next topic »

[Reply #15 on:]

Hello, I have heared about Arduino from several sources. One year before I was starting to try AVR- Controllers in Assembler, for me it was very hard to get the first LED blinking. The documentations are not in every case free. And before I was able to upload my first program, there was a lot of reading and understanding of hardware initialization for the right typ of AVR.
Then I was trying Arduino ist was working out of the box. There was a standardized type of atmega, not the whole range. There was a platform neutral IDE, with an excellent documentation and a lot of (working, high quality) examples.
I was trying the poor way with an AVR for 3$ and assembler, because I was wanted inexpensive solutions (And was not sure if my experiments are operational), and now I was taking the effort to pay more than 300 $ in Arduino related Equippement, but I am lucky all is working as expected.
short answer
1.) it is a good tested and well documented inexpensive OpenSource Platform (OpenSource is interesting there are many countries ditributors and communities)
2.) there is a very good organized community, a ot of docs and projects are available, they are easy to find.
3.) small project for easy automation tasks (Timer for Toaster, Automation of Coffeemachine, controlling for heatingplants, monitoring for process documentation for cleaning machines)
Regrda Inside-Man

[Reply #16 on:]

I've tinkered with other MCU's (mainly the Parallax Basic Stamp, in 3 different forms.. the TAB Sumo-Bot kit, was the 1st. Parallax's BOE-Bot 2nd, and the Homework Board 3rd).  I later began tinkering with the Innovation-FIRST VEX platform, but when they began losing interest in the experimenter community, everything sat to the side for awhile.

About 7 months ago, someone mentioned about MAKE: Magazine, and one of the subjects of their podcast I had picked-up on, was the Arduino.  Once I got my 1st Debit card, I placed an order for one from Adafruit Industries, along with the Proto-Shield, and a bare minimum of parts.

Now, packed into a small tupperware box, I have the Homework board, all the parts I initially had when I was tinkering with the BS2 platforms, a Duimilinov, and a Mega-2560 w/Protoshield.  I'm now awaiting a LCD and 2nd Duimilinov I just ordered off EBay today, (within the next few weeks, I hope.. Just had a mini breadboard I ordered 1.5 months ago, arrive today.. > )  I've found the front-end Java window an easy to follow User interface, and the programming is fairly simplified to make even the 1st time experimenter feel at ease.  

The cost is definitely well within the accessible range for just about anyone! Especially the heavy-duty Mega versions! Massive power, the price even a pauper can afford.

Stephen Griswold (gelfling6)

[Reply #17 on:]

I'm close to ordering an Arduino.

I think the Arduino has some of the best tutorials out there.  It also has a bootloader that makes things easier to learn.  The forum here helps and there are lots of projects that are open source.  The cost is reasonable because you can spend a lot of money on other systems and Arduino is one of the cheapest.  You almost can't go wrong with Arduino if you are a beginner and if you can't make it here then you can't make it anywhere.

I can name other microcontroller makers.  Some of them aren't friendly and I've been on other forums where you don't get anywhere.  Others make it a business so if they give away tutorials for free then they can't sell their classes to schools so even though they have introductory kits so be prepared for some reading.  There is also a cost factor whereas it costs money to pay engineers so if you have a kid who is trying to build something, these companies aren't going to talk to you.  Cash is king in this market and unless your supplier either has a datasheet or tutorials, you will have to know enough to learn it on your own.  I've seen other learning packages come out but it seems that some of these companies have to charge a lot of money to keep talented people.

A microcontroller is only as good as what it helps you do.  If you can't learn another system then it won't do anything for you and it could be the best microcontroller around.  If you can't use it then it doesn't mean anything.  There are technicians who will take instructions out of sequential order (the way we learn) and put them in alphabetical order because they don't want to make it easy to learn or else they can't sell support.  Why should you have to pay several times for the same product?  It isn't that way with Arduino.  The Arduino is easier to learn and that is why there are tutorials.

I think for these reasons Arduino is made for the masses and not for the classes.

So this is high praise from me and I'll probably be making some enemies once some of these workers from other microcontroller companies read this.