Standalone with ATtiny13a, ATtiny44a, ATtiny861a Hardware--IDE

Other Hardware 3rd Party Boards
1

Hi,

I will try to collect here information, ideas and my experiences about how to use these "non-arduino-standard" uC as a Standalone and how to be able to programm it with the Arduino IDE and an ISP Programmer / Arduino as ISP for ATtiny.

Why these ATtinys?
Because they cost me only around 1-2Euros, have 8, 14 or 20 pins, are low in power consumption and have also ADC and PWM.
So they are small and cheap for standalone projects :slight_smile:

Comparison table of ATtinys, ATmegas...
https://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/AVR_Typen#Weitere_Vergleichstabellen

Very nice example what "standalone" can mean with an Arduino ATmega168.
Letting it sleep inbetween working. Called nightingale.
With the ATtinys you would not need the external crystal oscillator, they are set to the internal.
http://interface.khm.de/index.php/lab/experiments/sleep_watchdog_battery/

First for the ATtiny 13a:

Preparing the IDE:

Preparing the hardware:
Datasheet:

I needed not much more then the powersupply and a 100nF Capacitor near the supply pins connected to gnd and vcc.
http://forum.arduino.cc//index.php?topic=195395.msg1441864#msg1441864

Under construction:

ATtiny 44: Works!

Preparing the IDE:
Should work with (Arduino-Tiny Cores) described in the link for ATtiny13 and the IDE^

Hardware:
(Datasheetlink+importants)

Attiny 861:

Start
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=173408.0

I will write more about the other ATtinys and post pictures/sketches while going on trying them.
I hope this topic could be useful for others trying to get these tinys to run with the arduino IDE.

2

Get more feet: Simple connectors for Standalone Prototyping

Using parts of DIP IC connectors soldered directly to the bend MCU pins.

On the upper side you can connect eg an isp with the same kind of "pins" when needed,
on the lower side you can solder the components or connect them with same kind of "pins".

Pictures with connected mcu as example should follow soon.

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3

These days I only use ATTiny85 and Pro Mini.

The Tiny85 works when I need to make something really small and is one of the best supported chips as far as IDE and community goes.

The Pro Mini gives me full compatibility with Arduino Uno in a package the same size as a DIP package Tiny84 on a PCB (probably) smaller than a 2313. For $3.50 each I don't see the point in struggling to make Uno libraries work on other Atmel chips.

4

Yes, the Tiny85 seems very good, too.

What do you mean by struggling with making Uno libraries work on other chips?

5

Enam:
What do you mean by struggling with making Uno libraries work on other chips?

Many Uno libraries have hardware dependencies - they're written for a specific timer, they use a specific interrupt, issues with SPI vs. USI, etc., etc.

Very few widely-used Uno libraries will compile/run on (for example) ATtiny chips.