I'm just getting into arduino, didn't find any obvious answers to my noobish questions, so here I go:
The physical design of the Arduino Diecimila, the dimensions, how the holes are drilled, how the DC and USB ports are placed etc - is it designed to fit in a perticular enclosure? Are there any standard boxes that I can buy from somewhere?
Also (Supernnnnob warning!) I have ordered a protoshield kit from sparkfun. But I now realize I don't know how to use it. None of the holes are connected... How am I supposed to connect stuff?
My first reply...
Well, I'm a newbie too, no sparkfun shield here, but I bought from pcb-europe this arduino enclosure (I cannot post link, but you can find it easily).
So, an enclosure does exist.
Bye!
This is for making up your own circuits. It's like buying a blank canvas at an art suppliers, you can paint what ever you want on it. Of course the trick is knowing what you want to paint / build. That's where the tutorials come in in the playground. http://www.arduino.cc/playground/
You can improvise with some stripped solid copper wire from the hardware store, get some where the copper just fits in the holes. The pins are nicer to work with and stiffer, but if you are in a hurry...
Maybe there's a misunderstanding here; i have a protoshield with pins that fits the arduino, this one (wasn't able to post links before since it was my first post):
My question was; how do i connect the component that I place in the holes on the board. Is that by letting solder run on the board to connect the holes?
You may not believe this - but I actually went to school for 2 years "learning" electronics, haha.
I'm used to electric gluing, but only with ready made PCB:s with everything connected on the backside, or lab boards with 3 by 3 connected and so, so I was just checking if there was some other concept than getting the electric glue to flow in the right direction...
Well there's wire, great for getting electrons to go where you want. So solder the components to the holes and then tack wires from the back of the joint to the joint you want to connect to.
A lot of people buy a small solderless breadboard that mounts in the middle of the shield. You plug your components in there and run jumper wires to the pin sockets on the shield. i.e.
Ah yeah, that's an idea of course, but it's supposed to be a permanent thing and it will be put to a lot of pressure up and down in bags and used in live performances, so I'd prefer to have it soldered.
But well, soldering some wires underneath will work...
Us old-school perfers got real good at using component leads as wires...bending the legs of resistors up and down through holes and across the board and wrapped around the leg of a DIP. Sometimes you'd even strip a bit of insulation from your general-purpose wire and slip the improvised insulation on to the resistor's leads.
Oh, a trick to keep in mind for the proto-shield, like all shields, is stacking headers.
We should design a faceplate for the arduino with popular shields, but haven't done a faceplate for a shield yet, just arduino. If you have popular shields in mind that you would like us to support, you can send me a PM or tweet me at @ESawdust.
