Arduino! Where to buy?

[burntheland]

I practiced in C++ for a while, but it wasnt for me. I could definitely see myself getting into it enough to learn to get it to do what i want it to do though. Thanks for the info oneslowz!

[NightrainSrt4]

Ok, sweet. I figured it was just the uC and some power circuitry, but after reading a bit you need a cheap external crystal as the internal one isn't that accurate.

I was looking at this kit. $60 shipped on ebay for the Arduino Mega, lcd, wires, leds, etc.

Just the board itself is $65 at sparkfun, plus shipping. Assuming I can deal with the wait from Hong Kong, does this look like a decent deal?

[SXRguyinMA]

Thanks for the explanation of how an arduino works CJ! I'm kinda on the same path and NightrainSRT4 though, I'm not looking to keep the board and use it, I just want one thing I can use one time to do one specific thing and thats it.

I want to make a setup like rendermandan has in Dark Carbon. When you turn the computer on, a servo opens something, and when you turn it off it closes it. I think the arduino may be a little over kill for that, but then again I may be completely wrong.. I'm going to do some research and poke aorund the arduino forums and see what I can come up with

[NightrainSrt4]

Well, I want to have one to prototype and build, test, debug on, but when I'm ready to move on to another project I didn't see the point in buying another arduino if I wanted to keep the first project alive. So I wanted to make sure there was a cheap alternative that I could copy the program over to, wire up permanently, then move on to my next project.

Edit:

As for the programming part, I don't see myself having too many problems. I mostly code Java, but I've worked with C, C++, C#, VB, Python, etc. So it's just a matter of syntax and figuring out what I've got available in its libraries, and what I have to implement myself.

[NightrainSrt4]

Hmmm... Although the Ebay Mega kit I linked to above, it seems like most of the current shields around are designed for the standard Arduino. I'm probably going to want one with SD capabilities, and the Ethernet might be nice, so looks like I should probably start with the standard one.

The extra PWM's on the Mega were looking pretty sweet, especially if I wanted to tinker with a robot. Hmmm. . .

Too much to take in, lol.


EDIT: WTF? Now every single ebay listing is redirecting to Myspace. This has happened before with entirely different websites. Hey, what do you know? Change from Comcrap's auto DNS to opendns and no more crappy redirects on things that should work fine.

[Oneslowz28]

Honestly I would get a normal arduino now for the shield compatibility. There are cheap motor and robot shields that expand its pins.

I highly recommend the the Seeeduino from seeedstudio as I have it. It is nothing more than clone of the official arduino with a few tweeks and extras that will come in handy. Their seeeduino Mega is also more robust than the official mega and has many more pins to play with at almost 1/2 the cost of an official.

[NightrainSrt4]

I like the extra tweaks the Seeeduino has, but I don't like the removal of the dip uC. I like the idea of tossing a dip in, programming it, then popping it out and set to go with a crystal and a bit of circuitry. So I will probably get the standard one, and maybe a solder yourself one just for kicks.

I wish I could get a huge box (relatively) of components for a decent price that would have tons of different resistors, sensors, leds, etc to keep on hand. Ordering things individually isn't cost effective, and to have to wait for things to arrive every time I want to work on something new isn't very appealing. Just want a huge box of random parts so I have pretty much anything I could want or need to play with.

[NightrainSrt4]

Picked up a 3LB component grab bag from Jameco. Not sure if there are cheaper places but it seemed like a decent deal to get a range of stuff I might need.

Jameco Grab Bag

Contains:

# Axial and radial electrolytics, monolithic, dipped silver mica and mylar capacitors, connectors, sockets, thermistors, LEDs, resistor networks, diodes, IC's, standoffs, transistors, oscillator/resonators, inductors, crystals, resistors, pots and switches ( approximately 1075 pcs).
# 3.0 lbs.

[Oneslowz28]

I like the extra tweaks the Seeeduino has, but I don't like the removal of the dip uC. I like the idea of tossing a dip in, programming it, then popping it out and set to go with a crystal and a bit of circuitry. So I will probably get the standard one, and maybe a solder yourself one just for kicks.

I wish I could get a huge box (relatively) of components for a decent price that would have tons of different resistors, sensors, leds, etc to keep on hand. Ordering things individually isn't cost effective, and to have to wait for things to arrive every time I want to work on something new isn't very appealing. Just want a huge box of random parts so I have pretty much anything I could want or need to play with.

Actually you can not just pop the Atmega in and program it unless the fresh atmega already has the arduino boot loader burnt in. You can burn and program fresh atmegas with an arduino though. I know crenn knows how to do this. Maybe he will chime in.

[NightrainSrt4]

All the standalone ATMega's I had looked at already had the bootloader in it, so it should just be a case of swapping and programming.

I ordered my birthday presents from Adafruit as the Sparkfun protoshield was OOS.

So I grabbed:

The 3LB 1075pc component grab bag above from Jameco.
Arduino Duemilanove
Ethernet Shield
Proto Shield
20x4 LCD
Tiny breadboard
9V holder
breadboard wire bundle

Some of that wasn't really necessary, but I figured a little splurge for my B-day to get me going would be sweet.

I can't wait to make a physical implementation (handheld/to-go) add-on for the application I've been working on. But, I'm going to need an SD card shield for that, so I will get some tinkering under my belt first.