HOME     STORE     BLOG     SCHEMATICS     TUTORIALS     DOWNLOADS     CONTACT

Randall converted an Arduino into AVR chip programming hardware for use with AVRDude. The project programs AVR tiny13 and other tiny AVR chips using an Arduino. He provides code and instructions to implement the Atmel AVR910 In System Programming protocol. I ported the Atmel AVR910 In System Programmer protocol to the Arduino. Now I can write programs to my ATtiny2313 and tiny13 chips. The Arduino sketch is available for download here. It works with the AVRDude programming software. This article will show how to use the Arduino to upload a program to the tiny13. The first step is to download the zip, extract the .pde file, then load it into the Arduino IDE, and write it to the Arduino. Next we can hook up the tiny13 chip.

This example shows how to make use of the Watchdog and Sleep functions provided by the ATMEGA168 chip (decimila). These functions are useful if you want to build low power consuming devices operated by battery or solar power.

The reduced power consumption is achieved by through a intermittent operation of the system .In case of Arduino your main loop will be executed once before the system is put into the sleep mode. After a few seconds t the watchdog wakes the system up and the main loop is executed again. The ratio between main loop execution time and watchdog time determines the amount of power that will be saved.

When we assume that the time to measure a sensor and making some decisions will take 10 millisecond and the watchdog is set to 8 seconds the on/off ratio is 800 which extends the battery live time by this factor.

This Arduino can be used for old school prototyping as well. Just use it as a standard ATmega8 and program it with the ISP connector. And it is one of the cheapest Arduino boards, that you can get. Arduino is a great prototyping platform and most of you probably know already about it. If not, check out the Arduino pages and the Arduino playground and dive into it.

If you are looking into wireless communication between two Arduino modules, this project might be helpful. It uses low costs RF transmitter and receiver from Electronics-DIY.com to establish radio link between two Arduino boards up to 500 ft. Data can be transferred serially at the maximum rate of 2400 bps. The schematic shows how receiver and transmitter is hooked up to two different Arduino boards. When wiring the receiver / transmitter you only need to give them power / ground and then a pin for the TX (serial transmit) or RX (serial receive) pin. I also wired a button to the Arduino doing the transmitting, and used the LED on pin 13 that is built into my Arduino boards on the receiver so I could test this setup. The test app just flashes LED on the receiving board when a button is pressed on the transmitting board.

Arduino Sine wave Generator using the direct digital synthesis Method. Here we describe how to generate sine waves with an Arduino board in a very accurate way. Almost no additional hardware is required. The frequency range reaches form zero to 16 KHz with a resolution of a millionth part of one Hertz! Distortions can be kept less than one percent on frequencies up to 3 KHz. This technique is not only useful for music and sound generation another range of application is test equipment or measurement instrumentation. Also in telecommunication the DDS Method is useful for instance in frequency of phase modulation (FSK PSK).

The DDS Method (digital direct synthesis). To implement the DDS Method in software we need four components. An accumulator and a tuning word which are in our case just two long integer variables, a sinewave table as a list of numerical values of one sine period stored as constants, a digital analog converter which is provided by the PWM (analogWrite) unit, and a reference clock derived by a internal hardware timer in the atmega. To the accumulator , the tuning word is added, the most significant byte of the accu is taken as address of the sinetable where the value is fetched and outputted as analog value bye the PWM unit. The whole process is cycle timed by an interrupt process which acts as the reference clock. Further details of the DDS Method are described in web of course.

This is versatile development board for AVR microcontrollers ATmega48/88/168. It is good for testing and debugging embedded programs. It has many built-in peripheries connected to microcontroller so you can use them without soldering. ATmega microcontrollers are produced by ATMEL and they include a lot of features: I/O, Timers, PWM generators, ADC, RS232, TWI, SPI, Analog Comparator, Oscillator, EEPROM… These microcontrollers are very versatile, easy to program and easy to use. This is the reason why I like these microcontrollers and why I decided to make development board for them.

Easy-to-build AVR µC-programming circuit that can program the 40-pin AT90S4414/8515, the 20-pin AT90S1200/2313, and the eight-pin AT90S2323/2343. The programmer uses only three chips. It connects to the host PC's serial port via a MAX232 RS-232 transceiver, IC1. Power comes from a 9V wall cube and the 78L05 linear regulator, VR1. The AT89C4051 µC (IC2) works with the 11.0592-MHz oscillator, and controls all programming tasks. LED1 indicates the programmer's status.

The programmer is very simple to build. It contains one IC and a couple of connectors. As you can see below, with some ingenuity it is possible to squeeze all the circuitry into a DB25 connector shell. The IC can be a 74HC244 or a 74LS244. The more normal means of construction is with a small circuit board, with the DB25 connector mounted on one edge, and a header to connect the ribbon cable. The programmer is designed to work with all the AVRâ„¢ family micros, and with the Atmel "ISP" programming software.

This board can program an AVR microcontroler ATMEL (ATmega8, ATMega32, ...) from a parallel printer LPT1 using ISP functionality In System Programming. This programming type can program and/or configure microcontroler directly on the target board without rmoving device and put it on a separate programmer. This board is compatible with programming software "PonyProg".

This is an AVR ISP Programmer which is controlled via COM port. Signal levels of the RS-232C line is converted to the target level, so that target device can operate in entire range of the VCC. And also it can be used as an communication cable to communicate between host PC and target program (this is explained in the following section). This ISP adapter is sufficient to develop most of the AVR applications.