So i am really new to this and sorry if this is a stupid question. I have my Arduino Duemilanove board connected to an 8 x 8 bicolour matrix and have uploaded a programme and im happy with it now. I now want to start other projects, but would like to keep the matrix as a standalone, putting it on a pcb with its own power supply and a switch etc. Do I just take the atmega chip out of my arduinio and wire it up to the pcb and give it power and it will run? Or do I have to have the whole arduinio board connected each time i run the matrix? I notice you can buy the ATmega chips inexpensively and am thinking this is why. If you can remove it, how do you know which pins on the ATmega IC relate to which on the arduinio board?
You can pop out the chip, drop it on a board with some caps and a resonator/crystal and you're off and running.
Note, barnurubble, this only applies to pre-bootloaded chips; if you wanted to use a "bare" chip (say something from Mouser or Digikey), you would need to program it with a bootloader your own self. Given that you are asking these questions, this is probably not the task for you at your current skill level; leave it for another day.
You can purchase, however, pre-bootloaded ATMegas from several suppliers; I recently bought a few 328s from CuteDigi; there are many suppliers out there.
In both cases, you will need the caps, resonator, crystal - and if you want to program the ATMega after it has been removed from the Arduino - you will need some header pins and an FTDI cable or breakout board (or equivalent; there was a discussion here on the forums about adding USB for $1 to a standalone using a special cellphone cable).
When you put your ATMega onto your own PCB, use a socket - DO NOT SOLDER IT IN PLACE. Should something happen in the future, it will make replacing it much easier.
If you plan on doing this a lot, though, the socket on your Arduino board will suffer in short order, as the sockets aren't designed for a lot of insertions and removals of ICs. What you will ultimately want to do is either a) look into ISP programming, which is the same thing as is used to get the bootloader on the chip, or b) look into building a ZIF socket (zero insertion force - basically a socket with a lever, same as on a PC motherboard for the CPU but designed for smaller DIP ICs) onto a prototyping shield (or a custom PCB), and use that with another Arduino board or your own layout as a standalone programmer.
@ cr0sh
correct
no Internet (yet) u feel like digging a 1/4 mile of telephone line so I can get net? cellular non 3g is slooooowww.
Anyways most of info needing can be found in the playground. Currently whenever I get done moving I'll have my own single sided shield capable board made...
cellular non 3g is slooooowww.