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[on:]

So iv been seeing these Arduino boards around and noticing some very handy projects come from them. so i decided to give them a try myself.
compared to other micro controllers these are considered super easy to learn. however.

i'm not the best of students.
i decided to go cheap and bought the cheapest Arduino i could find. seeing them on average for $100 and than seeing the Arduino Micro for only $16
i hopped on that deal!

however considering i don't know how to program one. i loaded up some examples. and noticed just about ALL of them used pins that the Micro didn't have.
i attempted to re-program a new pin that was on the micro but it almost never worked.

Should i buy a different Arduino to learn on? maybe the Uno? it seems to be the most popular.

also if anyone knows of a good video tutorial series i wouldn't mind watching!

[Reply #1 on:]

I think Uno is the best choice for you.

If you have electronics skills you can try to build your own severino (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardSerialSingleSided30); just make sure:
- you can produce the PCB,
- you can buy the programmed atmega (with the bootloader) and
- you can program it over serial (your computer has serials or you have a usb to serial converter)

As for tutorials you can check:
http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/index.html

[Reply #2 on:]

i decided to go cheap and bought the cheapest Arduino i could find. seeing them on average for $100 and than seeing the Arduino Micro for only $16
i hopped on that deal!

Confusing, you have seen arduino boards that cost $100? The standard Arduino Uno goes for around $30 the mega board around $50, Asian 'clone boards' on E-bay somewhat cheaper.

Do you have a link for the 'arduino micro', I'm not sure which that might be.

Lefty 

[Reply #3 on:]

when i sed i saw them for $100, that was when i first started seeing them years ago. yea the prices came down significantly. but the whole only $16 shocked me enough to buy it.

here is the link *turns out it was called the nano*

http://dx.com/arduino-nano-v3-0-81877

[Reply #4 on:]

The Nano is a nice Arduino, especially if you want to plug it into a breadboard and use that..

My favorite right now (DISCLAIMER: Mentioning stuff from my own shop...) is this Arduino-compatible variant that has built-in 3-pin connectors on most of the digital I/Os and all the Analog I/O's:

http://arduino-direct.com/sunshop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=225

Here's a bunch of information about hooking things up / cables etc: http://arduino-info.wikispaces.com/Cables

[Reply #5 on:]

My favorite right now (DISCLAIMER: Mentioning stuff from my own shop...) is this Arduino-compatible variant that has built-in 3-pin connectors on most of the digital I/Os and all the Analog I/O's:

That is a very nice feature.

Caution: Mentioning stuff from Terry's shop. 

[Reply #6 on:]

i bought myself a uno today and i have to say. worlds a differance. i have a list of what the pins are (for the most part) and seems like all the examples work flawlessly with this one. now to learn how to code from scratch

[Reply #7 on:]

Get yourself a copy of the data books for the ATMega 328 and whatever chip is in your nano and you should be able to figure what pins are available to be programmed.

The Uno is an excellent starting point because just about everyone working with these devices knows what one is and what to expect from it. If you get into these devices it even makes a good programmer (with the ISP Sketch) for other chips in the ATMel stable. I have used my Arduino Uno to program the ATMega328 and the ATTiny2313 devices and there are others in the family that would be just as easy to program and use.

But the Arduino is a good starting point to learn from.