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A Good Essential Starter Kit for Arduino

Former Member

I have been reading all sorts of books and watching all sorts of tutorials on Arduino.  I am now ready to actually touch some hardware.  What is a good starter kit to purchase?  Does elements14.com have one?  Is adafruit.com better?

 

Thanks,

 

Thomas

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  • Hi. I have the exact same question. I want to create something easy enough I'll finish it, but magic enough that I'll want to do more. I am not sure what to puchase...

  • in reply to Former Member

    Smag and Thomas

     

    I would suggest grabbing an UNO (DIL not smd version), along with a proptype shield and the headers to allow stacking.

    There are small breadboards with 170 points http://https://nicegear.co.nz/prototyping/breadboard-mini-selfadhesive-white/ similar to these that you can attach to the shield and fit nicely in between the headers.

    I would suggest a backlight LCD, and if you find one with the connectors on the edge, it saves having to use a cable.

     

    The Dallas 18b20 one wire temperature chips are great, but don't forget the pullup resistor.

     

    Whatever you do, make sure you use a series resistor with LED's. There are some guides that say the output is current limited (and it is) but increase the number of leds and you can expect trouble.

     

    I've used a piece of discarded Cat 5 cable for links, but look around for some leads to suit the breadboards, if the wire thing doesn't work for you.

     

    In my opinion kits are usually full of lots of stuff you will never use, and in NZ Element14 do not have any kits listed.

     

    This will certainly get you started. (sorry I can't give all the codes as we might have them in NZ)

     

    For larger and faster options the Chipkit UNO is an 80MHz version that will accept Arduino shields, and uses a slightly modified IDE, that can use the Arduino code, and will program Arduino's as well.

     

    There are other versions of boards, and one made by Seeedstudio that incorporate RTC and micro SD on the board, but the UNO will allow you to remove the 328 chip and install it into a project if you desire.

     

    Mark

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  • in reply to Former Member

    Smag and Thomas

     

    I would suggest grabbing an UNO (DIL not smd version), along with a proptype shield and the headers to allow stacking.

    There are small breadboards with 170 points http://https://nicegear.co.nz/prototyping/breadboard-mini-selfadhesive-white/ similar to these that you can attach to the shield and fit nicely in between the headers.

    I would suggest a backlight LCD, and if you find one with the connectors on the edge, it saves having to use a cable.

     

    The Dallas 18b20 one wire temperature chips are great, but don't forget the pullup resistor.

     

    Whatever you do, make sure you use a series resistor with LED's. There are some guides that say the output is current limited (and it is) but increase the number of leds and you can expect trouble.

     

    I've used a piece of discarded Cat 5 cable for links, but look around for some leads to suit the breadboards, if the wire thing doesn't work for you.

     

    In my opinion kits are usually full of lots of stuff you will never use, and in NZ Element14 do not have any kits listed.

     

    This will certainly get you started. (sorry I can't give all the codes as we might have them in NZ)

     

    For larger and faster options the Chipkit UNO is an 80MHz version that will accept Arduino shields, and uses a slightly modified IDE, that can use the Arduino code, and will program Arduino's as well.

     

    There are other versions of boards, and one made by Seeedstudio that incorporate RTC and micro SD on the board, but the UNO will allow you to remove the 328 chip and install it into a project if you desire.

     

    Mark

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