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So I'm about to cave and order an Arduino and Raspberry pi combo. I figure it will be fun for two short term projects. One, monitoring ferm temps which was discussed in another thread and two for controlling my BBQ vent with a little servo and arm combo. It has been a while since I did any serious electronic work, although I have been getting back into it at work. I was wondering if anyone had any advice or comments to share with me before I place the order. These little guys seem awesome to me, everything I wish I had when I was 16. The more I learn, the more I have to have them to play with.

Although this will be this months brew gear budget... damn toys...

Graham.C wrote:So I'm about to cave and order an Arduino and Raspberry pi combo. I figure it will be fun for two short term projects. One, monitoring ferm temps which was discussed in another thread and two for controlling my BBQ vent with a little servo and arm combo. It has been a while since I did any serious electronic work, although I have been getting back into it at work. I was wondering if anyone had any advice or comments to share with me before I place the order. These little guys seem awesome to me, everything I wish I had when I was 16. The more I learn, the more I have to have them to play with.

Although this will be this months brew gear budget... damn toys...

This sounds interesting, i would like to learn more about this from you

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Nice. I've done programming on atmel and Motorola chipsets before. Once house is sold ill be getting a pi and arduino.

ohh I have thought about entering this arena
not quite a programmer but hacked enough shit together over time I think I could figure it out

but haven't worked on anything yet so don't have any advice to share
sorry

My only advice is to get brand name arduinos for your first purchase despite the appeal to buy the cheaper clones. My arduino nano came without a bootloader installed. It took me a while to figure out that it didn't have one, and another while to figure out how to put one on so I could upload sketches. Best to get at least one brand name one to start if you ask me.

John G wrote:My only advice is to get brand name arduinos for your first purchase despite the appeal to buy the cheaper clones. My arduino nano came without a bootloader installed. It took me a while to figure out that it didn't have one, and another while to figure out how to put one on so I could upload sketches. Best to get at least one brand name one to start if you ask me.

Thanks for the tip. I was just deciding between the Leonardo and the UNO Rev. 3. Both seem adequate for my plans.

I don't know much about the Leonardo, but a lot of the tutorials online feature the Uno so you may get up and running a little faster.

Graham.C wrote:So I'm about to cave and order an Arduino and Raspberry pi combo. ..

Ummm... raspberry pie....

I've used arduino, they're a lot of fun. I prefer the Teensy though. They're smaller, cheaper, and have usb communication right in the processor, allowing them to be recognized as a usb input device (keyboard) with very little coding. Only $16.

http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/

Edit: Forgot to mention, they can use the Arduino IDE.

Another option is getting an avr programmer like https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9825" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
and use the avr chips directly. Something like the attiny85 has a lot of punch at $1.43 a piece and with the eclipse ide plugin uploading the software is easy. There are lots of libraries and tutorials out there too: http://www.ladyada.net/learn/avr/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
For prototyping or a single project the arduino can be slightly easier but if you have multiple projects in mind the avr chips are the way to go.

One thing I should have noted is when using the chips directly debugging can be more challenging because unlike the arduinos there is no built-in console to feedback information to.