Learn Programming and Electronics with Arduino

The Process and Tools I use for Creating Arduino Tutorials

This week's Episode is what I am calling an intermission, which is basically me taking a break from hardcore Arduino tutorial making, and present a less technical topic.  In this intermission video, I walk through the process I use when creating Arduino tutorials and some of the software that helps me do it. Here is a list of software I use when creating Arduino tutorials: Full Disclosure: Some of these are affiliate links that help me afford gold toilets on my private island. Brainstorming/ Mindmapping software (mac): MindNode Simple Text Editor (mac): TextMate Screen Capture software: Camtasia for Mac Audio Editing: Audacity Circuit Design: Fritzing More Robust Text Editor: Microsoft Word for Mac   If you want to check out some of our best Arduino tutorials, sign up for our free Arduino Crash Course below.

Using the Same Input to Trigger Multiple Arduinos

If you ever have a project using two or more Arduinos, it's likely you'll want them to work together. Say for example you have one Arduino connected to an LCD shield, and another Arduino controlling an LED matrix.  You want both to do something when you press a single button - how can this be done? It turns out to be extremely easy.  This video will describe in detail how to trigger multiple Arduinos with a single input. CODE: /* Button Turns on and off a light emitting diode(LED) connected to digital pin 13, when pressing a pushbutton attached to pin 2. The circuit: * LED attached from pin 13 to ground * pushbutton attached to GND through pin 2 on two (or more) Arduino's * Note: on most Arduinos there is already an LED on the board attached to pin 13. created 2005 by DojoDave modified 30 Aug 2011 by Tom Igoe Modified 16 APR 2015 by Michael James https://programmingelectronics.com/using-the-same-input-to-trigger-multiple-arduinos/ This example code is in the public domain. http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Button */ // constants won't change. They're used here to // set pin numbers: const int buttonPin = 2; // the number of the pushbutton pin const int ledPin = 13; // the number of the LED pin // variables will change: int buttonState = 0; // variable for reading the pushbutton status void setup() { // initialize the LED pin as an output: pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // initialize the pushbutton pin as an input: pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT_PULLUP); } void loop() { // read the state of the pushbutton value: buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin); // check if the pushbutton is pressed. // if it is, the buttonState is HIGH: if (buttonState == LOW) { // turn LED on: digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); } else { // turn LED off: digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); } }   Breadboard Layout:   Downloads: Schematic Fritzing File.fzz   If you like this tutorial, check out some of out very best by signing up for our free Arduino Crash Course below.

6 Tips on Assembling an Arduino Shield (Or any Electronics Kit)

In this video we will be talking about some key points to keep in mind when assembling an Arduino shield from a kit. Many of these tips will apply equally well to any type of electronics kit you are assembling. So you just bought an awesome Arduino shield - it's going fly you to the moon and back, but before you start using it you have to do some basic assembly. Here are six tips to help you get the assembly done right the first time. Read the Directions: The first advice is painfully obviously, but still worth mentioning - read the directions! When all you have to do is solder on some pin headers and a couple LEDs, it's tempting to ignore the need for directions and just go at. You’re a genius right - who needs directions? As J.R.R. Tolkien said... "Shortcuts make for long delays". Even on simple assemblies it pays to take the time to read through the directions. Most companies keep the directions online – they are really only a search away. I'm telling you it’s worth it! Consider Where you Will be Assembling the Board: You may not have a dedicated space for your electronics addiction. There have been many times when I find myself soldering stuff on my kitchen table. If you don’t have a dedicated space, a couple things you will want to consider are: • Having good lighting, so you can see what you are up to • Access to a wall outlet for your soldering iron – you want the cord to have some maneuver room • A floor without shag carpet, as they tend to be repositories for small electronics parts (the smallest parts are always the first to fall) You can’t always have the best spot, but you can make the best of what you have available. Get Your Tools Together Good instruction manuals will let you know what tools you need for the job. Generally speaking, the essential tools are: • soldering iron • solder • wire cutters Some other tools that are not necessary but make life way easier are: • Needle nose: pliers for grabbing tiny parts • Helping hand: these help not only holding parts when soldering, but also provide the magnifying glass which is good for checking solder joints • Solder wick for undoing your mistakes • A pair of safety glasses is also a good idea. You might be thinking – ah, heck with safety glasses… It's easy to write them off when assembling boards. What I have done is get a pair that is comfortable and that I keep clean - this makes using them less a hassle. It’s a small precaution to take from getting a piece of tiny sharp metal in your eye. Inventory All the Parts For whatever reason, inventorying all the parts always seemed like a waste of time to me, but now it is something I make sure to do. Two big reasons I do this. Many of the boards I get are from Kickstarter campaigns, so the people manufacturing these might be kind of new at the gig, and with all the stuff they have going on, it's very possible they missed a part in the package. Another reason I like to do the inventory is so I know if I have extras. If I have pieces left over when I finish, then I am usually wondering if I did the assembly correct or not. If you do the inventory, then you can be confident that you assembled it right. I also separate the components into different jars, or bowls. This helps me quickly find components when I am assembling the shield and prevents the pieces from ending up lost in the carpet. Check Twice Solder Once I like solder wick as much as the next guy, but I would prefer not use it. It is really worth your time to double check part locations before you start soldering. I learned my lesson when I soldered a 24 pin connecter on the wrong side on a board. Now I always check a diagram or the directions at least twice before pulling out the solder. After I solder, I also make it a point to look over the solder joints. I am amazed at how much my soldering joints can stink, even when I feel like I had done a great job (this is when a helping hand or magnifying glass is good to have). Use an Arduino Board to Help Align the Pin Headers. One thing all Arduino Shields have in common are pin headers. These are the metal rows of pins that go on the bottom of the shield and plug into the Arduino stackable headers. If you don’t get the pin headers aligned correctly then your shield may not fit well, or may not fit at all on top of the Arduino. One trick to get the alignment right is to use an Arduino to hold the pin headers in the correct position when you solder them to the bottom of the shield. To do this, simply insert the headers how they would go into the Arduino, place the shield on top, and then do your soldering. It works like a charm. Troubleshooting the Assembly Now that your Arduino shield is fully assembled, it’s time to get that puppy running. Hopefully the shield came with some type of test sketch that you can load and it verifies that everything is up and running correctly. If not, try to find some code that you know works and load it onto the Arduino. If you start with code that you can verify works (or at least works for others), it can be easier to troubleshoot any issues you might encounter. I know how demoralizing it can be to load your first sketch and getting nothing better errors when you press the verify button. Here is a tidbit of moral support - there is a learning curve to everything - no matter how easy it is “supposed” to be. In fact, some of my favorite shields took me a while to understand how to use. So try not to get frustrated if your sketch isn’t working instantly. In the end, a little bit of determination goes a long way. Do you have any tips for building Arduino shields or electronics kits in general? I would love to hear about them in the comments.

A YouTube Channel for Learning about Arduino

In this episode I talk about the video channel that I host on YouTube. If you have watched any previous episodes of this channel then you know I focus on Arduino related topics. The purpose of the channel is to help people learn about using Arduino. Specifically, the target audience is electronics hobbyists who are interested in learning to use Arduino. That being said, I try to make the videos from the perspective of a beginner so if you don't know jack about electronics or programming, then the show should still be a great place for you to learn.Every Tuesday I will be releasing a new episode. Every fourth video will be something like the video shown above. The reason I am doing this is because it gives me a little bit of a break in video production, which is extremely time consuming. I am calling these types of videos "Intermissions" which is all I could come up with. So this is the first intermission video (and post). A Little Bit About Myself: I am an electronics hobbyist - I've be messing around with hobby electronics for a about a decade, and I have been learning about Arduino for a big part of that time. I don't have any formal training in electronics so the perspective you get from me might be a lot like you, someone who has tried really hard to learn about electronics with as much spare time as I could find between work, family, and the curve balls of life. I do have some formal training in programming (though not much). I took a C++ course in college and used Matlab for some research I was doing at the university. What type of topics can you expect to watch on this video channel? Like I said before this channel is focused on Arduino - but there so many applications for Arduino it gives me a bunch of latitude for all types of stuff. There will be a ton of “how to” tutorials. Not about cutting and pasting the code – they’ll be about understanding how to make your own code. I'll talk about Arduino derivatives, shields and cool hardware and sensors you can use. I am really interested in science, so I plan to start doing some videos on using Arduino to enable Citizen Science. I might start with some data logging ideas. Student Projects: On a quick aside, what I do for a living is run an online course that uses a very structured curriculum to teach electronics hobbyists how to use Arduino. The Arduino Course is designed so you don’t need any electronics background to work through it, but I find most of my students do have some electronics experience to begin with. The reason I bring this up is because many of the students submit projects they are working on and I plan to use these “intermission” videos to show off some of the stuff they have done. For example, James (a really quick study) who took the course has been making all types of cool Laser tag accessories using Arduino. Which is pretty awesome - and very impressive. Projects I am Working on: I will also use these “intermission” videos to talk about some of the projects I am working on. Lately, I have been thinking about a little robot that can draw. I only really work on it when my kids are around, so the progress is painfully slow. What I would really like is to get the robot to draw sketches of people. No idea if I will ever make it to that point (or how the heck I am going to pull it off), but it's my pet project that I have been working on. So that’s it for this first intermission post (and video). I will see you in the next show, where we will be talking more things to consider when assembling Arduino Shields from kits. Until then! If you are interested in learning how to use Arduino, sign up for our free Arduino Crash Course below.

What is a Breakout Board for Arduino?

If you have been learning about Arduino for any amount of time, than you have probably come across the term Breakout Board.  Now, you might think, as I did when I first heard about breakout boards, that they were some fixture for practicing your Kung Fu fighting. In this lesson, we will discuss what breakout boards are, how they can accelerate your Arduino prototyping and some things to look out for when you buy them. Want to step-up your Arduino skills? Click here to join our 12-part HD Video Course.   Basic Concept of a Breakout Board The basic concept of a breakout board is that is takes a single electrical component and makes it easy to use. Usually the electrical component is an integrated circuit (IC). Integrated circuits, as you may know, have pins on them. The pins on an IC can do a multitude of things, but you usually have pins for supply power, pins for providing a ground, pins for receiving an input and pins for sending an output. A breakout board "breaks out" these pins onto a printed circuit board that has its own pins that are spaced perfectly for a solderless breadboard, giving you easy access to use the integrated circuit. There are all type of breakout boards - but most of them are for different types of sensors, for example: accelerometers, ultrasonic distance sensors, RFID tag sensors, temperature sensors, pressure sensors, and they even have seismic breakout boards for sensing dinosaurs' footsteps! Breakout Board vs Arduino Shield: What's the difference? You might be wondering what the difference is between a breakout board and an Arduino shield, and that is a good question. Breakout boards usually have a smaller form factor - they don't need the entire space of an Arduino shield to accomplish their mission. And while the market for most breakout boards is being driven because of their use with Arduino, since the pin-out of a breakout board is not designed specific to the Arduino headers, it means you could use a breakout board with any other microcontroller development board you want - which gives them a bit more scope than Arduino shields. Also, since breakout boards generally have fewer components than a shield does, you may find the cost is lower than a comparable Arduino shield.  As you may have guessed by now, you can find a breakout board that does essentially the same thing as a shield. You might be wondering, if breakout boards are only a few components, why not just buy the integrated circuit the breakout board uses, put it on a solderless breadboard yourself, and then hook them up to your Arduino? That is great question, and there is nothing saying you can't – plenty of people do - especially since the components by themselves are often far cheaper to buy alone from an electronics distributor, like digikey or mouser. So, why the heck are people buying all these breakout boards? It essentially comes down to convenience.  Let me list the ways a breakout board can help you out, and then you make the call: Breakout boards can save you space We have already said that breakout boards use integrated circuits.  Integrated circuits are kind of like t-shirts - you can get them in all different sizes. Usually breakout boards utilize a tiny version of an integrated circuit called an SMD (surface mounted device).  The pins on SMD parts are really small - not something you can easily pop into a breadboard. The larger form factor of an integrated circuit, called a DIP (dual inline package) has bigger pins, which fit easily into a breadboard.  The DIP package of an IC will be bigger than the SMD form factor. The point, I am getting to here, is that Breakout boards can sometimes save you space which may or may not be important for your project. Breakout Boards are designed for reuse Another thing about using DIP packages is that while the pins are bigger, they are not necessarily sturdy.  If you plan to use a DIP component over and over, the usable life of the pins is only so long - the pins on a breakout board however, are heavy duty and designed for reuse. The DIP version on a component may not be available One other issue you may find is that the DIP version of an integrated circuit is not available - as electronics get smaller over time, the demand for larger components is drying up and manufacturers are moving away from even bothering with the DIP package, which ultimately brings you back to a breakout board. Pin labeling on a Breakout board One great feature of breakout boards is that they usually have the pin names of the integrated circuit labeled on the PCB. This makes hooking up the breakout board to your Arduino a cinch, especially when there are a ton of pins. Otherwise, you are looking at the black box of an IC and referencing the datasheet of the integrated circuit to try to figure out which pin is for what. So now that you know some of the benefits of a breakout board, let's talk about a couple things you might want to consider when you are buying them. Good documentation I said this about Arduino Shields in the last lesson, but I will say it again - good documentation is like water in the desert.  The more you can get your hands on, the better. Let's face it - a lot of this electronics and programming stuff is not self evident - you need good instructions and reference material to make it work right. The test I usually use before buying a breakout board is to see what reference material I can find online for it.  If nothing tangible exists, you might be spending way more time trying to get it up and running than you would prefer. Breakout boards are not necessarily interchangeable As you search for particular breakout boards, you may find that there is a super cheap version available.  If you plan on using pre-existing code for a breakout board that references the more expensive version of the breakout board – i.e. maybe in the sketch comments it says, "use XYZ breakout board", one thing you will want to check is that the breakout boards use the same integrated circuit. If they don't use the same integrated circuit, and you don't know how to adjust the code for these differences, then you may find that the cheap version will cost you more time in trying to figure out how to use it. Soldering and header pins may be required Many breakout boards are sold as kits.  Usually, the only things you have to solder are the header pins that allow the breakout board PCB to plug into a breadboard - this is really easy to do. It may also be the case that a kit maker just sells the breakout board with the SMD components, and you have to buy the pin headers separately. So those are a few things to keep in mind when buying a breakout boards. Using the correct supply voltage Finally, once you actually have your breakout board, make sure that you know what voltage supply pin it needs hooked up to. The Arduino has two voltage out pins, one at 3.3 volts and one at 5 volts.  Many breakout boards use a supply voltage around 3.3 volts.  Sometimes the supply voltage will be printed right on the PCB by the associated pin, but other times it will just say Vcc, so you will want to check the specs on the breakout board. If you are just getting started with breakout boards, a great place to look is in the Arduino IDE examples.  Some pre-written sketches get you up and running quick with some common breakout boards. If you like the style of this lesson, I welcome you to join the free Arduino Crash Course - you can sign up below.