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My first breadboard

September 6th, 2008

I started getting paid for my last hobby so I had to obtain another one, my pick? Engineering.

It has always been my dream to create devices and program them. I really never cared what, whether TV remotes, clock radios or smart phones. I just always wanted the ability to create but I never had the ambition or money to get started. I used to break apart my radios and other electronics that I’d find lying around. I never fully understood how they worked but I was determined to learn something from them. I supposed there was one thing, I learned that four 1.5v batteries powering a single led using tinfoil as a conductor could start a cardboard box on fire. Like I’d know to use resistors when I was 8 years old.

I came across a website named Sparkfun. They sell various “goodies” for people that want stuff cheap and in small quantities. Not to be confused with Digikey, which just supplies components, Sparkfun has layman-termed descriptions, pictures, comments, tutorials and forums. They also have breakout boards for components too difficult to solder.

After finding a tutorial from Sparkfun named Beginning Embedded Electronics, the dream of starting seemed within reach. On the second page, it lists the parts I needed, it even added them to my shopping card. Only delayed by the fact that I forgot to add a breadboard. With my second order, I nabbed a couple black-light LEDs to play with, neat!

Soldering the Breadboard Power Supply Kit

With my new soldering iron and breadboard power kit, I began my first attempt at soldering. It seemed to go alright. I had to reflow some joints and straighten them. Once it came to testing it, it was a different story. My multimeter read 3.01V on 3.3V setting and 3.23V on 5V setting. Not good. I discovered that the wall wart I purchased wasn’t within the minimum voltage, 5V and the range is 6V to 12v. Oops. So with a 6.5V in one hand and my multimeter in the other I tried again. 15mV on 3.3V and 1.1V on 5V. My first guess, I didn’t solder my joints properly. Under close examination, that was the case. My solder didn’t make it all the way though the board in several places. After reflowing those pads and adding some solder, the final test was very exciting. Ready? 3.32V and 5.05V!

The First Project

After making a button turn on an LED, it was time to really get my feet wet and touch the breaker box. Pulling out my ATmega168 (basically a little CPU that runs at 1 or 8MHz by itself, 20MHz with a quartz). I did Sparkfun’s little “make the LED blink” then “make it blink faster” using the quartz. Well, installing someone else’s code was boring. I wanted to interact with my new toy. How could I make it think?

Since I had a button, three LEDs (well, more LEDs but only three resistors to use them), and elite programming skills, I’d make a little recording program. Basically, you enter a pattern using the button and it plays it back after. It can remember up to 128 button pressed and up to 4.99 seconds per event (a press or release). The whole process took about two hours to debug, after I released that you have to put a resistor on a button’s pin, it went a lot smoother.