i just ordered an arduino board from fasttech.com
i have played a little bit in school with PIC-microprocessors, but haven’t done any projects at home yet.
but after reading this instructable, about how to build your own battery capacity meter i’ve been thinking about getting an arduino and try to build one myself
also there’s a lot of other cool projects out there, that i might try as well some day.
so has anyone else been doing or thinking about arduino projects? tell me (and the forum) about it!
Hmm, good prices on these. I could get a couple of UNO Rev3’s for that price but I already have two at home.
They are fun kits and better if you know C Programming. It is easier to try your control algorithms on one of these kits and than deploy the real project on a smaller board for production.
I had a few projects in my mind for these kits, like Lightmeters, battery meters, or custom remote desktop lamps. You can find many projects for Arduino kits.
Heh, I couldn’t stand it sitting there. I ordered a UNO Rev3 and LCD module I guess I’m building my Luxmeter this time I hope Photoresistors work well as light sensors. I’ll need to implement some algorithm on them anyway.
I’ll add some transistors or a general purpose Op-Amp amplifier along with the sensor to turn it into a voltage range of course. Only thing is it may not be that linear in light detection but should work for a comparison between lights or to see how power sources change the output. The best part is, you can measure the light output, check the cells voltage and log these two on your computer through the serial port.
i’ve been looking at DX for arduino stuff, but when fasttech had the mega for $15, and 10% off i couldn’t help but to order one. DX wants $25 for their i think.
i’ve been buying some “good to have”-stuff as well, since i want it cheap, it don’t usually comes fast. so it’s better to order some extras “just in case” i’d need it
I'm thinking about it. I could see really getting into it. I was a programmer for most of my working life, but switch paths because I didn't like that programs could disappear in an instant and didn't have a physical form for the complete non-techie to appreciate. If I do it, I'm going to want to do a couple threads for absolute beginner projects that say where to buy every component and assumes as little as possible. Sometimes the hardest part is just getting started, and I think that would help hopeful's get into it. It'd be a "Hello world" with Arduino.
Lets see, I think I’ve got 4 or 5 Arduinos of various types around, some of the MSP430 Launchpads ($4.30 direct from TI), various ST kits, etc.
Lots of other parts…sitting on my desk is an optical spectrometer kit ($30), a USB tv tuner stick that I’m using as a software defined raio receiver, a Geiger-Muller tube, a chunk of BC-412 scintillator plastic, hmmm. I guess I need to clean up.
I ordered an R3 Uno (and the O’Reilly book) from Amazon; it should come today. Dang, Fasttech has some great prices. I’ll have to order some more goodies. Any idea if these are genuine, Italian-made Ardunios or Chinese copies? I suppose it shouldn’t matter much since the hardware is open-source anyway, but just thinking there might be some quality differences.
I was a programmer in my previous life and I think this should be fun. Kind of reminds me of the early days of personal computing.
It isn’t clear actually. The Uno they show appears to be an official one, although I’m not sure how they can sell it for that price. The nano is clearly a clone.
I wouldn’t worry about using a clone…all of the ones I have are clones and they work fine.
No Arduino but I did just get a Raspberry Pi, running RaspBMC on it for now and using it as an HTPC. Will probably do some Linux tinkering on it and may do some other stuff.
I have bought and used the Unos sold at Fasttech. They work fine. Judging by the price, they are made in China. However, I haven’t seen any quality issues with them in the past couple of months that I have used them in our homemade robot projects.
I have also bought several sensors and shields from Fasttech. They seem to work fine too.
