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[Rods2]

Has anybody had an experience of using these?

They are certainly very cheap with a USB comms port version for programming it, available for a few pounds. It also looks very easy to use them, connecting small 2/4 line LCD displays and temperature sensors.

Programming also looks very straight forward.

[Andy H]

Yes 

I have used one to build a digital micromanometer.

Arduino makes it very easy to get something working within minutes of first plugging the device in.

I had to do a bit of work to get communications working over the I2C bus & I really struggled to get my 2 line LCD to be readable (because it needed a negative voltage to set the contrast) but everything else was trivially easy 

[Kevin Wood]

I've used AVR/Arduino microcontrollers on quite a few projects now. Very easy to get into and they work well.

Arduino is really just a thin wrapper around the GCC toolchain for the AVR and the AVRLIBC standard C library. I find the Java based IDE a real pain, so just build using a makefile, but it's worth staying compatible with the Arduino environment to take advantage of the extensive range of libraries available, and the bootloader also makes programming parts very much more simple, especially if you want to do so "in system".

[Nick W]

I've used AVR/Arduino microcontrollers on quite a few projects now. Very easy to get into and they work well.

Arduino is really just a thin wrapper around the GCC toolchain for the AVR and the AVRLIBC standard C library. I find the Java based IDE a real pain, so just build using a makefile, but it's worth staying compatible with the Arduino environment to take advantage of the extensive range of libraries available, and the bootloader also makes programming parts very much more simple, especially if you want to do so "in system".

The loud bang you may have just heard was my brain imploding!


I was considering trying an Arduino to power a stepper motor on my rotary table. Which has been done, but electronics and programming make my head hurt. So I'll probably buy a ready built controller, and go from there.


I'll stick to mechanical stuff; perhaps I just have an analogue brain?

[Vamps]

I don't understand the question................

[Kevin Wood]

I've used AVR/Arduino microcontrollers on quite a few projects now. Very easy to get into and they work well.

Arduino is really just a thin wrapper around the GCC toolchain for the AVR and the AVRLIBC standard C library. I find the Java based IDE a real pain, so just build using a makefile, but it's worth staying compatible with the Arduino environment to take advantage of the extensive range of libraries available, and the bootloader also makes programming parts very much more simple, especially if you want to do so "in system".

The loud bang you may have just heard was my brain imploding!


I was considering trying an Arduino to power a stepper motor on my rotary table. Which has been done, but electronics and programming make my head hurt. So I'll probably buy a ready built controller, and go from there.


I'll stick to mechanical stuff; perhaps I just have an analogue brain?

Sounds like the ideal beginners' project to me.

[redelitev6]

  My head hurts 

[TheBoy]

I've used AVR/Arduino microcontrollers on quite a few projects now. Very easy to get into and they work well.

Arduino is really just a thin wrapper around the GCC toolchain for the AVR and the AVRLIBC standard C library. I find the Java based IDE a real pain, so just build using a makefile, but it's worth staying compatible with the Arduino environment to take advantage of the extensive range of libraries available, and the bootloader also makes programming parts very much more simple, especially if you want to do so "in system".

The loud bang you may have just heard was my brain imploding!


I was considering trying an Arduino to power a stepper motor on my rotary table. Which has been done, but electronics and programming make my head hurt. So I'll probably buy a ready built controller, and go from there.


I'll stick to mechanical stuff; perhaps I just have an analogue brain?

Sounds like the ideal beginners' project to me.

No, no, no! NO!

Because the Arduino simply doesn't pull enough power to properly tune to channel smoke.  Everyone's first electronics project has to end in a proper big bang. Its the law.

[Nick W]

Learning all this stuff from scratch just to avoid the fiddly indexing plates seems like a poor use of time and resources to me. I don't need or want any more involved projects! If I went down this route I know I'll end up spending months of frustrating crap to end up with something that doesn't work as well as a readily available bit. In the process I'd undoubtedly spend more than the £200 a Divisionmaster costs. Actually fitting the motor is the straightforward bit.

[Andy H]

Learning all this stuff from scratch just to avoid the fiddly indexing plates seems like a poor use of time and resources to me. I don't need or want any more involved projects! If I went down this route I know I'll end up spending months of frustrating crap to end up with something that doesn't work as well as a readily available bit. In the process I'd undoubtedly spend more than the £200 a Divisionmaster costs. Actually fitting the motor is the straightforward bit.

The Arduino IDE includes code for driving stepper motors and examples of their use so I agree with Kevin that this would be a good starter project.

I don't know if you need any additional driver circuitry to drive your stepper motor, I think little stepper motors can be driven directly by the Arduino

If you do need a lot of additional circuitry then your parts bill may approach £200.......

[GastronomicKleptomaniac]

I'm going to be using Arduino in the near future - I have two sets of traffic lights in my garden that I want to wire up to work in sequence. (I'm not sure why, I asked the council if I could have some and they said yes...)

Unfortunately my knowledge of electronics extends nowhere past typing letters and downloading adult material, so I'll probably be waving my arms on here...