But also, I wouldn’t be so quick to offload sensor reading tasks to an ATtiny if you’re using Arduino. I would try using just the Arduino first and see how far you can get. If you find you’re running out of cycles, at least you’ll have some working sensor-reading code that you can pretty quickly port to an ATtiny.

Octopart.com shows that there are many flavors of the aTtiny13. Would any of them work with the AVRISP programmer?

Thanks

Take a look at my tree in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5qR9_8KGPU

I know the first 34 seconds aren’t terribly impressive. Stick with it. It gets more exciting when the first chorus starts, and looks really cool at the song’s climax after the bridge as the final chorus starts.

PS if you run into anyone with the means to actually make smart LEDs, let me know… I’ve learned a lot over the past couple of years about what capabilities are really important, and what capabilities seemed like they’d be important, but ended up being irrelevant in real use on the tree ;-)

In the Makefile above you’ll find a target called “erase” that will erase the chip and set the fuses correctly. So try doing a “make erase” then a “make program” (if you’re using the Makefile), or use whatever tools you have to flip the CLKDIV8 fuse.

Tim

You probably need to set the CLKDIV8 fuse, which makes the chip operate at 8MHz instead of 1MHz. To do this with my code & Makefile linked above, do a “make erase” to set the fuses and then “make program” to reprogram the chip.

Thanks for the great blog posts. I’m getting a really noticeable “flicker” when running the softpwm_t13.c. I’m not using a switch and was just trying to get smooth fading between colors on my common annode RGB LED. Is there anywhere in the code that you could point me to what I might be able to change to make the fading smoother?

I’m using a 4.5v power supply and everything seems to be working fine expect for the flicker.

Thanks for any directino

If you’re unsure what kind of RGB LEDs to get, check out Sparkfun, FunGizmos or similar purveyor of fine hacking components. One of the best things about these companies is they’re run by tinkerers just like us, stocking the parts they like the best. It means they’re a great filter for the daunting variety of electronic parts out there.

# LEDs can emit light of an intended color without the use of color filters that traditional lighting methods require. This is more efficient and can lower initial costs.
# The solid package of the LED can be designed to focus its light. Incandescent and fluorescent sources often require an external reflector to collect light and direct it in a usable manner.
# When used in applications where dimming is required, LEDs do not change their color tint as the current passing through them is lowered, unlike incandescent lamps, which turn yellow.