Ah yes. Well at least I'm not imagining it

Now don't get me started on "innernet"  ;D

On a related note, in quite a few of Arduino project-related video clips I've watched, people pronunce "solder" as "sodder"... never heard that before, maybe it's a US thing (I'm English)...

Awesome - thanks Ken!

I've just got my TinyISP programmer - before I potentially destroy my limited supply of 168s/328s I just wanted to doublecheck my understanding....

1) If I upload may application .hex file to the chip with the programmer via the ICSP connector & AvrDude, this will overwrite the bootloader.

2) I can re-upload the bootloader via the prgrammer using the Arduino sw "Burn Bootloader" option and everything will be back to square one - clean but bootloaded chip?

Is that correct?
Cheers

A bunch of different coloured LEDs

DIL sockets if you're not breadboarding...

I finally got to trying out my JetStar inkjet film this week, and was more than satisfied with the results:



I drew up the plans in ExpressBCB before realising that it has somewhat limited print options - i.e. you can't get to the printer properties dialog... but discovered this is easily circumvented by printing to the MS XPS device, and then printing the resultant file from IE - comes out at exact scale without any messing around.

Chosing "Inkjet transparency" paper and High quality photo printing on my Epson R300, the black was not as black as I'd hoped - still a bit translucent when holding it up to the light, but I did a test exposure from 1 to 10 minutes and experienced no bleed-through exposure what so ever. Everything from 2 mins on developed fine.

For the actual boards, I gave them 2min 30 sec, and the only issue I had through to the etched boards were where the photoresist coating was actually damaged in a small area of the larger one.

These are the first boards I've produced in probably 25+ years - it gave me a real nostalgia trip back to my teenage years! If only it were so easy to produce the artwork in those days!

elwing - yes this is definitely just for producing artwork for photo-sensitised board

I just got some of this stuff to try - I'll let you know how it goes

http://www.rapidonline.com/Tools-Fasteners-Production-Equipment/PCB-Equipment/Drafting-Aids/Jetstar-Standard-and-Jetstar-Premium-inkjet-artwork-films/66161

Hi Tim,
I'm definitely interested in trying this - as a VS user, the Arduino UI makes me want to poke pins in my eyes  ;D

Cheers for the clarifications!  

Was just thinking about about when the Arduino is in sleep mode - what happens to the output pins?

Do they remain in the state they were (possibly still sinking/sourcing current, or do they go into a tristate?

Cheers

Leaving interrupts disabled that long is very likely going to cause problems.

Yeah I suddenly realised that just after I posted!

I'm thinking of something on the lines of

setup
{
  read eeprom - if it's outside permitted range, default to 0
  copy value to ram
}

ISR
{
  update ram value
}

loop
{
  if ram & eeprom differ, write ram back to eeprom
  do stuff with ram value...
}

Hi

I need to store one byte of program-state data in non-volatile memory. Are there any pros/cons on using flash vs eeprom?

From a code POV it looks like the EE is most straightforward.

Any issues with writing either in an ISR?

Cheers

Quick followup on this thread - I finally got my design finalised and sent off to Techbridge. They ended up taking a couple more days than the 11 WD promised, but the quality is top notch. I'd definitely use them again.

jabber - did you use Eagle to design your boards for Techbridge? Did you run just the standard drc and was there anything else needing a tweak in the CAM job?