Bare minimum for arduino powered projects

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello guys,
First let me say I'm new to the arduino stuff and while some may say what I'm asking is getting ahead of myself, this is how I learn. I get bored to easily with the simple things (like making LEDs turn on and off) unless it's in the compass of a larger more appealing project.

With that said, what I'm trying to figure out right now is what are the bare minimum components needed for an arduino project? I've already got an arduino uno starter kit and have played around with it some but now I'm looking to move on to an actual project. The project I'm doing right now is a simple thermometer for my truck (it's a 2001 and doesn't have one built in). I'm trying to decide if I should go with an arduino mini (and buy the separate USB shield for re-usability on future projects ran by a mini, or if it would be more beneficial in the long run to buy a arduino kit like this one Arduino-Compatible PTH Kit - DEV-10523 - SparkFun Electronics with the removable ATMega328 chip so that I can use it to program multiple chips. Thats where my question comes in. If I were to do it this way which components are necessary from that kit to build a stripped down controller?

I know I can toss the LEDs, and I could change the power supply to whatever kind of connection I needed, I suppose I don't really need the reset button either. So I'm guessing some of the resistors are for the LEDs and such. Are all the capacitors needed? Or are some of them for specific in / out pins that I might can do away with if not needed in the project I'm working on.

Basically I'm trying to decide what would be most cost effective in the long run, simply buying another mini for each permanent project I plan to do, or buying the ATMega328 chip and the base components needed to make it work on what I'm trying to do.

Thanks for any advice!

2

Lots of options
Bare minimum Arduino

Install components from dipmicro.com on this, as long as you''re not adding much to the circuit.
http://www.nkcelectronics.com/arduino-runtime-board-rev-b.html
Or this if you want room to add a few things
http://www.dipmicro.com/img/1/SET-START2.jpg
Couple of programming tools will come in handy too
http://www.nkcelectronics.com/ftdi-basic-breakout.html for sketches, or just serial interacing to PC
http://www.nkcelectronics.com/pocket-avr-programmer.html for bootloaders

Or this is you can solder small parts, I have 50 bare boards on order, 27 spoken for so far.

3

ive made some rather bare boards and all i have on them is the 328, a crystal, 2 capacitors for the crystal , 2 capacitors to smooth out my power supply, and female headers for what ever pins i am going to be using. oh and a voltage regulator thats about $1 in parts , and a $5 bootloaded chip. But for the sake of future projects i bought everything i needed to bootload the chips to save about 2 bucks and get the 328s cheaper , bare boards i found so much fun , but if you get bored like i do too , i bet sooner or later your going to be wanting to build a monster of a board.

Not the prettiest thing but it does the job ;

4

You can also do away with the crystal and 22pf capacitors if you don't need accurate timing (the chip will run at 1MHz clock +/- 10% as it comes from the factory, or 8MHz if you reprogram the fuse bits). Alternatively, you can replace the crystal and 22pF caps by a 3-terminal ceramic resonator, giving you +/- 0.5% clock accuracy.

5

yup, the components keep getting less and less, they might as well make the whole chip self sufficient needing nothing but a power supply