Have a little project that might be perfect for an arduino, but trying to figure if I could get one to fit within a relatively small tube, say 3/4" to 1". Pvc more than likely. Is there an arduino small enough to fit?
If you only need a few pins then an AtTiny would fit.
Try a promini -I think they are just 0.65" to 0.7" wide.
If you need a bunch of them, then perhaps roll your own and make a promini like design, but thinner and longer, with the corners of the chip closer to the sides like I did on the Leonardino here, which uses a bigger package, and fits on a <25mm wide board.
Cross Roads Electronics scroll down ~1/3 of the page
Or maybe do the same with a DIP, like the Solarbotics Ardweeny
Use surface mount parts, skip the header, plug the part on a breadboard for programming.
That looks very very promising. Thanks for the info!
Or use a Teensy (0.7" x 1.2", Arduino compatible). The Teensy++ variant adds a lot of I/O pins and some more capacity and 0.7" x 2.0".
An Arduino is simply an ATMega chip wired up with support devices. If you can get it on a circuit board that fits, you can do it yourself and learn something in the process. I am now forever putting ATMega328P chips on my project boards with a 3x2 female header and just programming it in place with an Atmel Dragon. I use the Arduino software and then burn it using the Dragon and the software included with Atmel Studio. Here is some more information for a minimal configuration, it takes at ATMega 328P chip, plus a switch and a 10k resistor of you want a reset, plus a crystal and two capacitors if you want to run at full speed:
If you want a real lightweight configuration, consider running it at 3.3V and use a supercapacitor to power it. Not sure how long it would run, but maybe it's a possibility if this is a rocket or something like that.
Or - Take a 328P DIP and dead-bug construct a device with no PC board and just the components you need. A couple bypass caps and a resonator, or use the internal clock.