast and slow, add a second LED flashing at a different rate. Then add a button that when pressed speeds up or slows down the blink. Dedicate a quiet afternoon to this type of playing around, and you'll pick it up pretty quick. The examples are solid, use them. This is how I get started with any new device I want to control with my Arduino. Servos, range finders, motion sensors, heck, even basic building blocks like "for" or "while" loops.

As far as the Radio Shack gift card... Yeah, get the mega and a bunch of push-button switches, one of those packs of pre-made jumper wires, and a bunch of POTs and trimmers. OH their light sensor cells are fun too.

Good luck! Email or PM me if you need some help.

[Macbeth]

Ugh, Gift Cards... a disgusting invention to salve the minds of people who think giving cash is vulgar, but don't have a clue what actual present to give...

Is there no way you can just buy something like a roll of Soldering Wick or something and getting the change in cash? Then convert the cash into Paypal and order stuff from China? 

[Monkeh]

Ugh, Gift Cards... a disgusting invention to salve the minds of people who think giving cash is vulgar, but don't have a clue what actual present to give...

Is there no way you can just buy something like a roll of Soldering Wick or something and getting the change in cash? Then convert the cash into Paypal and order stuff from China? 

Gift cards cannot be transferred and have no cash value. You can't get change.

[tony3d]

I am a little bummed about the gift cards, but I can easily spend that money on the board, and accessaries. Looking forward to get this stuff soon. Is there any truth to the rumor that Heathkit is coming back?