Minimal Arduino with ATmega8

Or: A good use for old Arduino boards

Like me, you may have a few old Arduino boards or ATmega8 chips (in the boards) laying around from when you were first playing with Arduino. Those chips can still be really useful as the heart of a tiny “Minimal Arduino” setup.

A normal Arduino board contains support components that make it easy to use. If you want a smaller footprint, you can get one of the many Arduino work-alike boards. But if you want a really small footprint, and reuse your old parts, you can make an Arduino board using just five components:
- ATmega8 chip
- single 10k resistor
- single 0.1uF capacitor
- tiny breadboard
- some hookup wire


(On the left, an IR remote controlled BlinkM. On the right an IR remote controlled RGB LED)
Continue reading Minimal Arduino with ATmega8

permalink May 26th, 2009 | Category: arduino | 80 comments

Arduino chip sticker label

I’ve been working with a super minimal Arduino setup recently. After seeing Alex’s awesome Arduino/ATmega breadboard header, where he notes there’s no room on the PCB for pin labeling, I wondered if it would be possible to make a small sticker that goes on the ATmega chip, labeling the pin names.

Here’s my first attempt:
arduino-atmega-sticker

And in use:
arduino-atmega-sticker-use

This was created by printing on a full-page sticker then laser cutting it to shape. I could have also just cut out the sticker with scissors, or used regular printer paper and double-sided tape.

Some files if you want to try this out yourself:
- arduino-atmega-sticker.eps — EPS of just the sticker itself.
- arduino-atmega-sticker.svg — SVG version
- arduino-atmega-sticker.pdf — PDF version
- arduino-atmega-sticker-lasercut.cdr — Coreldraw file containing instructions & registration marks for printing then laser cutting your own sticker.

permalink May 23rd, 2009 | Category: arduino, lasercut | 40 comments

Using MaxM with flexible RGB tape

A single BlinkM MaxM can easily drive a 5 meter (16 ft) roll of the flexible RGB SMD LED tape that’s used for architectural lighting. Each roll contains 150 RGB LEDs.

maxm rgb led tape

Each LED in the tape is a SMD RGB "5050" LED, capable of putting out about 6000mcd. The spacing between LEDs is 3.3cm (~1.25").

Every 3 LEDs is a cut mark with solder tabs so you can cut or join pieces of tape.

Max current for a 5m roll is about 1.9 Amps. I did a quick test of MaxM driving three rolls at about 6A and it seemed fine.

This stuff is really cool. I’ve been buying it from this really great seller on ebay named "sunnytech".

Here’s what you can do with it. Each of the 15 sections contains between 1 and 3 rolls of the tape.

crystal monster profile

permalink May 21st, 2009 | Category: blinkm | 5 comments