My first excercises with a microcontroller

Show or discuss your existing Home automation project here, so a detailed explanation!.....
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Digit
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My first excercises with a microcontroller

Post by Digit »

Last weekend i ordered a Arduino Duemilanove.

The Arduino platform is a real easy to use platform. It is intended for those who want to work with microcontrollers; especially those who have no experience in that area and need an environment that deals with all the 'hard stuff' to get things working.
The Duemilanove is the latest model in the Arduino product range.

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It comes on a small board that fits in the palm of your hand. As reference i placed a Visonic MCT302 next to it, a sensor which most of us will know. The largest component is the Atmel ATmega328 microcontroller. There's also a USB connector on the board to connect it to your PC, and a power connector. It has 14 digital I/O pins, 6 analog inputs, a reset button and some more components needed to support the microcontroller. Connecting to the PC is as simple as connecting a USB cable to the board and your PC.

The software you need to write code for the Arduino board is open source and can be downloaded and installed in just a matter of minutes. It contains everything to develop, test and upload your code to the Arduino board.

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Today the Arduino arrived. This is really Plug and Play! After connecting the USB cable and power, starting the Arduino development environment on my PC and opening an example program (called a sketch) and uploading it to the Arduino i was ready to go!

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The Arduino hardware can be extended with additional shields that can be plugged on top of the Arduino board. Shields for XBee, Ethernet, Motor control, DMX, RFID, GPS and much more.

Next step will be building 2 XBee Adapter Kits i bought and try to get a wireless connection up and running between my PC and the Arduino, so that i can communicate with the Arduino while it's disconnected from my PC.

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Once that is working, i'll try and make my own home-brew Webcam Pan & Tilt mechanism. If i succeed, i think many more interesting projects will follow :-)


<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Robert
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Alexander
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My first excercises with a microcontroller

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bookmarked

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My first excercises with a microcontroller

Post by Lennart »

Very nice, Robert!

So, if I understand you correctly, you won't need a separate programmer to program the microcontroller? Hmm, that would be nice in light of this application, which would be my first thing to try: http://www.domoticaforum.eu/topic.asp?T ... 2264#25941

Where did you get the board?

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Digit
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My first excercises with a microcontroller

Post by Digit »

You're right, that's all being taken care of for you. No hassle, just upload the sketch via USB and you're ready to run!

I bought mine at http://www.antratek.nl, but i must say i didn't take the time to go shopping, so don't know if this is the cheapest address.

For everyhing else you want to know visit http://www.arduino.cc


<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Robert
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Alexander
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My first excercises with a microcontroller

Post by Alexander »

The product is also sold at SK.net, like http://samenkopen.net/action_products/871240/411718

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My first excercises with a microcontroller

Post by Lennart »

Hi Alexander,

I think you mean http://samenkopen.net/action/150480 ?

(I wish the CC2500 shield would still be available...)

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My first excercises with a microcontroller

Post by r_255 »

Really sweet project! wich opens up alot of new possibilities. thnx for sharing
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My first excercises with a microcontroller

Post by RDNZL »

Nice project!

These are also favorites of mine... I can't wait to build them.

http://rapplogic.blogspot.com/2009/06/g ... ector.html
I still have a box of PIR's like that laying around.
http://rapplogic.blogspot.com/2009/08/droplet.html
So I can display texts from DomotiGa on a wireless display.

It would be even nicer if you can strip down the needed hardware to save costs and save power usage, so you can battery power them (and create a 1-wire temp sensor for example) have to look into that subject some more.

If I only had the time [:(]

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My first excercises with a microcontroller

Post by drmacchi »

PTZ motor?,really cool Robert ! Waiting for your instructions :) Have a good job. Lorenzo
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My first excercises with a microcontroller

Post by Willem4ever »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by RDNZL</i>
<br />

It would be even nicer if you can strip down the needed hardware to save costs and save power usage, so you can battery power them (and create a 1-wire temp sensor for example) have to look into that subject some more.

Ron.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

That's why i decided to do something with a freescale MC9S08QG8. Doesn't need a lot of external components and has basic interfaces like serial/spi/iic built-in. Development software is FOC. The ML interface to debug/flash the processor is something you have to buy.
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