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Can somebody recommend to me a cheap basic Microcontroller for me?

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VladKEasternTiger:
Hi everyone, okay Ive learnt as much as I can on paper about Arduino and Microcontrollers, I feel I just need to buy one and play with it as all the reading I done needs to be put to good use. I want an Arduino or microcontroller to plug into my USB in the computer and I want to make it do things like light up an LED when Im typing something on my keyboard, or if I can hook a motor to it and control it from the computer, is this kind of project too advanced for me yet? Mabie im running before I walk I dont know. I seen some cool videos on youtube about microcontrollers and they were doing cool things such as controlling motors and LED lights from the computer VIA USB port. So I live in the UK, where is good place and what kind of Microcontroller will do this trick for me?

 :) Thanks guys

alm:
You can get cheap 8-bit micro-controllers from almost any manufacturer, but to interface this with your computer, you need a fair amount of supporting hardware, especially for USB. Judging from your questions, an Arduino plus shields for what you want sounds like a good match. An Arduino is a micro-controller with supporting hardware and firmware so you can program it via USB, plus an easy development environment. If you want to save money, I believe there are unofficial clones (eg. Freeduino), I'm sure some of these are just as good.

djsb:
Hi,
I have the Arduino Nano

http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/ArduinoNano

This is useful because you can use it with a breadboad (as shown in the link) so you can lash up basic circuits.
The board is programmed via the built in mini USB port and the only other thing you need is the IDE (integrated development environment).
This can be downloaded from the main arduino website. The board itself can be bought from Gravitech.

Have fun.

David.

rossmoffett:
I have a boarduino, which also is made for a breadboard but with a PDIP ATmega, and a 'milinova, which is good if you want to use shields and stuff.  The Arduino MEGA has 5 serial ports, so you can do a lot more stuff with it.  Your keyboard light, for example, may require an interceptor, and then you can do other cool stuff like keylogging.

My classmates and I just built a robot that dodges balls thrown at it called "DodgeBot" using three Arduinos.  It was a little superfluous to have so many, but they were cheap and it was easy for all of us to work separately that way.  It has a DIY RADAR system, uses four Parallax Ping sensors for room sensing, a remote control (interprets PCM signals usually for servos) and omni wheels with four motors/controllers.  There's a remote control and autonomous mode, everything was designed and built in six weeks!  The code/build portion was only a couple of weeks, and we were all more or less totally inexperienced with the Arduino platform.  So yeah, you can do a lot with it, even as a beginner.  Just read all of the reference/beginner material on the Arduino website.

Simon:
again someone is trying to run before he can walk !

ok, step one, get a PIC12F615 (available from RS and farnell for £ 0.85+vat) put it on a bread board and make it flash a led. from what I gather from other posts of yours you might want to show us your diagram first. what software are you using ? assembler, basic, C ???? Don't even think of doing anything else with a microcontroller until you have got a led to flash, sound advice given to me by my good friend in slovakia who spent over an hour with me on MSN helping me to get a led to flash. If you then want to progress to larger mictocontrollers go for a 16F88 or similar. Again you seem to be trying to run before you can walk and throwing ideas all over the place, start with basic electronics first, some op amp circuits (even if to just check you can build one that works on a bread board) and then some descrete digital stuff.

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